:: 3/10/2007 ::

:: Tony 17:14 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tradition or Translation? Cynical or Sacred?
The Rise of Islamic Radicalism among British Bangladeshis

The identity of Muslim communities in Britain and Europe is informed in part by the perceived situation of many Muslim states. Both are poor and divided, confronted by many problems, economic, political and ideological. They find themselves oppressed and exploited by western, secular capitalism. Post-modern ways of understanding the world and ourselves draw similar local/global parallels between changing notions of identity and globalisation. Contradictory identities can exist side by side in one individual, whilst different cultures collide and mix in our ‘shrinking’ world. This volatile situation has many contributing phenomena. The experience of migration is among the most important, bringing different cultures into contact and challenging old notions of the nation-state. Migration is at once a cause and effect of these changes. It has had a profound influence on new currents in Islam, for example. While Islam has also played a major part in the construction of new identities for some migrants.

This paper aims to examine the background and reasons for the rise of Islamic radicalism amongst British Bangladeshis. Islamic ‘fundamentalism’, anti- western sentiments and the politicisation of Islam have been dominant themes in the media and public consciousness in recent years. Why have Islam and western secular democracy come to be seen as irreconcilable enemies? Why do British citizens choose to prioritise or emphasise their Islamic identity over and against their British identity? Why are radical forms of political Islam attractive? These are questions that will be examined here.

This is not an exhaustive overview of either Bangladeshi migration to Britain or modern Islamic trends. It attempts to explain the relationships between migration, minorities and radical politics within the context of contemporary Britain and it’s Bangladeshi community. A brief history of the Bangladeshi community in Britain will be followed by a discussion of culture, hegemony and identity. An analysis of the changing identity of British Bangladeshis will touch on issues of exclusion and racism. These ideas will then be fitted into the wider context of Islam and Islamic radicalism in the world. An overview of politics and current affairs will also suggest some possible reasons for the rise of Islamic radicalism in the world and why it has become attractive to Bangladeshis in Britain.

British Bangladeshis

Most Muslims in Britain come from the Indian Subcontinent, the majority from Pakistan, followed by Indian and Bangladeshi Muslims. Migration to Britain from the Indian sub-continent has a long history, linked by the relationship of empire, South Asians came to Britain.

Many Bangladeshis worked as sailors, and ‘jumped ship’, establishing small communities in major ports around the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These communities were largest in Britain due to the colonial ties and the possibilities of finding further employment on ships. They were centred in major ports such as London, Cardiff, South Shields and Sunderland (Carey and Shukur, 1985:406).

The majority of Bangladeshis came to Britain in the 1950s and 60s. They were mostly single men, and were helped by friends or kin amongst the earliest arrivals. The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act reinforced this pattern as friends and kin found it easier to be sponsored under the voucher system. These migrants at first saw themselves as temporary work migrants rather than settlers; the ‘myth of return’ was ever present in their minds. They came in search of high wages rather than as a response to poverty (Carey and Shukur, 1985 and Gardner and Shukur, 1994:147) By the mid sixties, this began to change and family reunification in Britain began. First sons, then wives and other children slowly started to arrive (Carey and Shukur, 1985:407, and Eade, 1997:149).

There are now approximately 300,000 British citizens of Bangladeshi origin (National Statistics), most of them in London. Most British Bangladeshis are from Sylhet, a region in the north east of Bangladesh, and the vast majority are Muslim. Bangladeshis and Bangladeshi culture have become a part of the dynamic ‘British culture’. (Carey and Shukur, 1985:405 and Amit, 2003:14-16). A look at some ways of understanding culture will help us analyse this process.

What are culture and hegemony?

Antonio Gramsci saw hegemony as more fluid and contested than previous analysts. Previous ideas saw hegemony as domination by one state, country or culture within a group of others. The idea of a dominant culture was seen as a situation of uncontested political domination. Gramsci (re)interpreted hegemony as: “the process of gaining legitimate consent within the functional universe of civil society, as opposed to simply holding it together through a monopoly on the means of violence.” (Adamson, 1980:10). People are not coerced by dominant culture, but accept dominant ideas whilst also empowered to challenge them from below. The hegemonic culture is not rigid and unchanging but a flexible, dynamic domination. Raymond Williams has also contributed to modern understandings of hegemony. He maintains that hegemony is always an evolving process rather than a rigid structure. This process of evolution is aided by cultures that fall outside the ‘horizons of thought and action’ set by the hegemonic culture. Culture then, is a battlefield, a contest between competing forces of society, dominated by the hegemonic group, all attempting to impose their interpretation of the meaning of objects or practices on the rest of society (ibid.).

Culture is: “… symbolization, grounded in the material world as symbolically appropriated and produced. In class societies, where surplus production is appropriated by the dominant group, symbolic production is likewise seized as hegemonic class culture” (Cosgrove, in Rose 1993:90)

In this case, British or English culture is the hegemonic culture and it is being challenged and forced to evolve by many ‘cultures of resistance’, amongst them, that of Islamic radicalism. There are many forms of resistance to hegemony, political, economic and cultural. Culturally there are many points of ‘conflict’ between strict Islamic codes and ‘British’ or ‘western’ culture. Most of these surround sex, sexuality and gender. Issues such as polygamy, pre-marital sex, abortion, hijab or burka, (the veil), and wider issues of female modesty and gender roles are all sources of cultural conflict (Gardner and Shukur, 1994:156, Modood, 1992:264, Jamaat-e-Islam, 2004).

Culture is constantly changing in reaction to the contestation of meaning. In a ‘multicultural society’, this conflict is bound to be intense. The phenomena of capitalism and globalisation have had significant effects on many cultures (Hall, 1992:308). Globalisation brings more, and more varied cultures into contact across large physical, economic, political and cultural distances making the “encounter of colonial centre and colonised periphery immediate and intense” (Robins, 1991, cited in ibid:305). Contact between people and cultures happens through improvements in communication technology, but most influentially through migration. This increase in cross cultural contact and interaction also leads to the strengthening of local identities as a defensive reaction to the presence and ‘challenge’ of other cultures. Notions of “revamped Englishness” are one manifestation of this (Hall, 1992:308).

Hall explains how immigrant communities may undergo a “strategic retreat” to “defensive identities” in response to racism and exclusion. This involves a re-identification with the cultures in their country of origin. In response to exclusion, people often ask themselves about what, or who, they really are. The construction of strong new counter cultures amongst second-generation immigrants is also a feature of this retreat. A good example of this is the identification with Africa, through Rastafarian imagery, of Afro-Caribbean youth in Britain. The third feature Hall associates with this retreat is the revival of cultural traditionalism, religious orthodoxy and political separatism, which has occurred amongst some Muslims (Hall, 1992:308, also Ahmed, 2004).

Ethnic boundaries

Ethnicity is a concept that is hard to pin down. Barth’s (1969) work on ethnic boundaries does not see ethnicity as rooted or as something that one is born with, or as a type of ‘essence’. Like identity, ethnicity is often about boundaries and exclusion, as Cohen describes in the quote below. Barth’s ethnic boundaries can be real or symbolic, visible or invisible. The boundaries can be based on territory, history, language, economics, or a range of symbolic identifications. The stress on the importance of ethnic boundaries rather than groups seems to concur with Cohen’s ideas below (Cohen, 1994:199). Wallman’s (1986) work follows up on Barth’s, and adds that these boundaries are only formed when the differences between people are ‘heated’ into significance by what are called the ‘identity investments’ of either side (ibid.). The degree to which people are passive participants in ethnicity, or choose ethnicities for themselves is interesting to consider. Perhaps migrants are uniquely place to be able to choose their ethnicity.

“One only knows who one is by who one is not. The processes of exclusion and rejection uncover and reveal and become constitutive of the national identity itself.” (Cohen, 1994:198)

The importance of identity

Hall (1992) identifies three conceptions of identity. The ‘enlightenment subject’, which is an individualist, essentialist concept of identity in which one’s identity is with one from birth. The sociological subject is a more modern interpretation, in which identity is formed by the interaction between the self and society. Finally, Hall concentrates on the post-modern subject; ‘fractured’ and ‘de-centred’, the post-modern subject is composed of several, often contradictory or unresolved identities (Hall, 1992:275-6).

Cohen (1994) calls this de-centring the ‘humbling’ of the human ego, and identifies several scientific advances that have led to this. Gallileo’s discovery that the earth is not the centre of the universe, Darwin’s theory that humans are descended from apes, Freud and Lacan’s work on the unconscious, and Marx’s emphasis on the importance of economic forces (Cohen, 1994:205). Hall also mentions these de-centring forces, and cites Marx, who asserted that “men make history, but only on the basis of conditions which are not of their making”, essentially, that we are slaves of the mode of production and historical conditions (Hall,1992:286). Hall adds to these factors, modern socio-political movements such as feminism (Hall, 1992:290). In the post-modern conception of the world, culture and identity are in a constant state of flux and contest (Cohen, 1994:192).

While immigrant communities may ‘retreat’ into ‘tradition’ they may also see a ‘translation’ of their culture and identity. Hall cites Rushdie (1991) and Parekh (1989) in his discussion of these phenomena. ‘Translation’ of cultures may lead to ‘hybrid cultures’, which involve multiple identities and new types of identities (Hall, 1992:310).

