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GUEST BLOG: DR. AIDAN RANKIN

Multiple Identities, Multiple Viewpoints

   

Aidan Rankin reviews 'A Portrait of Modern Britain', by Rishi Sunak and Saratha Rajeswaran

This paper, produced by the influential Conservative Party-leaning think tank Policy Exchange, seems to have two main aims. The first is to offer a rounded portrayal of Black and Ethnic Minority (BME) experience in modern Britain.  This approach contrasts with the one-sided reportage of minority ‘issues’ in large sections the media, fluctuating between doom-mongering negativity and breathless optimism.  The second and closely connected aim is to show that there are ‘clear and striking differences’ between the communities concerned.  The authors point to a tendency in the media ‘to assume that all BME communities can be treated as a single political entity – as if all ethnic minorities held similar views and lived similar lives’. The full paper is available as a free download here.

Although the authors do not mention it, we can also recognise this tendency in what is now widely known as the ‘political class’.  In this context, the term ‘BME’ itself becomes problematic, as it implies lumping together disparate ‘groups’ which might share little cultural common ground.  A substitute term is ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority), which presents even more problems given the cultural and ethnic diversity of Asia.  Many members of minority communities, especially second and third generation, prefer to be defined by where they are now as much as where they originated.  The paper does not discuss this problem of definition, but its conclusions imply that catch-all labels have value only in limited and specific circumstances. I use the term BME here because the authors do and in the absence of a ‘better’ word or acronym.

Through statistics, analysis and case studies, the report paints a picture of diversity as more than a political slogan.  The groups under the spotlight in the report have the immigrant experience in common, but varied experience of work, family life, cultural activity and political participation. The authors focus on five main BME communities: Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Black African.  These make up 8 million people or 14% of the UK’s population.  They also represent an important aspect of Britain’s future: 25% of the population under 25 come from an ethnic minority and BME groups accounted for 80% of the population growth over the past decade.  People of mixed ethnic heritage account for 2% of the population, but the majority are under the age of twenty.  In London alone, more than one hundred languages are spoken by pupils at school.  At national level, almost 30% of pupils in state-funded primary schools and around 25% of pupils in state funded secondary schools belong to an ethnic minority of some kind.  The Chinese (mentioned only in passing) are the most geographically mobile ethnic minority, followed by Black Caribbeans. In London, non-Whites outnumber Whites at every age up to twenty. 98% of BMEs live in urban areas and over 50% in three cities: London, Greater Manchester and Greater Birmingham.

Statistics like these should convince politicians and policy-makers of the need to engage more fully with these communities.  Above all, they should understand their complexities and not take their votes for granted.  Beyond that, there is a pressing need for a more ethnically diverse public life if democracy is to be representative in any meaningful sense.  It is a hopeful sign that ‘Minorities as a whole are more likely than the White population to believe they can influence decisions affecting their local area and Britain’.

Levels of voting, volunteering for charities or campaigning groups and interest in politics are similar to the ‘majority’ population.   Intriguingly, Asian groups are less interested in politics than the national average and Black groups more so.  Black Caribbean Britons have little trust in the police and Parliament, whereas among Black Africans and Bangladeshis, confidence in these institutions is high. 

Some of the report’s findings might offer cause for anxiety. For example, 39% of Pakistani women and 42% of Bangladeshi women have never worked outside the home, an indicator of social and in some cases cultural isolation.  Most of those women are, of course, working extremely hard caring for other family members, for among Asian groups extended families are more likely to share a home.  In contrast, 47% of Black Caribbean children grow up in lone parent households.  In Tower Hamlets, where the Bangladeshi population is high, there is a child poverty rate of almost 50%. Community workers in Greenwich describe sub-cultures of ‘segregation’ in Greenwich, although they have also had great success in breaking these down.

All BME communities strongly value education, both as an end in itself and as a lever to social mobility.  BME students are more likely than their White peers to be studying academic subjects at traditional sixth form level.  In education, there are some heartening achievements.  At GCSE level, 62% of Bangladeshi students achieve five A*-C grades, compared with 62% of White, 50% of Black Caribbean and 75% of Indian students.  This makes Bangladeshi students the most rapidly improving group.  In Tower Hamlets, the recruitment of teachers of Bangladeshi heritage has proved a highly effective way of overcoming cultural barriers.  Professions such as medicine and law are increasingly BME and this trend is likely to accelerate in the years ahead.  Of the Indians who attend university, 37% go to the top third institutions.

Religion is more important to BME communities than White Britons, both in terms of professed belief and in terms of community-focussed activity.  Black Africans, the ‘newest’ group in the survey, identify as 70% Christian and 21% Muslim.  They include Nigerians, Congolese and Somalis and – confounding popular stereotypes – are more likely than any other group except for Indians to say that religion plays little or no role in their lives. 

Independent churches, including charismatic and Pentecostal, play an important role in Black Caribbean communities.  Their growth owes much to past unfriendliness by White-dominated congregations, as Church of England Vicar Rose Hudson-Wilkin explains. Rev. Hudson-Wilkin, who is Speaker’s chaplain in the House of Commons, notes that minority ethnic populations are now playing a fuller role in urban Anglicanism. She looks forward to a Church where BMEs do not ‘just remain in the pews’ but ‘are engaged in leadership’ and she is very much part of this process.   Extremism and fundamentalism (of whatever religious or political origins) are rejected by most BMEs just as much as they are by most White Britons.  The enlightened, inclusive philosophy of the Sikh-based Nishkam School Trust is more typical of BME spiritual practice, valuing more than a narrowly academic curriculum.

