Summer in the city
As I relax in the relative cool of my inner-city council flat the temperature outside is reaching 30° Celsius.
I'm lucky enough to live on a post-war estate with tower blocks interspersed with lawns and mature trees, surrounded by lower-level homes with private rear gardens (good socialist mid-century urban planning in other words). At this time of year it is something of a green oasis but, with the windows open to encourage a cooling through-draught (something else socialist architects, inspired by principle rather than the profit motive, understood), I'm aware of the sounds of my neighbours enjoying a rare sunny Bank Holiday weekend alfresco. As I type I can hear Bob Marley from one garden and Bangla from a parked car, which has set me thinking about our supposed multi-cultural community, and multi-culturalism in the wider national context.
As far as the former is concerned, the prevailing atmosphere could optimistically be described as 'live and let live' although it is perhaps more a case of grudging acceptance of a fait accompli, verging on weary resignation, than of any real empathy or mutual comprehension. While there is, thankfully, little overt antagonism, there is no meaningful integration either. The different ethnic and religious groups seem to live parallel lives, rubbing along daily with neighbours from different groups at a superficial level but never mixing socially. With the majority of Bangladeshi Muslim residents having Sylheti heritage, with the distinct linguistic and conservative traditions which that implies, it is unsurprising that a cultural gulf exists between them and their Eastender, British and European fellow-residents.
And then there's the perennially thorny issue of class. The remaining elderly Eastenders (Cockneys in the old parlance) are white working-class while their well-educated and more socially mobile offspring have often moved out to Essex to 'better themselves'. While I enjoy cordial relations with my immediate neighbours of both groups, exchanging Christmas and birthday cards with the Eastenders and Eid cards with the Muslims, my life experience and lifestyle is very different to both. I think it is safe to say I would find more in common with educated middle-class Bangladeshis than with white working class Eastenders, but they too have joined the exodus to Essex so I have little chance of finding out.
My assessment of the demographics of my borough - a phenomenon by no means unique to East London but very marked here, with Bangladeshi Muslims making up 35% of the population - is of two distinct and separate cultural groups which, though not openly hostile, are fairly incompatible. The difference of religion, language, customs, dress and food throws up barriers to integration and there is little, if any, social mixing as a consequence. Local schools, with not very diverse cohorts to start with, don't appear to offer much opportunity for mixed peer groups to emerge, and what limited socialising there may be between kids from different ethno-religious backgrounds doesn't seem to continue beyond school years. As for dating and intermarriage across the divide, that appears unthinkable.
I get the impression that In more culturally diverse London boroughs greater scope exists for social interaction. At the national level, it is a conundrum that areas of the UK most exercised by immigration are those least impacted by direct lived experience of it. Indeed, swathes of the country outside big urban centres seem, to all intents and purposes, monocultural. Meanwhile, those of us living in very mixed inner-urban environments, wishing to promote good community relations with generosity of spirit, strive to get along harmoniously with our diasporic neighbours or, at the very least, avoid the potential for friction.
In the absence of active goodwill, however, passive indifference is perhaps the best we can hope for.