In Parekh’s discussion of the ‘Satanic Verses affair’, he claims Rushdie is a champion of the post-modern, hybrid identity. He questions everything, shifting between admiration and ambivalence for his community and nation (Parekh, 1989). Parekh uses a similar idea to the dichotomy between ‘tradition’ and ‘translation’. He pessimistically describes how immigrants’ “dignity as human beings [is] constantly mocked by the hostile ‘host’ society”. This leads to doubt, suspicion and subdued rage amongst immigrant communities towards the host society. Under these circumstances, some get very cynical, as Parekh claims Rushdie has. These people doubt everything, and live in a ‘moral void’. Others undergo the ‘retreat’ strategy, retreating to a “sacred text, body of rituals or pool of traditions”. Immigrants look for an identity and culture of their own, in a society that has rejected them. Possession of their own identity distinguishes them and “gives them a past, roots in the present and the confidence to face the future”. It gives these groups certainty in the moral void and protection against cynicism. Therefore, at one extreme, there is a “deep and self destructive doubt” with no sense of the sacred; and at the other an “impenetrable and intolerant certainty” in the sacred. The majority of Muslims, claims Parekh, “give meaning to their poor and empty lives by holding on to the holy and it’s rock like certainties” (Parekh, 1989).

Parekh’s seem pessimistic, and his analysis of the situation of Musilms may be too negative. However, recent reports of ‘Islamophobia’ such as Dalrymple’s (2004), written in response to rising hostility and ignorance of Islam and the Islamic world, appear to concur. Dalrymple writes passionately, responding to Robert Kilroy Silk’s startlingly ignorant article in the Daily Express. The ‘Islamophobia’ described by Dalrymple has been noted many others, it is the title of a Runnymede Trust report, and is mentioned by Castles and Miller (2003). Castles and Miller and Nielsen (1997) point out the ‘self-fulfilling prophesy’ of Islamophobia, that fear and exclusion will lead to increasing mistrust and hostility from the Muslim community. Neilsen describes how Islam is seen in an ‘Orwellian’ sense as the ‘new enemy’ in the post-Cold War era (Castles and Miller, 2003:239 and Neilsen, 1997:272).

Dalrymple’s summary of shocking racism, misunderstanding and propaganda in the press is mirrored in Vertovec and Peach’s book ‘Islam in Europe’, in which they lament the widespread fear and hostility towards Islam. They mention the Oklahoma bombing in 1995, when the front cover of Today magazine had a horrific photo of the victims and the headline ‘In the Name of Islam’; the bomber turned out to be a blond haired, blue eyed, all American man. (Vertovec and Peach, 1997:4). This fact was forgotten in the ensuing harsh immigration and anti-terrorist laws (Choudry, 2001). These depressing reports appear to confirm Parekh’s gloomy view.

Changing Identities, Exclusion and Alienation

Muslims have become prominent in Britain and Europe in recent years. In Britain, there are over a million Muslims (Modood, 1992:260), but they have a presence in British consciousness beyond their numbers. Kepel links this entry into public consciousness to the Arab - Israeli conflict in 1973, (Kepel, 1997:45) the oil crisis, increasing immigration for settlement and the abandonment of the ‘myth of return’ in response to stricter immigration laws, (ibid:48). Their prominence in the public arena has also been due to high profile political events. Politics, popular culture and the media shape our view of an already complex world (Choudry, 2001, Vertovec and Peach, 1997:4, Dalrymple, 2004). Within both the South Asian and Islamic communities in Britain and worldwide there is a diverse plurality, debates and conflicts (Kepel, 1997:50) that must be taken into account to avoid crude generalisations and essentialising.

The experience of migration and diaspora can lead to shifting notions of identity, the formation of new identities and hybrid identities (Eade, 1997:147). Experiences of racism and exclusion are also influential in identity formation and ethnic mobilisation. Europe’s Muslims suffer from various forms of socio-economic, political and physical exclusion, and many of them live in relative deprivation. Vertovec and Peach’s picture of the situation of European Muslims is bleak. They are described as “divided and traumatised, weakened by unemployment and humiliated by dependence on social welfare”. They suffer from anti-Islamism, described above, harsh immigration regimes, and fear of persecution, along with economic problems such as unemployment. (Vertovec and Peach, 1997:5). In Britain, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have the highest rates of unemployment, the lowest rates of educational qualifications and the highest profile in manual work of any ‘non-white’ group (Modood, 1992:261). British Muslims are further excluded from politics and education (Dalrymple, 2004, and Eade, 1997:149).

Simultaneously, claim Vertovec and Peach, there is a new self-consciousness amongst European Muslims. More Islamic organisations and associations have been formed, and this creates increasing engagement in politics and society (Vertovec and Peach, 1997:6). Perhaps this is due to the decrease in the strength of the ‘myth of return’ and an increasing feeling of permanence. Perhaps it is a second-generation effect, with the greater confidence and feeling of belonging in the hybrid identities of the second generation. Vertovec and Peach identify changes in Islam in Europe (ibid:9), which some say are part of a ‘politics of difference’ and anti-racism. Others, they say, claim it is part of a ‘worldwide Islamic awakening (ibid:10).

There is certainly a group of European and British Muslims who are attracted to Islamic radicalism (Taher, 2000, Gardner and Shukur, 1994:161). This group emphasise their Muslim identity over other political and cultural identities (Eade, 1997:155, and Gardner and Shukur, 1994:163). Young Muslims reclaim Islam for themselves, “choosing to break away culturally on the basis of communal identity from the dominant values of the nations of which they are citizens in principle, but from which, according to them, they are excluded in practice”. They struggle against exclusion, racism, drug addiction, violence and delinquency; strict respect for religious prohibition is therefore important for them (Vertovec and Peach, 1997:52). "The main thing with our teenagers is a drug problem, not a religious problem," says Bashrhan Khan, interviewed in Waldman’s article on the ‘Tipton Taliban’, (Waldman, 2002). This message of people turning to ‘fundamentalist’ forms of Islam as a response to racism and exclusion is one repeated again and again by commentators.

The first generation of Bangladeshis were more attached to their national identity as Bangladeshis, than the second who are more attracted to Islam (Gardner and Shukur, 1994:163). Many second generation Bangladeshis do not feel a strong bond with Bangladesh. On visits home they feel and emphasise their British identity. They feel out of place and alienated (ibid:159. The draw of Islam may be stronger amongst those who feel little association with either a racist British society or with Bangladesh (ibid:162).

Racism associated with the nation, patriotism, and culture is increasingly common. This type of racism is socially, culturally or ideologically constructed, it has moved away from crude biological notions of inferiority and superiority. ‘The nation’ is constructed as a unified cultural community (Gilroy, 1992:87, cited in Hall, 1992:298, and Cohen, 1994:193) in the works of commentators such as Michael Walzer (1983). Hall points out that no nations are racially pure (Hall, 1992:298). Nationalism is a discourse, a construct, analysed so well by Benedict Anderson, who famously, described nations as ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1983:15-16).

Gilroy, Hall, Cohen, Parekh and Modood speak of a new type of ‘cultural racism’ emerging. Edward Said might disagree about this newness, having analysed a deeply entrenched, and ancient set of constructions about ‘the Orient’ in his book ‘Orientalism’ (1978). Hall links the re-emergence of nationalism and other forms of ‘particularism’ to globalisation, which has not seen the victory of global, logical, universal values. He claims that globalisation has led to contradictory values and phenomena (Hall, 1992:314). Hall’s analysis of the macro cosmos of globalisation is similar to his ideas about the micro cosmos of identity. His, is a discourse of a de-centred, self-contradictory, post-modern world. He concludes by stating that the processes of globalisation may be part of the continuing story of ‘de-centring the west’ (ibid.).

Anti-racist movements have contributed to the mobilisation of 'racialised minorities' around culture and religion (Solomos and Black, 1996:97 and Eade, 1997:146). Solomos and Black analyse notions of ‘black identity’ and the work of Tariq Modood. These anti racist ideas, they claim, over emphasise simple notions of racism, ignoring the complex ethnic mix of the group identified as `black`. Modood argues in response; “everybody is somebody, not just a victim.” (Solomos and Black, 1996:135).

The Muslim scholar Omar Khalidi (1989) claims that there is no conflict of interests between Muslims and a non-Muslim state. The majority of European Muslims are politically moderate, not very religious, or practice their religion individually. They are often overlooked (Vertovec and Peach, 1997:38), by right wing analysts or the ‘Clash of Civilisations’ school of thought. Most Muslims take the view that outside Islamic countries, they are under a political obligation to live as responsible citizens of the society in which they find themselves (King, 1997:142). Taher echoes this in his analysis of British Asian attitudes towards the British Government. He reports, “most Asians condemn those youths fighting for the Taliban as much as anyone else in this country. Our survey showed that 72% thought that it was wrong for Muslim youths to fight for the Taliban” (Taher, 2001). It is important to remember this quiet and peaceful majority when discussing an infamous and high profile minority.

Islamic Fundamentalism

Islamic fundamentalism is an over-used and misunderstood term, used to describe various militant currents in contemporary Islamic thought. Youssef Choueiri identifies three currents of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’. ‘Revivalism’ emerged as an internal dialogue within Islam in the eighteenth century. It grew from remote rural areas beyond the reach of authorities. It’s most famous manifestation is now in ‘Wahabism’ in Saudi Arabia (Choueiri, 1990:9).

Islamic reformism was an urban movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It’s intellectual leaders studied European success and dominance, in an attempt to reverse what they saw as ‘Islamic decline’ (ibid.). Revivalism and reformism were eclipsed by the formation of sovereign states in many Islamic regions, as independence was granted to states in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (ibid:10).

