RIGHTS: A New Attempt to Bridge Britain’s Race Divide

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Samanta Sen

LONDON, Dec 13 2001 (IPS) - In a controversial recommendation aimed at making immigrants to Britain more British, a government inquiry report wants all immigrants to vow “clear primary loyalty” to Britain.

The report ordered in July following rioting in the northern town of Bradford follows strongly anti-government positions taken by Pakistani youth in Bradford through the summer riots.

That was followed by a survey that indicated that a vast majority of British youths of Pakistani origin would rather fight in Afghanistan against Britain than for it.

The new report now proposes an oath of allegiance to Britain on the Canadian model. It has recommended that the oath should also include a clause that says the “use of the English language … will become more rigorously pursued”.

The oath also would include a commitment to tackle racism, says Ted Cantle, chairperson of the Community Cohesion Review Team. The government is studying the Report, which was published in London on Dec 11.

It will also be debated in Parliament.

A decision is expected next year on which of the 67 recommendations the report makes will be implemented, a spokesperson for the Home Office told IPS.

Home Office minister John Denham, who chaired the cross- departmental group which made the recommendations, said: “We have not made a commitment to a formal oath of allegiance, but we do want the debate to take place.”

The report says different cultures do exist in modern British society, but it is “essential to agree some common elements of nationhood.”

The report makes clear acknowledgement what a segregated society Britain really is, despite official claims of multi- culturalism.

“Separate educational arrangements, community and voluntary bodies, employment, places of worship, language, social and cultural networks means that many communities operate on the basis of a series of parallel lives,” the report says.

It acknowledges extreme polarisation in Britain. “Many still look back to some supposedly halcyon days of a mono-cultural society, or alternatively look back to their country of origin for some form of identity,” it says.

The report says the government has got it wrong in its attempts to bridge the divide.

Government programmes have only “institutionalised the problems,” the report says. “The plethora of initiatives and programmes, with their baffling array of outcomes, boundaries, timescale and other conditions, seemed to ensure divisiveness and a perception of unfairness in virtually every section of the communities we visited.”

The report says “the development of cross-cultural contact, and the promotion of community cohesion, was not valued as an end in itself.”

The report was welcomed cautiously by minority leaders. “We have no quarrel with Britishness when we have British passports,” Khalid Mehmood from the Muslim Council of Britain told IPS. “But we are wary of an enforced oath when hearts and minds have not been won.”

Other leaders said it is alarming that extreme right-wing groups such as the British National Party (BNP) had welcomed the report. A spokesperson for the BNP has said that the government report “only confirms what we have been saying all these years, that immigrants have failed to integrate into British society.”

The report is emphatic, however, that “it is essential to establish a greater sense of citizenship based on common principles which are shared and observed by all sections of the community.”

It says that “this concept of citizenship would also place a higher value on cultural differences.”

Ghiyasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, an independent pressure group, says “it is worrying that government leaders should be seen to be speaking from the same platform as the racist parties on vital issues affecting our community.”

The government must not rush in measures “without proper consultation with the minority communities,” he told IPS.

The report makes several recommendations aimed at ending the racial divide within Britain. It proposes a well-researched national debate “heavily influenced by younger people.” That should lead to “a permanent infrastructure to give young people a bigger voice and stake in democratic activity.”

Each area should prepare a local community cohesion plan, in order to combat fear and ignorance, the report recommends. That should include the promotion of cross-cultural contact, and develop “a programme of myth-busting”.

Reports like this “can too easily gather dust on the shelves of our community leaders,” it says. “We therefore believe that a new community cohesion task force should be established to bring people together.”

The task force should be “powerfully positioned, with the full weight of ministerial support behind it.”

Other recommendations include:

The need for reaching out to disaffected youth in more engaging ways, “perhaps by using peers, positive role models and individual capacity building programmes.”

The need for schools to avoid admitting more than 75 percent of pupils from one culture or ethnic background in multi-racial areas. In religious schools, 25 percent seats should be given to children from other faiths. There should be more minority teachers and more male teachers.

The report did not address all the problems that arose in cities like Bradford.

“Further study will be required to tackle those high-risk areas, for example in white areas where racism or intolerance is likely to develop and for youths of Pakistani origin where disaffection is clearly a problem at present,” the report says. “Islamophobia also needs to be addressed as part of this work.”