David Cameron, old Etonian, millionaire, Tory leader and now, British Prime Minister, ventured to open up on the vexed question of multiculturalism and in so doing rather made a complete arse of himself. To almost universal condemnation, save for the English Defence League and the rabid Tory right wing, Cameron made assertions that will certainly exacerbate community tensions rather than assuage them. Firstly, he quite dangerously confused and equated the real but relatively insignificant phenomenon of home grown Islamic militancy with that of the far more significant problem of segregated communities and fraying social cohesion.

Though there may well be an overlap between alienated Muslim youth and recruitment to militant Islamic groups, to imply that the former automatically leads to the latter is highly incendiary and quite simply wrong. Alienated Muslim youngsters, like all alienated youth the world over, are far more likely to turn to petty crime, alcohol and drug abuse or simply fall prey to debilitating apathy and depression than to turn to acts of jihadist terror. To suggest otherwise is to demonise a religious group and fail to address their alienation.

But this piece of upper-class, muddle-headedness was not the only glaring problem with Cameron’s exposition. The more serious flaw was his attempted juxtaposition between a mythical British way of life and that of some alien, un-British, Islamic way of life; a totally spurious comparison that renders Cameron’s entire argument null and void. What is this mythical British way of life that all immigrant communities should aspire to? Is it our growing propensity towards obesity or perhaps the equally debilitating epidemic of binge drinking and all round drug abuse and alcoholism? Is it perhaps our soaring rates of teenage pregnancies that is at the heart of our Britishness, or perhaps it’s our plummeting literacy and numeracy rates that Cameron is referring to? Is our national character to be found in the political programmes of the BNP or EDL, or perhaps in the ingrained sexism and homophobia of the established Christian churches. Should our Muslim communities be persuaded to replicate our British preoccupation with pornography, or will it suffice for them simply to catch the British addiction for bland consumerism. Replace the mosque with the shopping mall and every Muslim family can finally call themselves British.

Anyone who attempts to define Britishness in the 21st century will almost certainly get themselves bogged down in a quagmire of trite nationalistic platitudes. Take a trip to any football stadium on any weekend and the torrent of racist, sexist and homophobic abuse will make any thinking person tread very carefully when seeking to define the British national character. National characteristics have always been suspect constructs and even more so as global capitalism erodes local, regional and national particularities.

So how are we global citizens to define ourselves in the early years of the new millennium? What we can say for certain is that we are either rural or urban dwellers and that rural folk have much in common wherever they might hail from; and that urbanites are increasingly manifesting the same attitudes and cultural norms regardless of which conurbation they come from. More than half the world’s population now live in cities or towns and a commonality of city culture is starting to emerge across the globe. Capitalism is no respecter of local particularities, it simply reduces each and every one of us to consumers of commodities until we ourselves become little more than a commodity, to be bought and sold in the market place to the highest bidder. Cameron of course has nothing to say about this.

No Mr Cameron, your childlike formulations simply will not do. But that is not to say there is not some clash of civilisations unfolding across the planet. There certainly is. This clash is not between some imagined superior indigenous British democracy and some lesser, alien, Islamic barbarism. That would be far too simplistic. In fact it has very little to do with individual nations at all. No, the clash of civilisation is a universal one between the forces of modernity and those of reaction, and the clash knows no national boundaries. Indeed the battle is being waged not only across communities but within them too. We could go even further and suggest that the clash of civilisations is actually occurring within the head of every individual, each of us wrestling with the prejudices of our past, each of us seeking to adapt to a modern scientific outlook of all that is around us.

So what is modernity? Does it contain something absolute or is it something that can only be understood in relative terms? Is today’s modernity destined to become tomorrow’s reaction? What is the essential content of modernity, if any, and what varying forms might it take?

In the nation of modernity we might expect it citizens primarily to value a scientific approach to all aspects of life, without of course, surrendering for one moment that all-important caveat of scientific scepticism. We might also expect to see a strong egalitarian pulse, whereby every individual, irrespective of race and religion, sex and sexual orientation, physical and mental capabilities, are accorded not only equal political and social rights but even more importantly, equality of educational and employment opportunities. Private, fee paying schools would be an anathema and consigned to the dustbin of history.