Islamic radicalism has emerged in the twentieth century as a reaction to the growth of the nation state. It is popular amongst migrants, both internationally and internally in the great era of urbanisation. Islamic “radicalism does not revive or reform. Rather it creates a new world and creates its own dystopia.” (ibid:10). Islamic radicalism is the focus of this paper, as it is the most recent, relevant type of Islamic fundamentalism, and relates most closely with the general public usage of the term.

Islamic radicalism reflects, and is a response to, the social divisions and problems of Islamic cities. The rise of Islamic radicalism is linked with the growth of cities since 1945; it is linked to the anxieties and ambitions of certain groups in society. Choueiri identifies these as; small merchants, middle traders, artisans, students, teachers and civil servants (ibid:12). Many of these people are migrants, either internally in processes of urbanisation or internationally, as in the case of British Bangladeshis.

The messages of Islamic radicalism are stridently anti-western. Scholars such as Maududi (1992) (founder of the Jammat-I-Islami movement in South Asia) and Qutb offer convincing and coherent criticism of secular democracy and ‘western’ values and politics. They eloquently criticise socialism, capitalism, colonialism, secular democracy and the ‘pagan materialism’ (jahiliyya-madiyya) of the west (ibid:95). Their arguments are compelling and many of them overlap with those of European movements, such as anti-capitalism.

Ali Shariati (1988) points out that “economism is the fundamental principle of the philosophy of life in Western industrial society”, citing Francis Bacon’s claim that “science abandons it’s search for truth and turns to the search for power” (Shariati, 1988:315). It is hard to disagree with some of these arguments, but Shariati goes on to dismiss all other political philosophies and world religions. He claims that Islam must have a central role in the organisation of society (ibid:322). Shariati’s critique of Marxism is interesting in that he attacks precisely the aspect of Marxism which Hall and Cohen identify as a de-centring force on identity. He despises Marx’s ‘materialistic determinism’ (ibid:317) echoing Qutb’s critique of Communism, saying that it deprives man of his ‘essence’ (Choueiri, 1990:118) . Shariati also criticises what he calls ‘biologism’ and ‘sociologism’ (Shariati, 1988:317) i.e. Darwinism and the sociology identified by Hall in the ‘sociological subject’. Cohen and Hall identify these forces as de-centring post-modern identities. Presumably, therefore, Shariati does not share Hall and Cohen’s post-modern views on identity mentioned in this paper.

Maududi and Qutbs' political ideas are bound up in the all importance of Islam and Allah in society. “Sovereignty and legitimacy are unassailably placed beyond the realm of human endeavour”, Secularism and democracy are seen as a usurpation of Allah’s sovereignty (Choueiri, 1990:105, Taher, 2000). Democracy is therefore, a direct violation of divine laws and a reversion to the days of pagan ignorance (jahiliyya), secularism meanwhile, is said to lead to corruption, oppression and treachery (Choueiri, 1990:106). “For Maududi the idea of social justice is a stratagem of Satan to intrigue humans” (ibid:116). Maududi and Qutb do entertain some ideas that seem ridiculous or racist to a secular European scholar. The Zionist and Christian conspiracies, planning to undermine Islam or rid the world of spirituality all together are examples (ibid:107). The association of Jews with Capitalism and usury is a recurring theme, as is the idea that Communism is also a Jewish plot (ibid:119, Waldman, 2002).

These types of radical ideas have reached Britain and the most angry and violent strains of Islamic radicalism are being preached here. ‘Dirty Kuffar’, the violent ‘jihad rap’ song released on the internet and distributed though mosques, reported by Barnett, (2004) demonstrated the depths of hatred that exist. Britain has become a world centre of Islamic thought, action and dissidence (Waldman, 2002). Islam in Britain is changing, Gardner and Shukur point out that a “heightened commitment to Islam, allows those involved both to express their frustrations with mainstream British society and to join a worldwide trend which links them politically and financially to global ummah” (Gardner and Shukur, 1994:163 and Amit, 2003:24). The argument of many, such as Margaret Hall, is that Islam has become more traditional and institutionalised (Margaret Hall, 1996:104). Gardner and Shukur point to the role of transnational communities and diaspora in the formation and construction of new currents within Islam. The effect of these linkages has been to increase the importance of events throughout the Muslim world on communities outside it. Solidarity with Muslims in other countries and a Global worldview are also features of this (Gardner and Shukur, 1994:163). These new forms of Islam see Islam as a ‘total’ political system (Amit, 2003:11). The continual comparison and interaction with the west has led to change, hybridity, and ambivalence in both Islam and ‘the West’.

The effect of Politics

Political events have played a crucial role in the formation and popularity of Islamic radicalism and other currents in Islam. A series of events and controversies from the eighties until today has stimulated and maintained the strength and appeal of Islamic radicalism and other forms of political Islam (Amit, 2004:11). Amit lists Halal food in schools and prisons, the headscarf debates, and the Rushdie affair, alongside global geopolitical developments as sources of conflict and attraction to forms of political Islam (ibid).

In 1990, Bernhard Lewis wrote an article called ‘The Roots of Muslim Rage’, in which he maintains that the struggle of Islamic fundamentalists is against secularism and modernism, he also coined the term ‘clash of civilisations’ to describe his predictions. “Fundamentalist leaders are not mistaken in seeing in Western civilization the greatest challenge to the way of life that they wish to retain or restore for their people” (Lewis, 1990).

Influenced by these ideas, Samuel Huntingdon went on to write the now famous ‘Clash of Civilisations’ (1993). He predicted that “the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural”. He also states, in direct contrast to Hall’s analysis of globalisation and capitalism, that economic modernization and social change are separating people from local identities. He goes on to say that these forces also weaken the nation state as a source of identity. Which also contradicts the more ‘liberal’ scholars cited above on this topic. He claims that religion has filled this gap in many parts of the world, often in the form of movements that are labelled ‘fundamentalist’ (Huntingdon, 1993).

Huntingdon points the finger of blame for this conflict firmly at Islam, claiming that “Islam has bloody borders”. He cites conflict between Muslims and other groups on the edges of the Muslim world, in Yugoslavia, Philippines, India and Africa as examples. Due to this aggression, he maintains, ‘the West’ must strengthen and protect itself and it’s dominance by limiting the military and economic strength of the Muslim world (Huntingdon 1993).

This article led to a war of words between right wing and liberal scholars. Edward Said responded to Huntingdon’s article with ‘The Clash of Ignorance’ (2001) in which he outlined the long-standing and complex history of conflict, interdependence, mimicry and ambivalence between Islam and Christianity or ’the west’. He points out that Huntington and Lewis do not acknowledge the internal dynamics and plurality of every ‘civilization’. Terms like ‘the west’ and ‘Islam’ are too simplistic, as Kepel also warns. The timing of his article was no accident either, it was published a month after September 11th 2001, Said claims that September 11 has been turned into proof of Huntington's thesis. He balances criticism of ‘Islamic fundamentalists’ by pointing out similar distortions and zealotry in "Jewish" and "Christian" religious and political discourse. Said wisely concludes that “it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice.” (Said, 2001).

It is interesting to note that Maududi and Qutb subscribe to similar ideas about the total incompatibility of western secularism and Islam as Huntingdon does. The similarities in these simplistic notions and inflammatory rhetoric are indicative of the political motivations of their intellectual work and their extremist worldviews.

Recent history in the Middle East reinforces antagonism between the Muslim World and the Anglo-American hegemony (Taher, 2000). Peter Beaumont’s article, ‘The Roots of Muslim Anger’ for the Observer offers a good analysis of this. He identifies Anglo-American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq and support for Israel as specific grievances. He finds that internal conflicts within the Islamic world are influential and less obvious (Beaumont, 2001). Beaumont cites Professor Abdul Sattar Kassem, a lecturer in political science at the University of Nablus, “What you have to understand is that many Arabs and Muslims want to build an Islamic civilisation in its own right. They blame the West in general - and America in particular - for subjugating that ambition by dividing the Arab world through the dictators that America supports. America has done this by fragmenting the Islamic world, dividing it under rulers it supports. America has perverted the attempts to democratise the Arab world. They are hypocrites. They preach freedom and democracy, but prevent Arabs from enjoying it and exploit their wealth. The final issue is the US support for Israel in tormenting the Palestinians”. (Beaumont, 2001)

These sentiments are common in the Muslim world and beyond. However, Beaumont identifies other sources of rancour. Hazem Saghiyeh, a London-based columnist for the Arabic newspaper Al Hayat, identifies some of the same causes of friction as Professor Kassem, but spreads the blame for the problem more widely. The failure of ‘the Islamic project’ on issues such as governance and modernisation are also crucial factors. This sense of failure has fostered a historic sense of inferiority at Europe’s dominance of the world since the nineteenth century. This is part of the continuous process of self-evaluation with respect to ‘the other’, identified by Hall, Cohen and Said. Feelings of inferiority are coupled with the demographic factors of urbanisation and unequal development. “These are … people who have lost their traditional ways of life but have not become modern, who have not benefited through all their education. It is a recipe for psychological breakdown and hysteria. In the past two decades that gap of expectation has increasingly been filled by the politicisation of Islam and Islamic fundamentalism ” (ibid.).

Deep divisions in the Islamic world itself accompanied the crisis of the nineteenth century. These divided those who argued for reform, modernisation or ‘an Islamic Enlightenment’ and those arguing for Islamic fundamentalism (ibid.). These factors were exacerbated in 1948 when Israel defeated Arab armies. The Military defeats, underdevelopment, lack of democracy and freedom of expression led to the rise of conspiracy theories (ibid.). Theories like those of Maududi and Qutb, blaming America or Jews for their feelings of powerlessness and alienation.

