Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Racial Equality, caused controversy recently when he aired his views on the way immigrants are changing society in this country. He said that the current wave of immigration was fundamentally different from previous waves in that it was changing the composition of the nation. He also made some remarks about multiculturalism, which is a theme he has explored before.
Although he quotes a 96% rise in the ethnic minority population of the country in the last 20 years, I find the idea that this is the first time that immigration has changed the composition of the population curious. Before the arrival of the first West Indian immigrants in the 1950s, the UK population was virtually exclusively white. The change from that to a mixture, even if the proportion of non-whites was quite small, was a major shift. Every 'wave' of immigration changes the mix further, more or less by definition.
The big question is: Is it a change for the better, a change for the worse, or just a change? The answer, of course, depends on your viewpoint. The "I'm not a racist, but..." brigade naturally opt for 'worse', as does the Sun (strange - Rupert Murdoch no longer lives in his country of origin, does he? Maybe they're taking a defiantly independent line). Those of us of a more liberal persuasion go for 'better' or 'just a change'. As Phillips points out, we desperately need immigrants to bolster our ageing workforce, but he is worried that increasingly they set up their own institutions - he instances places of worship, shops and media outlets. That doesn't quite stack up, either - from the first we've had corner shops run by Indians and Pakistanis prepared to work all hours, Indian and Chinese restaurants (just another kind of shop), and mosques, Sikh temples etc which they had to set up themselves as there weren't any domestic ones.
Phillips thinks communities are becoming increasingly polarised, but his local equivalent, the chief executive of the Enfield Race Equality Council Chandra Bhatia, disagrees. On the contrary, she considers that in the past refugee communities have identified a sense of isolation and a perception that they are being blamed for everything that goes wrong, but now this feeling is shifting to newer immigrants from the EU countries.
I must admit to finding the whole immigration question rather puzzling. On the one hand we have an expectation - now enshrined as an absolute insistence in the rules of the World Trade Organisation - that goods should be able to flow freely round the world, while the advent of computers has ensured the same 'right' for money, while on the other people are barred from enjoying the same freedom. Unless they're white and have money, of course - nobody minds them going where they like. Just having money will do at a pinch, though you need more of it if your skin is not white.
Then there are some fairly arbitrary-seeming rules about how far you can 'migrate'. Half of London's population wasn't born here, including me. Nobody batted an eye when I moved down from the north-east. Scots are OK too (except when they take over the government). Western Europeans, Americans and Anzacs are fine (but then they're usually white and reasonably well off -see above). Poles, Bulgarians, Rumanians....not so good (not so well off!). Indians, Africans....no! no! If it isn't racism (which is certainly in there somewhere) then it's simple greed. We are better off than they are, and many of us want to keep it that way. We might give them some (inadequate) handouts as long as they are suitably grateful and stay where they belong, but real sharing is not on the menu.
For those of you who would like to find out more about the cultural diversity in the borough, next week is a Week of Peace and various places of worship of diverse religions are opening up to members of the public, as follows:
Monday (7pm-9pm): Edmonton Islamic Centre, Raynham Road, Upper Edmonton
Tuesday (7pm-9pm): Greek Orthodox Church of St Demetrios, Town Road, Edmonton
Wednesday (7pm-8.30pm): Cockfosters Synagogue, Old Farm Avenue, Southgate
Thursday (7pm-8.30pm): St Mary Magdalene CE Church, The Ridgeway, Enfield
Friday (7pm-9pm): Hindu Tamil Cultural Temple, Church Lane, Edmonton
Saturday (7pm-9pm): Sachkand Nanak Dham Darshan Darbar, Fore Street, Edmonton
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