What does all this tell us?  First, that as a society we are far more culturally and ethnically diverse than mainstream media and politics often seem and that we are richer in every way because of this.  Just as importantly, the authors’ research reveals a variety of individual and collective experiences.  While positive action by national and local governments has been important and highly beneficial for BME groups, much of the process of integration has been organic and evolutionary.  Integration is often assumed to mean the abandonment of cultural tradition and even language.  Fortunately, this need not be the case and what we are seeing is much more subtle and interesting.  BME communities are retaining their inherited cultures and adapting them creatively.  This is especially apparent in areas such as music, the visual arts and the BME.  At the same time, BMEs are contributing to the wider British society at every level and, crucially, as part of that society.  And integration works both ways.  Although it falls outside this paper’s scope, it is worth mentioning that a growing number of White Britons explore South Asian spiritual traditions such as Buddhism and Sufism, or listen to African music.  The culinary revolution of the past thirty years is almost too well-known to comment on, but its significance should not be underplayed.  Steadily, through personal choice as much as public policy, a cultural synthesis is taking place.  One of the paper’s most interesting statistics is that one in eight multi-person households now contain people from different ethnic groups.

A Portrait of Modern Britain was published weeks before the European elections, in which a party with an avowedly anti-immigration platform topped the polls. Days after that election, the British Social Attitudes Survey (BSAS) revealed that a third of the population admitted to some level of racial prejudice, up five percentage points since 2000.  These developments challenge the prevailing idea that we are becoming a more tolerant nation, used to and comfortable with diversity.  Yet there is another way of looking at this. First, the question of immigration has become at least semi-detached from questions of ethnic or religious identity. The latest ‘wave’ of immigrants has been predominantly White, rather than BME, and has come mainly from the newer EU member states. As with previous immigration debates, housing, employment and access to services are playing a powerful and emotive role.  Culture is relevant, but ethnicity far less so than in the post-War decades. Economic grievances play a more prominent role and these cut across ethnic divisions.  In Croydon, for example, some residents of Black African and Caribbean heritage told the BBC that they intended to vote UKIP because they felt undercut by workers from Eastern Europe. Opinion polls suggest that BMEs are well-represented on both sides of the present controversies over immigration and Britain’s relationship with mainland Europe.

The Roma people are an important exception to this trend, because they have been the target of some vile racist abuse, sometimes from mainstream media.  In several Eastern European countries, they form a distinctive ethnic and cultural minority.  In the UK, they combine the characteristics of a refugee community with those of more traditional economic migrants seeking improved opportunities and the chance to contribute more fully. 

The growth of racial prejudice is more disturbing in many ways than the rise of UKIP (which only received 9% of the votes of the total electorate because two-thirds abstained).  However, as a BSAS spokeswoman told Radio 4 Today Programme, racism is not an exclusively a ‘White’ phenomenon and the Survey polled British adults of all ethnic backgrounds.  Moreover, the statistic emerged as part of a complex picture. Islamophobia has become a growing phenomenon because of post-9/11 political rhetoric and the activities of a few wholly unrepresentative ‘hate preachers’. Opposition to immigration, whether from Europe or elsewhere, had risen significantly, as a response to large-scale (mainly European) immigration since 2000 and the often emotional arguments surrounding it.  At the same time, only 15% of the population expressed opposition to marriages across ethnic lines in 2012, in contrast to 40% in the 1990s and 50% in the 1980s. 

Such figures remind us of a recent Britain which seems very different and thankfully almost unrecognisable today.  The BSAS reveals that racial prejudice is most widespread amongst those who lack educational qualifications and are engaged in low-skilled or part-time work.  These groups often feel themselves vulnerable to economic competition from new arrivals, but there could be another contributory factor.  Anti-racist campaigning in Britain has traditionally been overwhelmingly middle class and top-down in its approach, sometimes resembling a missionary movement in its moralistic fervour and willingness to close down discussion of sensitive issues.  The prevalence of this mentality in the political class would appear to have created a negative reaction in those who feel most threatened by change.  This suggests that if racism is to be effectively tackled, the attitudes and methods of those who oppose it need to change as well.  A Portrait of Modern Britain is a positive step in this direction, because it places facts and rational argument before pious sermons and slogans.

Historically, the most vocal opposition to racial prejudice – and support for BME communities – has come from the political left.  This is a legacy to be proud of, but one of its weaknesses is a tendency to emphasise group experience over individual experience.  In an age of increasing interaction between ethnic groups, this is often misleading.  Many, perhaps most of us have multiple identities. We might wish to discard aspects of our cultural inheritance that we find restrictive or uncongenial. Equally, we might decide to embrace aspects of other cultures to which we feel drawn or with which we form personal or family connections.  Such choices – to discard and to embrace – are being made all the time and in a pluralist society are becoming second nature.

A Portrait of Modern Britain is an uplifting document.  Through collective statistics and stories of individual achievement, it presents a hopeful picture without glossing over difficulties.  It greatest value is that it presents the situation of BMEs (individuals and groups) from a many-sided perspective, implicitly challenging all entrenched positions.

 

Aidan Rankin is author of Many-Sided Wisdom: A New Politics of the Spirit, published by Mantra Books.  www.mantra-books.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article added on 9th June 2014 at 3:22pm