Opportunistic leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini and Bin Laden understand and manipulate these feelings. Many of the poor and disillusioned see the ideas of Islamic radicalism as a magic solution to their problems (ibid.). In ‘the West’, similar discourses create hatred and fear, from the cultural racism of “orientalism” and the “Clash of Civilisations” through to the self-fulfilling prophecy of “Islamophobia”.

Conclusions

The huge inequalities in the world and the injustice of the ‘new world order’ have created a platform for radical and often violent movements to prosper. The seemingly unassailable empire of American capitalism and western culture are being attacked. They have spawned many cultures of resistance, and among the fiercest, and most attractive is Islamic radicalism.

In the West, this has been countered and aggravated by a sustained media campaign whipping up public fear and hatred of Muslims. Muslims have been tarred with the brush of terrorism, fanaticism and conservatism. It is inaccurate however, to essentialise about groups such as Muslims who are diverse, spread widely across continents and mix in complex ways with other cultures.

In the era of globalisation, this mixing has become ever more complex. There are large diverse Muslim communities in many Western countries. These migrations and the improvements in global communications, have led to the creation of new, hybrid cultures. Muslims’ are oppressed and exploited by Western capital, and excluded from power locally and globally.

The identities of second generation Bangladeshis living in Britain are changing. Over time, with the mixing and inter-actions of different cultures, through the experiences of migration, minority, and exclusion, new identities and cultures are formed and chosen. New links and networks have grown up and Islam has assumed a growing importance as a unifying force for many oppressed peoples around the world.

British Bangladeshis may reject British society for any number of reasons. Poverty, exclusion, racism, or the British government foreign policies, which kill or support the killing of thousands of Muslims every year. Islamic radicalism is one of many paths they could take in response, which for reasons outlined above, is particularly attractive at the moment. The rise of Islamic radicalism has a range of global causes, and it’s popularity among British Bangladeshis is due to the interaction of local factors with global politics. We must remember, however that we are all responsible for the spread of the politics of hate, as it is a response to repression, exclusion, and hopelessness.

As Jason Burke points out in his book `Al-Qaeda`, "The greatest weapon in the war on terrorism is the courage, decency, humour and integrity of the vast proportion of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. It is this that is restricting the spread of al-Qaeda, not the activities of counter-terrorism experts. Without it, we are lost. There is indeed a battle between the west and men like Bin Laden. But it is not a battle for global supremacy. It is a battle for hearts and minds. And it is a battle that we, and our allies in the Muslim world, are currently losing." (cited in Dalrymple, 2004)


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Ahmed, T, 2004, ‘Identity and Islam’, www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4958§ionID=44

Amit, N, 2003, ‘Religion and Belonging: Self Identification among male students from the Norwich Bangladeshi Community’, MA Dissertation, University of East Anglia (unpublished)

Anderson, B, 1983, Imagined Communities, Verso, London

Barnett, A., 2004, ‘Islamic rappers' message of terror’, The Observer, February 8, 2004, (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1143499,00.html)

Beaumont, P., 2001, ‘The Roots of Islamic anger’, The Observer, October 14, 2001, (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,573696,00.html)

Carey and Shukur, 1985, ‘A Profile of the Bangladeshi Community in East London’

Castles and Miller, 2003, The Age of Migration, Macmillan, Basingstoke

Choudry, A., 2001, ‘Suspicious Minds’, http://www.zmag.org/choudrycalam2.htm

Choueiri, Y., 1990, Islamic Fundamentalism, Pinter Publishers, London

Cohen, R., 1994, Frontiers of Identity: The British and Others, Longman, London

Dalrymple, W., 1994, Islamophobia, New Statesman, Jan 19, 2004. Vol. 6, Iss. 790; pg. 18

Eade, J., 1997, `Identity, Nation, and Religion, Educated young Bangladeshi Muslims in London’s East End`, in Eade, J., ed. Living the global City, Routledge, London

Gardner, and Shukur, 1994, ‘I’m Bengali, I’m Asian and I’m Living Here: The Changing Identities of British Bengalis’, in Ballard, R, ed., 1994, Desh Pardesh, Hurst, London

Gardner, K., 1995, Global Migrants, Local Lives, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Hall, S., 1992, ‘The Question of Cultural Identity’ in Hall, Held and McGrew, eds., 1992, Modernity and it’s futures, Polity press, Cambridge

Huntingdon, S., 1993, ‘The Clash of Civilisations’, Foreign Affairs, summer, 1993 (http://www.alamut.com/subj/economics/misc/clash.html)

Jamaat-e-Islaami, Pakistan website: http://www.jamaat.org/islam/WomanSociety.html

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Margaret Hall, C., 1996, Identity Religion and Values, Implications for Practitioners, Taylor and Francis, London

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Said, E., 1978, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, Routledge, London

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Shariati, A., 1980, ‘Critical Attitude Toward the West and the idea of Western Decadence’ in Moaddel, M, and Talattof, K., eds., 2000, Contemporary Debates in Islam, Macmillan, London.

Solomos and Black, 1996, Racism and Society, Macmillan, London

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Vertovec and Peach, 1997, Islam in Europe and the Politics of Religion and Community, in Vertovec and Peach, eds., 1997, Islam In Europe, Macmillan London

Waldman, A, 2002, ‘How in a Little British Town Jihad Found Young Converts’, New York Times, April 24, 2002

:: Tony 08:57 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

can't edit your post mike... what am I not seeing/doing to add an X?

:: Tony 10:56 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

straight to the vacuous banter that is representative democracy.. (or, as it has been referred to- elected dictatorship):

"goat-boy edited version"

house of commons

"that an humble address be presented to her majesty as follows:
most gracious sovereign,
we, your majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the commons of te uk of gb and northern ireland, in parliament assembled, bef leave to offer our humble thanks to your majety for the gracious speech which your majesty has adressed to both houses of parliament"

underlings loving it.. "debate on the address" submissiveness


“to what, then, would they wish to return- to the soverieignty that the labour party enjoyed in the 1970s when it had to go cap in hand to the imf to bail it our or the sovereignty that the conservartive party currently enjoys when it goes cap in hadn daily to the speculators of the money marlets to ensure that its economic policies will stand?” 31 jan 90 166 – 328 – Ashdown


tony benn- what a fucking don. all three bits below are re: maastricht social chapter, one speech around 92 probably.

“when the speech of the prime minister (john major) and that of the right hon. Membe for honiton (sir p emery) are read and considered for the study of history, they will rank with some of the greatest speeches ever made in the house.” [thank you for that] “for example, when a bill was introduced to abolish the practice of sending boys up chimneys in the 19th century, exactly the same speeches as those from the rigth hon gentleman were made. It was claimed that the bill would destroy employment for young boys, who were doing a very good job climbing up chimneys”

“if I were a frenchman, a belgian or a german, I would be just as passionately opposed to the maastricht treaty because it strips all of us, not just the people of this country, of the right to sack the people who make the laws”

“patronage is a cancer in our democartic society, and everybody knows it”


CBI, Sir Leon Brittan “the tide of social legislation has all but dried up.. the emphasis is now on job creation”

CBI chairman re: ideological shift.. 1995


working hours “48 hours a week, night and weekend work directive” is what the maastricht social chapter could have been to uk labour

social chapter "opted out of".. combined with common law, this could have actually meant someting

so.. party line 1992-1997: social rights of workers UK parliament: “not health and safety related”


“in the 1980s, a unilateralist pressure group alling itself the moment for the preservation of life on earth- something that the rest of us, it implied, were supposed to be against – was in alliance with the now foreign secretary in its pursuit fo unilateral nuclear disarmament. To present this issue as a disagreement about basic human rights is a childish tactic worthy of those 1980s peace activists who were his allies in those days”

howard 1997 re: cook's left wing past


1998. code of conduct working group “harmful tax competition” reports on tax differentials and resulting economic competition on back of labour force (via working conditions, wages, etc). uk is top in beating down populous. super at this are also spain, italy- quotes from the HC argument:

- FT harmonisation of corporation tax “untimely, questionable and above all hardly feasible”

- “wrong in any event” italian minister of finance to FT 2 dec 98

- spanish prime minister “dumbing down of tax harmonisation”, single rate of dirct tax = recipe for inefficiency


house of heirs

the blue-blooded mince is obviously less accountable to the current "progressive" bourgeois right wing, so you get some interesting points being made.

“indeed, I should not like to see a deindustrialised britain which had to depend on tourism and the City of London to pay for its imports when North Sea oil runs out” Baroness Ewart-Biggs


Lord Desai re: european union enlargement into eastern european territory:

“As my noble friend Lady Blackstone emphasised, they are being subjected to very severe conditions which the european Union members are not willing to obey in their own backyatd. A considerably greater liberal economic policy than is being followed within the European Union is being imposed upon them as a condition of entry. Indeed, it is very similar to the conditions that in NAFTA Mexico had to satisfy vis-à-vis Canada and the United States. It is always the weak who suffer these conditions and the strong get away with it.”


Lord Shore of Stepney (1998) with some keynesian contemplations re: monetarism:

“A great deflationary policy has been pursued across the whole continent of Europe. Desperate attempts have been made to reduce government borrowing to 3 % GDP. We have seen as an immediate result unemployment on the continent of Europe- its greatest economic and political problem- rise during the eigt years since the signing of the Maastricht treaty from about 13.5 million to almost 19 million during te past year. The economies of western Europe have virtually ceased to grow.”