Feudal concepts of arranged marriages, honour killings, forced female mutilations and all the rest of that viscous patriarchal nonsense would not be tolerated. Trafficking of people, for sexual or domestic slavery would be rigorously outlawed as would all aspects of the exploitative sex trade. Secularism would be the order of the day and religions would be tolerated only so long as they remained a matter of private conscience and activity, and received absolutely no public monies of any form. In the nation of modernity, one would expect religion to wither away as some form of ancient superstition that belonged to a more primitive epoch of human life.

The preaching of homophobia and other ancient prejudices would be rigorously combated in the education system and any breeches would be uniformly and harshly dealt under the law. Diversity would be celebrated providing that diversity did not infringe on the universal human rights of others. One would expect debates around such highly charged issues as abortion, euthanasia and human genetic engineering to rage in public without recourse to violent reprisals.

The idea of the state funding religious schools, as currently advocated by both Tory, Liberal and Labour parties would be a thing of the past. All children would receive a comprehensively, well funded, modern education where a scientific explanation of the universe and our place in it, would be taught from the very earliest years. A dialectical philosophy to life would be the norm. Evolution would take priority in science lessons and creationist stories would be explained as just that; stories for primitive and frightened tribes. In the nation of modernity there would be no infidels, no high priests, no monarchs and no heaven and hell to terrorise young children. Religion would be regarded as nothing but a devious method of social control and a nasty form of child abuse to boot. From a psychological standpoint, religion might properly be regarded as a form of mental illness a delusional state that has no part to play in a rational society.

Accountability and transparency would be the touchstone of all economic and political affairs. A dialectical balance between individual freedoms, local self- management and regional and global planning would be the order of the day. Contradictions between competing interests would be normal and be dealt with in an open and conciliatory way. Self administration, not to be confused with Cameron’s phoney big society or Soviet style dictate, would sit alongside global mega-planning. Economic growth would have a social purpose other than individual aggrandisement. Individual demands would be moderated to reflect the prevailing material conditions.

Internationalism would automatically and naturally permeate every thought and action. So there we begin to outline the broad contours of the nation of modernity. It is impossible and unwise to be too prescriptive. We might argue that certain human rights are absolute and for all time. This is tempting but it is hardly a scientific approach. The only permanence in the universe, of course, is one of change, but for our immediate purpose we can broadly speak of the inalienable principle of egalitarianism, and it is not difficult to ascertain who aspires to this principle and who still clings to the dark, sinister world of elites, be they religious, political or socio-economic.

As for the nation of reaction, it exists everywhere, in every real nation, in every continent and in every individual. There is no escaping its shadow because nothing and nobody is totally free of the past. Reaction is a hungering for past certainties, real and imagined, and it has no compunction in killing in order to achieve its cherished utopia. (Forward thinking utopias are not the only ones prone to bouts of bloodletting in order to momentarily silence the dialectic).

The salient features of reaction are patriarchy, prejudice, privilege and a persistent and puerile culture of superstition. Modernity must be forever vigilant if it is not to be re-infected with these ancient and deep rooted poisons.

In the real world of course, the two states, modernity and reaction, do not exist in splendid isolation. Modernity has its roots in all previous society and while desperate to escape its clutches, never can fully rid itself of the dead weight of the old order. Similarly, modernity impinges on even the most reactionary of states, if not culturally then in the field of science, whereby the reactionary state has a desire for the latest in repressive technology and weaponry.

The shadow of things past hangs over even the most noblest of pursuits. As an example I think of the institution of marriage. Even the most equal of partnerships cannot be free of the millennia of patriarchal dominance that defines this social construct. Beyond marriage and monogamy lies a wonderful minefield of human possibilities and the nation of modernity will have the coming centuries to explore these. The current erosion of the nuclear family already suggests that the process of experimentation has begun. Perhaps modernity will even adapt some aspects of the more traditional forms of extended family and kinship to that of our newfound atomised and individualised lifestyle. The most likely outcome will be no one single model, but a whole plethora of possibilities.

