Othering
Ghanaian migrants are being forced to return to their home country following protests against illegal immigration.
This is not happening here in the UK - although it serves as a salutary warning - but in South Africa. What are we to make of such African-on-African xenophobia and what lessons can we draw from it? We in Europe might like to think of it as tribalism, remembering the horrors of the Ugandan genocide whilst conveniently forgetting the role of colonialism (in that case Belgian) in promoting it. I suspect, though, that this tendency may be universal. For starters, it shows that resentment against migrants is not intrinsically race-based. Fear of strangers and the ostracism of outsiders seems to be a common human response, heightened by obvious signifiers of 'foreigness' such as skin colour, language, or dress and symbols specifying particular religious adherence. It also appears to be exacerbated by numbers of migrants (perceived or actual) and wider economic pressures, often being cynically exploited by rightwing politicians and ideologues with an agenda of resentment and hatred to peddle.
As a child my family moved from Kent to rural Yorkshire where we were viewed, in Dales dialect, as 'offcumdens' - literally comers from off (foreigners in other words) - and, worse, southerners. Luckily, this prejudice took the form only of gentle teasing, mostly based on our accent, which was seen as 'posh'. This suggests that regional origins within a country, plus class, are factors also to be taken into account. As George Bernard Shaw noted, "it is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him." How much more difficult, then, to 'pass' in society when one's physical appearance immediately signals 'foreigner' - before even opening one's mouth.
The recent tragic murder (is there any other kind?) of Henry Nowak, a white boy, by Vikrum Digwa, a British-born Sikh - and the police's crassly negligent mishandling of it - has sparked a furious debate in the UK about 'two-tier' policing. The barely 'sub' subtext of this being that the police are encouraged to treat members of the public differently based on their ethnicity, with a strong implication that black and brown suspects are given prefentially lenient treatment. In other words, the police are officially sanctioned to cut them more slack than they might extend to a white person. This accusation seems to be based on a clumsily worded 2022 document, the Police Race Action Plan, which was issued to forces in the wake of accusations of institutional racism, setting out how officers should respond to race in future.
Inevitably in these febrile times, rightwing politicians and commentators have spotted a rolling bandwagon and piled on board it as a platform for promoting their vile narrative of white disadvantage in the face of 'woke' policies. Even the US Vice-President, JD Vance, has felt entitled to chip in - an uninvited and unwelcome intervention which British Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, has quite rightly called out. The debate now raging around this issue has, however, thrown up some interesting questions about the nature of Englishness vis-a-vis Britishness which are perhaps worth exploring. When the public celebration of Englishness, such as displays of St George's cross, so often, and so easily, tip over into jingoism and racism, it is perhaps unsurprising that the subject is contentious.
Former Conservative home secretary, Suella Braverman, described herself as 'British Asian' but not English. Braverman, born in England of Indian heritage, questioned how many generations it might take to become English, suggesting that it could be as many as five or six. Despite her typically reductive response, I think what she was querying was how long it might take to be perceived and accepted as English. Surely that would depend on whether one's racial origins were visibly obvious after one hundred and fifty years? I suspect interracial marriage and Anglicisation of names might lead to foreign roots becoming undetectable over time.
And that's clearly the nub of the matter in a seafaring nation like the British Isles. Where roots and origins have been so mixed and intermingled for so long - from Celts, Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norman French, French Huguenot, African and African-Caribbean, Chinese and Asian - who's to say who's 'pure' English; or who, in fact, the 'English' actually are, ethnically or ethnographically? More to the point, is it even worthwhile debating the issue at all? The only way the matter could be resolved beyond peradventure would be for every Briton to be DNA profiled at birth and that, while undoubtedly an interesting scientific exercise, would be a very slippery slope indeed. Nevertheless, I'd challenge anyone purporting to be of 'pure English stock' to take a DNA test to prove it.
Go on, I dare you!