:: phil 10:48 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New Statesman Article by Mark Thomas

The "Fairford Coach" judgement, last week, found the police to be in
breach of the Human Rights Act but the judgement is only a victory of
sorts for peace protestors, leaving both sides looking almost certain to
appeal the decision. The case bought by Jane Laporte against the Chief
Constable of the Gloucester police started on March 22nd 2003. Three
coaches of peace protestors going to join a demonstration at RAF
Fairford, home of the B52's, were stopped some 6 miles from the base.
The passengers were searched and cooperated with the police. Safely back
on board the coaches and without any explanation the police barred the
doors and forced the drivers under threat of arrest to drive non-stop
under police escort back to London, with over 120 people forcibly
detained on board.

Police vans and cars drove at the front and rear of the convoy with
police bikes riding alongside. The protestors hung hand made banners
from the windows reading "Help peace protestors illegally detained".
After a few supportive honks from passing motorists the police took the
measured step of closing the motorway behind the convoy, presumably to
prevent these supportive car horns breaching noise pollution levels.
Either that or the Burmese military were on a twinning project and
happened to be in charge that day.

Protestors phoned 999 to report their kidnap. The officers at the other
end of the line went from concern, confusion and neglect in a matter of
minutes. Leading one group of frustrated protestors feeling that the
only right to protest they might exercise that day was to erect a sign
reading "All coppers are bastards!" in the back window, much to the
amusement of the accompanying police van. In the circumstances you have
to admire the protestors restraint.

The 15th of January saw the hearing. The police stated that they had
found offensive items on the coaches that indicated that a breach of the
peace would occur. Originally the items included a hammer, a saw, 2
poles and knives, which were photographed and submitted as evidence. On
closer inspection of the photo the solicitors found each item to have a
label attached showing where it had come from. Strangely none of the
labels had place names that matched the site where the coaches were
detained. A police video revealed that the items were in fact
confiscated from a traveller in an entirely different vehicle, at an
entirely different location. Somewhat embarrassed by their fabricated
evidence the police pushed ahead insisting that they had found other
offensive items, this time actually on the coach. These were 2
motorcycle crash helmets, a bag of plastic toy soldiers, a Frisbee, 2
pairs of kitchen scissors and 5 home made card and board shields. One
can only guess at the amount of magic mushrooms a sane person would have
to consume to logically believe that a Frisbee constituted a genuine
threat to some 3,000 police officers. Even Lord Justice May came to the
conclusion that these couldn't be judged to be offensive, noting that
the shields and crash helmets could only be defensive.

May's verdict has to be seen as a draw. While he found the police
actions of detaining people without arrest to breach Article 5 of the
Human Rights Act, the right to liberty, he found that the police didn't
breach Article 10, the right to freedom of expression nor Article 11 the
right to assembly. So the police were wrong to detain the protestors
but right to deny them the right to protest by turning them back to
London. The fact that the police couldn't have stopped them protesting
without detaining them seems to have eluded the judge, who we can only
assume is playing Luke Skywalker to Lord Hutton's Yoda.

Although reasonably well reported one aspect of the police's defence has
been ignored. Chief Constable Lambert in his witness statement to the
court argued that he took these actions in order to uphold the
protestors human rights under Article 2. Article 2 is the right to life.

So what threat was there to the protestors lives? Lambert mentions the
tragedy "had a member of the public penetrated the defences and been
killed or injured by one of the armed personnel guarding the B52
aircraft ... [the] political consequences would have been extremely
damaging to the coalition partners ... and consequently could have
interfered with the prosecution of the war."

So Lambert seriously believed that protestors could be lawfully killed
for entering the base. Not surprisingly the Government lawyers didn't
use this defence in the trial. Perhaps because under the rules of
disclosure Lambert would have to produce the government's legal advice
and policy where Tony Blair was not only prepared to lie and ignore the
wishes of the population but was prepared to endorse the murder of
British citizens, armed with a Frisbee and a bag of toy plastic
soldiers.

:: alan 10:04 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To: Mr Malcolm Moss
MP for North East Cambridgeshire
House Of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Saturday 28 February 2004

Dear Mr Malcolm Moss,

According to a Press Association report of today;

'The Government has rejected fresh demands to release the Attorney-General's advice on the legality of the war in Iraq.

[....]

A Downing Street spokesman said: 'The Attorney-General's advice remains confidential because of the long-standing convention that advice from government law officers is not disclosed.'

I am sure I do not need to point out to an intelligent man that arguing that something should not be done solely on the grounds that it has not been done before is a specious argument at best. At worst it is the sort of argument that exists in order to obscure the actual reasoning behind the decision.

Therefore, I ask you to ask the government on my behalf to furnish a fuller explanation for why it is not prepared to release the Attorney General's opinion on legality of the war in Iraq.

The law itself is of course available for public scrutiny, and many conflicting opinions have been published. However, the legality of the war cannot be evaluated without access to the Attorney General's case. Is it satisfactory that we be asked to take the government's word that the war was legal? A democracy is only so to the extent to which its conduct is transparent.

I, personally, am not prepared to take Tony Blair's word for it and, frankly, would be surprised if you would.

I would be grateful for your confirmation that you will raise this matter in the House or, alternatively, your thoughts on why you disagree.

Yours sincerely,

alan

:: alan 21:33 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Zapatista update

Mexican armed forces attacked the Zapatista community of Nuevo San Rafael, burning down 23 homes and violently evicting the indigenous Chol inhabitants. The attack, which happened on either 19 or 22 January, took place in the remote Montes Azules jungle area of Chiapas. This eviction (that the authorities describe as "voluntary") contradicts declarations of the government of Chiapas and the environmental authorities who said there would be no evictions in Montes Azules.

The resource-rich area has long been coveted by multinationals. So the government’s helping them press forward with the ‘Plan Puebla Panama’, which aims to "develop" southern Mexico and Central America, exploiting natural resources, biodiversity and hydro-electricity by driving peasants off their land and into sweatshops. The “war of low intensity” against Zapatista autonomous communities amounts to blatant repression of locals to let multinationals get their grubby hands on the regions’ resources. The Secretary of Government of Chiapas, claiming to be worried about conservation, promises more evictions, declaring that land ‘invasions’ (by indigenous people!) will not be tolerated.

The fate of the inhabitants of Nuevo San Rafael is unknown; the army is preventing reporters and human rights observers from entering the area. Local indigenous leader, Josué Jiménez Cruz, has been arrested, and is apparently being held in prison.

According to a local human rights centre, 40 Marine and Police officers remain in the village. The community are being held incommunicado and the right to travel freely in the Montes Azules region has been suspended. The inhabitants of this community, are indigenous Choles; refugees who had to flee from Calvario in the north of Chiapas, two years ago due to threats and violence by a group known in true Orwellian style as ‘Peace and Justice’.

‘Peace and Justice’ destroyed their cooperative shop and a Zapatista health centre after turfing them off their land, conveniently for the local government. Not surprising then that one of the group’s leaders, Carlos Torres Lopez is also municipal president of Tila, Chiapas. He has used his position to funnel government resources to the paramilitary organization. During the August state elections, the group patrolled polling stations in the northern part of Chiapas using violence and intimidation against opponents of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which was in power in Mexico for more than 70 years until the 2000 elections.

Meanwhile in the north of Chiapas the Zapatista committee of good government has denounced a state of siege from the military, the situation also remains tense at the threatened Zapatista community Morelia and further north in the state of Morelos repression continues against the autonomous community of Tlanepantla,

One thing is certain, the Zapatistas will not give up their autonomy, won with their own blood. The autonomous municipality of Ricardo Flores Magon said: "A SHADOW of death is being raised in the heart of our land, of our mother, of our forest. A cloud of soldiers, paramilitaries, plans and projects is coming once again to threaten us, to rob us of our dream and to evict our indigenous communities.... But we are not going to permit eviction, nor the relocation of our communities, we are going to defend them with everything we have in our hands.."

International solidarity activity is vital.
ring the Mexican Embassy in London on 0207 499 8586 (open 9am-6pm)
Chiapas Indymedia

:: Tony 17:27 [link] ::

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The case for more liberal immigration policies; why does Britain have such restrictive immigration controls?

This paper argues strongly that policies on immigration are too restrictive and will attempt to analyse why they are so restrictive. It will not be an argument for open borders as it is clear that absolutes are not the solution to this complex debate. I will attempt to outline some of the philosophical or ethical debate on immigration policies and give a summary of the economic arguments for more migration and immigration. Based on these arguments there seems no logical reason for such restrictive immigration policies. I will then give some possible explanations why, in the light of this evidence, Britain has increasingly restrictive immigration policies. I will initially follow Joseph Carens’ division of the debate on immigration as a structure for my arguments. Carens divides the debate into ‘special claims’ (i.e. asylum and family reunification), culture and economics (Carens, 1995:2). This paper will attempt to cover them all but will concentrate on the debate over culture which seems the most controversial and complex.

Special claims

There seems to be a general consensus amongst scholars, politicians and the public that in theory refugees should be let in and cared for. This is backed up by wide international ratification of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The Convention sets out general guidelines for refugee policies which are reasonable and generous. However, it is regarded as not being comprehensive enough (Joly, 1996:9, and Carens 1995:2) and is open to interpretation by governments seeking to serve their own ends (Joly, 1996:18). The Convention does not afford protection to some people who need it and some asylum seekers whose cases have been judged strictly on the basis of the convention have been returned to their country of origin to death or persecution (Joly, Nettleton and Poulton, cited in ibid:12). Levels of acceptance and refusal vary enormously over time and in different countries. From a position of natural law or ‘black letter’ law, this situation is entirely unsatisfactory, as people should either be treated equally based on their humanity or by equal application of the law. Racially specific immigration policies have been removed from the law books but still persist implicitly (Naess, 1989, cited in ibid:24), political and economic factors also play important roles in refugee policies.