So what of Britain, and its imagined indigenous culture that all politicians love to laud? The reality is very different to the prevailing propaganda. Our deeply ingrained elites, carefully nurtured in our private schools and elite universities may play at modernity, may speak of tolerance, of democracy, of the rule of law, yet all the time they are reinforcing their positions, spiriting away their wealth into heavily defended off-shore tax havens so that they and their offspring may continue to lord it over the rest of us. They manipulate the public mind through their private monopolisation of the mass media, and they perpetuate social immobility through a thousand subtle and not so subtle economic and political levers. These elites, despite their fine sounding words, are wholly reactionary because they lock society into stultifying classes every bit as debilitating as the ancient Indian caste system. The spivs and speculators who have usurped control of the world’s financial system are every bit as reactionary as the mad mullahs who would have us return to some imagined, glorious, feudal Islamic caliphate.

As for the Christian churches, in all their myriad forms, they too seek to preserve the old order, but cover their tracks with sermons on goodness and a spot of charitable work here and there. As Dawkins would say, there is no such thing as good and bad religions. All, in their own way, believe that their believers have a direct line to a god given truth, and that all others are heretics, who will surely burn in hell. Some Christian churches have learnt to modify their language but don’t believe for a moment that they have changed their outlook. Their god cannot, by definition be wrong. If god is wrong once, then the entire edifice to which each religion is built might also be wrong. This prospect our high priests could not countenance.

Of course, religions and their high priests have been proved hopelessly wrong on so many occasions and on such gigantic proportions. All religions preached that the earth was the centre of the universe, that the earth was flat, and that life on earth was created rather than evolved. On all three, religions have been proved abjectly ignorant yet still the rabbis, the mullahs and the priests speak of their omniscient god. Still our religious leaders pretend that the answers lie in their ancient texts rather than in rigorous scientific enquiry. All religions, whether in the so-called modern West or the much derided backward hinterlands have one essential characteristic in common; an over-riding disdain for a scientific view of the universe. All religion is reactionary. No exceptions!

Sport too reflects the never-ending dialectic between modernity and reaction. It may pride itself on its secular credentials but lurking in its DNA are all the old poisons of the past. Yes, sport can cut across national and racial boundaries like a knife through butter but it can equally spew forth all the old racist bile and xenophobic prejudices. Yes, sport may well boast a lead in inclusiveness, but it can equally be a cheer-leader for homophobic and other de-humanising prejudices. True, sport can be a flag-bearer for a rational, secular world, but it can equally descend into religious tribalism as can be witnessed in any Old-Firm clash up in Glasgow.

Because sport has increasingly become the new opiate of the masses, it finds itself at the very front line of the battle between modernity and reaction. How future generations will view our current preoccupation with all things sporting is far from clear. There is, to use a sporting clich, everything to play for. Yet in the real world of today we must expect sport to reflect the economic world this being one of corporate governance and commodification of all things and people. Yes, that is exactly what professional sport looks like today – increasingly elitist and reactionary. But as for community sport, that may still harbour some aspirations of a modern world; inclusiveness, locally managed and conducted for its intrinsic pleasure rather than for personal profit. In this respect, I think of a locally organised 5K charity fun run, where the real winners are everyone of its participants.

None of the above discourse of course is apparent to our Prime Minister. He is too busy preening himself with his imagined British values to recognise his own class privileges and prejudices. Rather than tackle the deeply ingrained structural and cultural injustices within post-imperial British society, starting with the unaccountable financial and corporate plunderers, Cameron and his ilk would rather distract our attention to the easy targets of Islamic backwardness, repugnant as they are. What he cannot or will not see from his position of extreme privilege is that he is an active proponent of a world system that allows such backwardness to flourish.

No more spurious talk of a failed multiculturalism Mr Cameron. It is the battle for a global modernity that should be preoccupying us all. We could start that battle right here in Britain by demanding transparency and accountability in all corporate financial matters. Then, when the true levels of tax revenues are raised from these casino capitalists bandits, we could then begin to properly fund a comprehensive and secular system of education befitting the 21st century, without having to resort to private, religious or middle-class free schools. That would be a truly resounding blow in favour of real British modernity.