Being British comes first
As Indians we know it well that diversity of people does not mean the diversity of values, writes Binay Kumar.
We have been told since 9/11 that America has been waging a relentless worldwide war on terror, that Iraq is one incidental piece in that puzzle and that none anywhere measures up to the steadfast support Britain gives to this pious cause.
Whether or not we were winning the war on terror was brought home to roost most forcefully and tragically, as luck would have it, in London when the British capital found itself in the line of fire on July 7th. If Britain was the proxy face of America's global war, the London bombings pushed it to the forefront, suddenly cutting it off from the apron strings of America.
And this is what makes the London bombings a watershed. A war that began in the aftermath of the New York tragedy may finally receive its finishing touches in London. In the fashion of the Greek tragedies, what Bush began is coming upon Blair to finish. And who better worthy than Blair to inherit this task from Bush?
But sadly for him, the dynamics this time around are very different. Nobody knows this better than Blair that he has put himself and Britain in a socio-political quagmire as a consequence of his incredibly short-sighted decision to play sidekick to America in its pursuit of neo-conservative vigilantism across the globe.
What America can do and get away with is not an option for Britain. Britain is very different; for all its claims of being a melting pot, you may find it queer that America never gets described as a multicultural icon. That mantle always fell on Britain and Britain wore it on its sleeve very proudly, until the homegrown suicide-bombers of Pakistani descent challenged that assumption two weeks ago.
On the face of it, more than four million non-white British - which would make up for a population larger than that of the Republic of Ireland- constitute an unique mosaic of race, color, religion and language. Americans would find it incomprehensible that 300 languages are spoken in the British capital's schools. That also hides a tale of unique problems this creates for the society at large, the starkest manifestation of which was the latest attacks on the capital's transport system.
The heavy clustering of 'ethnic communities' has made multiculturalism in Britain largely an urban question. Almost half of all ethnic minority Britons live in London. By and large, Britain's ethnic communities all live in mixed areas. Southall's Sikhs, Leicester's Hindus and Brixton's black populations live in areas with white majorities - Leicester, for example, is 70 per cent white - giving the race map of Britain's cities a very different pattern from the de facto racial segregation (and 'zip code apartheid') of US cities.
Unlike the United States, the Afro-Caribbean community in the UK is the most 'integrated', with easily the highest levels of inter-racial marriages (eight times higher than those for blacks in this country), while Afro-Caribbean women are doing relatively well in terms of employment and income. British Indians are in fact better off than their white fellow citizens, even though the fact is that there is relatively high inequality within the group.
But what about the Pakistanis? They seem to have missed the bus of multiculturalism. They are the worst-off amongst the ethnic minorities and fare extremely poorly on all main measures of social exclusion and disadvantage. They are easily the most likely to be unemployed, living in poverty or overcrowded housing, and with lower levels of fluency in English. If education is the key to opportunity and mobility, they are certainly behind most people.
AS Bina Sarkar Ellias the editor of British Council India's online magazine 'Gallerie' says: "tokens of recognition from the establishment do not reflect an honesty of intent and there is much left to be desired for a truly multicultural Britain."
To my mind, multiculturalism is meaningless without integration. And true integration is about mutual respect for all communities. Unfortunately, however, the Muslims, already segregated by lack of education and no opportunities for upward social mobility, feel that maintaining a separate identity is perhaps more important than integration. After all, faith is all that they have to give them a sense of security in an otherwise insecure unequal society. But this leads to a fragmented psyche both at the level of the individual and the community.
I am inclined to agree with Kenan Mallik, a British academic/writer of Indian origin, when he says that the real issue is not the integration of immigrants but the fragmentation of the British society, "as different communities assert their particular identities and compete with each other for resources and recognition. The old universalizing language of equality has been replaced by the new and divisive language of identity."
As Indians we know it well that diversity of people does not mean the diversity of values. Last year Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, had called for an end to multiculturalism in Britain. He was absolutely right in asking for separateness to be done with. It is time to rediscover the nation's belief in 'core British values' and integrate under an umbrella marked with the colors of the Union flag, he had said.
It can never be overstated, being British comes first; all other demarcations, whether of faith, language or creed, must remain only a subtext to national interest.