It is clear that morally we have a duty to protect those who have a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” (UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 1A (2)). With respect for The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, acknowledging the errors of the past and that many of today’s problems may be due to past actions of present day rich countries (Hayter, 2000:6, Black 1996:70). The reality is that this moral obligation is ignored or undermined by rich countries today. European Governments try to restrict numbers of asylum seekers by all means available to them (Joly, 1996:11). All western governments use strategies of ‘humane deterrence’ for asylum seekers which inevitably keep out people with strong claims as well as weak ones (Carens, 1995:2). National interest and economic reasons are still important factors in determining refugee policy (Joly, 1996:21). There is a clear conflict between a human rights approach to refugee issues and a state interest approach, which Kjaerum highlights in his article (Kjaerum, 2002:513). The argument over refugees and asylum seekers is a moral one and governments are not doing enough to satisfy their international obligations (Perry, 1995, in Schwartz, ed. 1995:120). It also seems that in some cases they seek to bypass or pervert the spirit of the 1951 convention through new policies which are not legislated against in the out- dated convention drawn up to deal with the aftermath of the second world war (Kjaerum, 2002:515). The issue of refugee policies is one where we can apply absolutes. Refugees should morally and legally be allowed asylum and not hindered from seeking it. In this sense it is clear that refugee policies are far too restrictive and should not be ‘restrictive’ at all.

Culture

Culture is perhaps the most controversial area of argument of the issues surrounding immigration. It is more difficult to bring data and ‘hard’ evidence to bear in debate. There are no international agreements on culture and immigration, apart from declarations on human rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights, which condemn discrimination on the basis of race. Nevertheless, cultural reasons have been used by many countries to decide who can and cannot enter, based on ideas of ‘cultural affinity’ or ‘cultural differences’ (Carens, 1995:5).

There is an argument that cultural homogeneity is necessary for the stability of a liberal democracy because the democracy relies on people feeling ties based on a shared culture (Perry, 1995, in Schwartz ed. 1995:113). There are good examples which support this argument, and good ones which do not. Perry questions whether ‘cultural stability’ equates to political stability (ibid.). This does not seem to be universally true, and we must ask ourselves if political stability is always desirable. Perry also asks whether the rate of cultural change is more important than the preservation of an existing culture, and that cultural change must be gradual to ensure social and political stability (ibid:114). This idea is convincing but unattractive and also contradicted by evidence. The UK, for example, has experienced radical social and cultural changes in the last fifty years, through immigration but mainly through protest and reform, all the time maintaining a stable moderate democracy with two main parties competing endlessly over the same issues. Perry suggests that we challenge intolerance and not give in to it, we should not, he states, be trapped into a restrictive immigration policy by a homogenous population who don’t like foreigners (ibid:115). He argues that the ‘cultural stability’ he seeks may not require cultural homogeneity or the preservation of substantive aspects of the dominant culture but only a measure of ‘cultural continuity’. On this basis he concludes that immigration policies of liberal states should not forbid entry to people on cultural or racial grounds, but he concedes that they may impose limits to ensure ‘cultural continuity’ (ibid.).

Perry, Trebilcock and Carens reveal one of the key debates about culture and immigration, between the values of community and the values of liberty (Carens, 1995;15).

Community
Habermas asserts that immigrants should adapt to the culture of the society to which migrate as “liberal democratic institutions depend upon and presuppose certain cultural commitments” (Carens, 1995:6). This type of argument has been furthered by Michael Walzer who states that the production of a complex unique culture is a fundamental part of a liberal democratic state, and that it is legitimate for a state to protect its culture by restricting immigration (ibid.). The ability to control entry is an expression of a nation’s identity and autonomy- its sovereignty. Walzer argues that autonomous states are free, like autonomous individuals to do what they want and often pursue self serving policies. He goes on to say that an admissions policy is one of the most basic policies as it affects the nature of the very community. “Admission and exclusion are at the core of communal independence, without them nations would not exist as we know them”. (Walzer, cited by Trebilcock, 1995:222). Walzer uses the analogy of elite universities which he says are like affluent rich countries; besieged by applicants, and who must decide on their size and character (Black, 1995:68).

Walzer maintains that communities will form without international boundaries (Perry, 1995:118), a statement that rings true in the modern world of states with many cultural communities within their borders (India, USA) and cultural communities that cross many borders (Arabs, Chinese). Walzer’s claims that cultural communities have the right to their own distinct culture (ibid.), seem naive in the light of historical processes that have brought a huge mixing of cultures, constant creation and merging of cultural communities, mimicry and hybridity amongst cultural communities. Walzer's theories permit any limitations on immigration including racial ones (Trebilcock, 1995:222). Perry does not agree that Walzer’s arguments justify action by the state to protect cultural communities, but he maintains that ‘cultural communities’ have the right to control their membership and not be coerced into change (Perry, 1995:120).

Walzer’s theories assume that political sovereignty is a nearly absolute value (Trebilcock, 1995:223) which is clearly false in today’s world of international organisations, conventions, treaties, and the power of international corporations over national governments. National sovereignty is further undermined by unilateral actions of powerful countries interfering in weak countries affairs for their own benefit, which has been a recurring feature of twentieth and twenty-first century international relations. Walzer's notion of ‘cultural communities of character’ only including those communities that reflect ethnic, religious or ideological commonalities has been criticised by many liberals on the basis that common commitment to liberal civic institutions and neutrality towards sub communities can sustain ‘communities of character’ (ibid:223). Walzer’s arguments are unrealistic in the modern context, simplistic in his analysis of culture and dangerous in their potential for and history of use by far right/racist groups.
Most European countries seem to follow Walzer’s ideas on immigration, as a justification for their restrictive policies. Even Walzer’s ideas, however can provide us with a framework for a less restrictive immigration policy. Walzer would argue for better application of the international laws and treaties signed by governments, such as honouring the spirit as well as the letter of the 1951 Convention. Also, responding more positively and less Eurocentrically to family reunification programmes. Equality of treatment for migrants across Europe. Walzer’s argument for the equal treatment of those admitted to residence can be used against the different ‘statuses’ of refugees and migrants across Europe (Black, 1996:69). Walzer’s arguments provide a case for less restrictions to family reunification programmes and refugee policies (ibid:71).

Liberty
Rawls and Dworkin disagree with Habermas and Walzer, in their extrapolation of the “commitment to individual autonomy” which “requires liberal states to be neutral with respect to different cultures.” (Carens. 1995:6). Trebilcock’s paper sums up some of the key arguments for the importance of liberty in immigration. The ‘libertarian perspective’, sees the state as only justified in it’s role to protect property rights and facilitate voluntary exchange. On this basis people should be free to move as long as they do not violate anybody else’s rights by imposing involuntary burdens on them (Trebilcock, 1995:220). This laissez-faire approach, is the one used by those free trade disciples who actually believe in applying the principles of free trade.

A ‘Rawlsian’, ‘social contractarian perspective’ maintains that justice is based on an unwritten ‘contract’ between members of society seeking mutual benefit for all and protecting certain rights of members (Black, 1995:66). For this approach we should take a global, not national perspective. The equal value of all human beings means that a fair procedure for deciding principles of justice would ignore all issues of citizenship or non-citizenship, race, class, sex or social group. The principles of justice should also adopt the perspective of those most disadvantaged by restrictions on immigration (for example). “From this perspective” says Trebilcock, “very few restrictions on immigration can be justified.” (Trebilcock, 1995:221). Rawls does recognise however, that some liberties may be restricted for the sake of protecting wider liberty. Liberty, after all, depends on public order and security being maintained, which may have limiting implications on personal liberties (ibid.). Carens interprets Rawlsian ideas as a call for open borders. Galloway on the other hand maintains that control is still necessary; as people in a society cannot be expected to compromise their autonomy in order to promote the autonomy of immigrants (ibid).

The ‘utilitarian’ or ‘consequential’ approach puts emphasis on the idea of the greatest good for the greatest number (Black, 1995:66). The application of this principle would involve weighing up the costs and benefits of immigration to all involved (Trebilcock, 1995:221). This is obviously enormously complex and difficult but we can simplify it for the purposes of debate. It is agreed that in general the citizens of the host country benefit at least moderately from immigration (see the economics section). There may be some citizens who gain and some who lose, so it is difficult to come to a clear answer to this part. The immigrants themselves are seen as benefiting, otherwise, presumably they would not have moved (ibid.). The other difficult part of the ‘utilitarian calculus’ for immigration is the effect on the country of origin, this is enormously complex and controversial. Many studies have found conflicting evidence. Is the effect positive, providing remittances and lowering unemployment? Or is it negative, depriving a society of it’s most able and dynamic members? Utilitarian perspectives thus provide more scope for restrictions on immigration than the other approaches, but the emphasis is still on relatively more open borders (Trebilcock, 1995:221).

Economy

Economic costs or benefits are often used as an argument for and against immigration (Carens, 1995:6). Trebilcock’s excellent article analyses the “empirical evidence on the welfare effects of immigration”. He opens this section by stating that open or free immigration is without doubt the “optimal global strategy”. This would encourage human resources to move where they will be most productively employed (Trebilcock, 1995:232). This is the essence of the neo liberal, free trade arguments. Hamilton and Whaley estimated that for 1977 the gain from removing all restrictions on migration would exceed worldwide GNP that year. This estimate has been questioned but more qualified estimates of the benefits are still enormous (ibid.). The positive economic effects of immigration work in two main ways, The ‘scale effect’, where a bigger population generates economies of scale, and the ‘dependency effect’, where immigrants are working age, contributing members of society (ibid:233). Trebilcock identifies three influential studies of the economic effects of immigration.

The Economic Council of Canada’s 1991 study of the possible effects of massive immigration to Canada estimated significant but relatively modest economic benefits to the native born population (ibid.). This is the view that Carens seems to support (Carens, 1995:16). The report also concluded that adding new labour immigrants did not increase unemployment (Coyne, 2002).

Julian Simon’s work (1989 and 1993) on the economic effects of immigration, based on the experience of the US, predicts bigger returns. He concludes that, “additional immigrants raise the standard of living of native born persons in western countries and have little or no negative effect upon any occupation or income class” (Simon, 1993:10). Simon asserts that all the economic objections to immigration have been falsified in the last few decades. He covers the scale effect and the dependency effect; stating that immigrants pay more in taxes than the cost of the welfare they receive. They do not displace host country citizens from jobs, raise productivity and make a country more competitive internationally (ibid.). Trebilcock does not accept Simons’ assertions on the scale effect of immigration, as international finance, he says, can provide large markets regardless of borders (Trebilcock, 1995:233). This has some truth to it in the era of globalisation and multinational corporations. However, the dreams of free trade are still just dreams and protectionist tariff systems mean a big population and internal market are still important for a strong economy. The strong economies of the USA and China and the way in which these countries are pandered to in the international political economy are examples of this.

Borjas argues that recent immigrant groups to the USA and Canada are of ‘lower quality’ than previous ones (Borjas, 1985:463). Their increase in earning as they assimilate is slower and they do not, as had been assumed before, overtake native born incomes in 10-15 years (ibid:484). This pattern has coincided with a shift in the ethnic makeup of immigrants to the US and Canada, from mainly European to mainly Asian (Trebilcock, 1995:236). Borjas states that family reunification programmes may be responsible for the fall in earnings (ibid:235). Borjas also provides rather confusing contradictory evidence when he states that these ‘family class’ immigrants and their children often outperform independent immigrants (ibid:235). Perhaps the rate of assimilation of Asians is slower than Europeans, perhaps the economic situation in the last 20 years has not been as easy for immigrants as it was before, and perhaps family reunification programmes do not provide the most economically productive immigrants. None of these factors, however, constitute a reasonable argument against immigration.

It is clear that the economic arguments for less restricted immigration are compelling and powerful. Many articles in the Economist and Financial Times have argued in favour of immigration. Economists usually cite non-economic reasons for the restriction of immigration. In terms of economic justice it does seem incongruous that free trade means free movement of goods and capital but not of workers. Fielding (1993), sums up succinctly the injustice of this situation where, “those who own capital can make a living by using that capital almost anywhere in the world; however, those who do not own capital must make a living by selling their labour power ... only in ‘their’ country” (Fielding, 1993:41, cited in Black 1996:72).

Size and Composition of Intake

It seems clear that less restrictive immigration policies make sense. It is also clear that a massive sudden intake of immigrants will be problematic (Trebilcock, 1995:224), economically and culturally. Carens makes the analogy of a lifeboat carrying survivors away from a sinking ship, it makes no sense for so many people to crowd on to the lifeboat that it sinks, or none will be saved (ibid.). Trebilcock also suggests that some level of natural equilibrium or positive checks may set in before the boat analogy needs to be used (ibid.). In any case a sudden massive flows of immigrants are unusual, and are more associated with refugee movements in the developing world. For Carens, restrictions on immigration in a just state are only morally justified when the immigration is considered a threat, by it’s size or nature (Black 1995:67).

So if we are to control immigration to some extent we have to make some choices about who we let in and who we exclude. How should this be decided? On the basis of benefit to the host society based on their potential economic contribution (Carens, 1995:7), or by a random value free method such as a lottery or queue system which ignores the relative merits of different immigrants (Trebilcock, 1995:225)? There are some more straightforward points, people who pose a threat to out society should be excluded, but what will we define as a threat? What of people who pose a threat to our liberty or liberalness? Should we, as Carens asks, be tolerant of the intolerant; to the extent that our society becomes less tolerant and liberal (ibid)?

These questions cannot be answered here, but demonstrate that once we have agreed on a level of control there are a huge number of possible debates surrounding how we decide who can enter and who cannot. Most approaches agree on some levels of control of immigration, (much below the current ones), but all of the above theories stress our moral responsibilities towards refugees (ibid:226).

Why does Britain have such restrictive policies?

With overwhelming evidence that restrictive immigration policies are not justified, morally, legally or economically, we must ask why Britain has such restrictive policies? Why do governments not take a ‘positive law view’ and strive to comply with existing laws and treaties, which would bring an improvement in the situation? (Black 1995:66) Why have successive governments ignored mainstream academic thought that argues for more liberal policies for many reasons and from many perspectives? Who stands to gain from this situation? and who is responsible for the huge level of misinformation and propaganda spread about immigration and refugee issues?

There are several reasons for this situation, they are interconnected and are made particularly powerful by their vote winning potential. Some argue that creating a situation of ‘illegal’ or undocumented migration is in the interests of governments and big business. It ensures a supply of illegal or semi-legal cheap labour needed for some industries (Teitelbaum, 1984, cited in Joly, 1996:22). This type of situation brings labour costs down for big business, weakens the power of labour unions and contributes positively to the economy in general. The increase in ad-hoc policies, temporary permits and exceptional or compassionate leave to remain is a further symptom of this. By denying full status to immigrants but allowing them to remain, governments do not have to fulfil their responsibilities and can change these special statuses quickly to regain control or expel immigrants when they want. Keeping immigrants illegal or in some semi-formal status also stops them from gaining voting rights and upsetting the status quo through democratic reform.

Many argue that UK Immigration policy is racist, or designed to achieve racist principles (Prashar, 1986:107, Joly, 1996:24, Hayter, 2000:4, Randall, 2003). Successive government policies have succeeded in keeping black citizens of Commonwealth countries out of Britain whilst allowing white Commonwealth citizens easier access. The 1993 Maastricht Treaty gave 200 million Europeans the right to move to Britain, and the government does not seem concerned about this, nor the lesson that not many have actually moved here. Hayter cites Ian Spencer’s (1997) book on British immigration policy which has excerpts from government documents in which civil servants in the 1950s, 60s and 70s discuss trying to make policies which achieve racist aims but are not openly racist (Hayter, 2000:46). Hayter argues that ‘immigration problems’ are problems of the racism of Europeans and North Americans (Hayter, 2000:4). Prevention of ‘racial problems’ is often cited as a reason for restrictive immigration policies (Carens, 1996:160) It seems ridiculous to believe that preventing immigrants from coming will make attitudes towards other races better. Indeed, the media and government presentation of refugees as undesirables to be kept out has quite the opposite effect (Hayter, 2000:164). Hayter puts forward a clear and damning account of British immigration history and policy. She highlights the crude analysis in 1920’s discourse about assimilation problems, and the different ability to assimilate of different races, that is still used today (ibid:23). The role of public opinion is also highlighted, the rumours and false accusations levied at immigrants from the blood drinking Jews of the 19th century (ibid:29) to the ‘terrorist’ Algerians (all nine since released without charges after a year in prison and on bail) of 2003 (Clennel, 2003). This type of public opinion does not form naturally however, and does not form overnight. It is the effect of a sustained onslaught of media attention, in the news, on TV, in the newspapers and in films (Choudry, 2001, Randall, 2003).

An analysis of the role of the media in the creation of the current ‘immigration crisis’, public opinion on immigration and policy formulation is frankly scary. It quickly assumes the features of a conspiracy, making Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s propaganda model look ever more accurate. The mainstream media in Britain have been complicit in spreading lies and racist attitudes about immigrants (Hayter, 2000:30) to the extent that even the Police have been concerned at some points about the effects of this press coverage (ibid:31). Police figures show that ‘ethnic minorities’ have about the same or lower crime levels that white British people, the media portrays exactly the opposite image (ibid.). Numbers of ‘ethnic minority groups’, immigrants and refugees are regularly exaggerated by the press; statistics which are taken up by politicians and the public (ibid:33). Hayter also cites statistics from Zig Layton Henry’s book ‘The Politics of Immigration’, on migration in Britain, showing that in every decade from 1871 to 1991 apart from the 1930s and 1950s there was net emigration from Britain. The immigration in the 1930s was largely returnees from the depression in the USA. Robin Cohen sets the record straight when he states, “Many of the population invasions of the last 250 years started, not ended, in Britain”. The media, present the opposite situation; one of Britain ‘under siege’ being ‘swamped’ or ‘invaded’ by immigrants (Hayter, 2000:20). It is also important to recognise the historical context, neglected by the media, of many migration patterns and how Western European countries have been deeply implicated in the creation of economic and political situations which create migration flows (Black, 1996:70, Hayter, 2000:6).

Matthew Randall’s (2003) study of three British newspapers on asylum and immigration makes equally shocking reading. He analyses the themes mentioned in connection with refugee or immigration issues in 90 recent articles from the Guardian, Independent and Telegraph. The themes that attracted the vast majority of the attention were all relatively micro level, negative issues such as: Exclusion policies aimed at ‘bogus’ asylum seekers, Crime/terrorism by asylum seekers, and accommodation/detention of asylum seekers. Themes that failed to attract any attention whatsoever were macro level issues: The effect of immigration on UK population figures, poverty in sending countries, effects of the arms trade (the fact for example that the UK exports arms to all the top five countries of origin for asylum seekers), effects of western economic policies in sending countries and comparison of UK refugee intake with that of developing countries. The further results of Randall’s study are a serious endightment of three of Britain’s supposedly most intelligent newspapers (Randall, 2003).

Randall applies Noam Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model of media control to his findings and finds that they fit very well. Macro issues that are embarrassing to powerful state corporate interests, such as the arms trade and the effects of economic trade liberalisation are ignored or neglected. There was also a strong conformity found in which topics were discussed even though the newspapers have supposedly different political stances. The dominance of party political opinion over NGO, refugee or academic voices fits exactly with the propaganda model’s third ‘filter’ of news. The filters which Chomsky and Herman outline, “narrow the range of news” that the public has access to, blocking the aspirations of the poor and encouraging the views of big business (Chomsky and Herman, 1994:2). The third of these filters refers to the control of news by government or big business sources ( Chomsky and Herman, 1994:18, Smith, 1999:200). Randall concludes “The results of this case study indicate a consistent tendency amongst ideologically distinct newspapers to focus on aspects of immigration and asylum that concur with the priorities of the political elite.” (Randall, 2003)

Ronald Kaye’s larger 2001 study, came to similar disturbing findings about press representation of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK in the 1990s. His analysis covers the types of language used, frequency of use, number exaggeration, racism and sensationalism. He concludes darkly that these trends will lead to the continued blaming of the powerless victims of international politics for the problems caused by the most powerful actors (Kaye, 2001).

The Refugee Council also attempt to show some of the misinformation and propaganda spread by the mainstream media, in their fact sheet ‘Nailing Press Myths About Refugees’. They quote newspapers and then set the record straight; this for example from The Sun, 14 September 2002: "Britain the No.1 refugee magnet". Produced this response: “No. 1? Even within the EU, the UK ranked 10th in terms of asylum applications in relation to the overall population in 2001. The truth about refugee movements is the world's poorest countries both produce and bear responsibility for most refugees. During 1992-2001, 86 per cent of the world's estimated 12 million refugees originated from developing countries, whilst such countries provided asylum to 72 per cent of the global population (source: UNHCR)” (Refugee Council, 2002).

Hayter argues that the racism and misinformation has some economic basis. It suits employers and the state, she says, to make immigrants into scapegoats to divert attention from the ‘deficiencies of capitalism’. It also divides the workforce to provide exploitable labour, both in the developed countries and in the world as a whole (Hayter, 2000:163). Objections to immigration she maintains are also based on irrational ideas that cultural mixing is undesirable and that cultural homogeneity is the goal. This, she says is what drives the far right, and what has been the major force in the introduction of restrictive immigration controls (ibid). That restrictive immigration policies are based on racism alone, seems unrealistic. Big business and governments may be racist, but surely are more concerned with economic issues that will over ride or suppress racism.

The issue of blaming the victim is one which Kaye and Randall picked up on. Randall suggests in his press analysis that attention was being diverted from issues such as global inequality and the arms trade to the details of the refugees themselves. Putting the blame on the refugees and hiding from the real, larger issues that have serious implications. This seems a plausible theory, the use of this vulnerable group who are denied many rights due to their status as undesirable non citizens, as a diversion from the real issues.

Scapegoating is useful for power retention and the continuation of the status quo (i.e. inequality and elite dominance). The promotion of irrational fears and beliefs in order to retain respect and control amongst the public can also be described as political scapegoating, recognized as a common political strategy. It can involve the deliberate use of foreign labour as an excuse or reason for a growth in unemployment or other social problems and avoiding a more critical serious look at government policies (Randall, 2003b). Nora Rathzel has explored this concept, linking it with notions of control. She sees the success of scapegoating as primarily due to its ability to enable the victim (of unemployment for example) to become a conscious social actor rather than a passive victim, a transformation she calls “the externalisation of internal conflicts”. In western societies this changes the negative perception of control and exclusion that go with restrictions on the movements of immigrants and asylum seekers and transform them into positive personal aspects of control:

”control of the Other enables the majority to feel in control of their own fate: internal conflicts like unemployment, housing problems, cultural conflicts, etc., can be externalised, that is projected on ‘outsiders’ and thus made the object of political and economic measures and convey the idea that things are under control.” (Rathzel, cited by Randall 2003b)

Societies apparently, often need someone to blame, and blaming asylum seekers is easy and still apparently politically correct. Moreover, by focusing so narrowly on those asylum seekers who somehow managed to get here, their conditions, habits, etc. (which somehow makes good news) we can ignore the wider more important issues. Following the ideas of Chomsky and Herman in the propaganda model, this analysis seems convincing. By creating an image of immigrants as negative scroungers coming to take our jobs, the government can then control immigration at whatever level suits it’s interests best at that moment. It can justify policies which keep them out using prejudices and fears constructed and nurtured through the media and justify letting them in as being in line with the well reported ‘British tradition’ of tolerance and giving asylum.

Conclusion

In the sections of ‘special claims’ and ‘economics’ it was broadly clear that restrictive policies on immigration are unjust and unsound. More difficult to analyse was the sphere of culture, cultural mixing and homogeneity. There are many philosophical approaches to this. It does seem to eventually boil down to a political question about culturally homogenous societies. Personally, I see no extra value in a culturally homogenous society and think Britain’s multicultural society is one of it’s greatest attributes. Nevertheless, more objectively, all the above theories on culture and immigration do seem to agree that immigration controls are too restrictive. The question of why then, we have restrictive policies, still seems concerned with this debate over culture. Racism and xenophobia in the media, policies and public opinion, appear to have created a racist anti-immigration public opinion which leads to stricter policies. Restrictive anti-immigration policies feed and confirm public opinion, and so the vicious cycle continues. But are we really a nation of bigots? Or are there powerful interests at stake that are hidden by the mainstream media, because of its control by government and big business? The big debate over culture and racism may be a populist smokescreen to hide the activities of governments and big corporations, in particular the arms industry. Both these lines of argument hold some truth, but it still remains somewhat unclear as to why the economic goldmine that is increased immigration is restricted by the very people who could gain the most from it.

Bibliography (I have only included the electronic references)

Choudry, A., 2001, ‘Suspicious Minds’, http://www.zmag.org/choudrycalam2.htm

Clennel, A, 2003, ‘Charges Dropped in Algerian Terror Case’, The Independent, 10.12.1003

Coyne, A, 2002, ‘Immigration Debate Unstifled’, National Post, 28 Sept, 2002, http://www.urbanrenaissance.org/urbanren/index.cfm?DSP=content&ContentID=5553#Welcome

Economist Website: http://www.economist.com/

European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms:
http://www.pfc.org.uk/legal/echrtext.htm

Financial Times Website: http://news.ft.com/home/uk

Randall, M., 2003, ‘The Media on Asylum and Immigration’, Media Lens, December 9, 2003, http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4646§ionID=21

Randall, M., 2003, correspondence (below)

Refugee Council, 2002, ‘Nailing press Myths About Refugees’, http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/news/myths/myth001.htm

United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees:
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_c_ref.htm

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Utilitarianism.org, article on utilitarianism from The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. Thomas Mautner http://www.utilitarianism.com/utilitarian.htm

:: Tony 16:23 [link] ::

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paul celan - gedichte, prosa

:: phil 14:43 [link] ::

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Media Lens... correspondance on immigration and asylum and the media. let me know if you want more... and I'll post my term paper on the subject. (bzeitlyn@hotmail.com)

Dear Editor/Mattew Randall

I am a MA student at Sussex University studying Migration studies, and
recently read your excellent article on the media and asylum and
immigration. I was shocked by the findings of your study, which surprised
even a cynic like me.

one probelm which I have, and am working on for a paper I am writing, is
what precisely are the state-corporate interests in such tight controls on
immigration? surely an influx of cheap foreign labour is good for big
business and the government? Are the rulers of the world really just
racists, surely the colour of your workers isn't important as long as they
are cheap and expliotable? The only logical explanation I can think of, is
that government and big business benefit by keeping immigrants illegal, so
they have no rights or unions and can be paid less. I would very much like
to hear your thoughts on this. Economists agree however, that legal
immigration is good for the economy, why don't their masters listen to
them?

While I am writing to you I would like to recommend SchNEWS; a bastion of
truth and media activsm which I am invoved in here in Brighton. It is
available free on line at http://www.schnews.co.uk/. This week's issue
includes an article about press treatment of the arrest and subsequent
release after a year of nine Algerians arrested on terror charges.

thanks, and keep up the good work, personally I think there is very little
more important.

yours sincerely Benji Zeitlyn

The reply... it's long and good.

Hi Benji!

Medialens passed on your email to me and I was grateful for your supportive
comments on the article. I also wanted to make some comment on the questions you
set out.

I think the issue you raise is a very interesting one and one which I also faced
in my research. The issue has definitely scope for a much wider study than I
have made. (My thesis was written on a multi-disciplinary basis, including
primarily media structures as well as migration). However what I have uncovered
has led me to the conclusion that +most+ of the players in the state/economical
elite pursue extremely tight immigration controls for a combination of the
following reasons:

1) Racism. For me this +is+ a major contributing factor. Van Djik’s work on
elite discourse and racism is particularly instructive in this regard. Overt
racism existed freely amongst political parties in the years up until the Second
World War. The political discourse used during parliamentary debates discussing
immigration laws reveals an overt use of racist terminology. Immigrants are
described as “refuse and scum� or “sewage� and are repeatedly referred to as
“diseased.� This reflected the general normality of open racist ideology that
permeated elite political circles in the pre-war period. The British High
Commissioner in South Africa could state, without fear of reprisal that:

“A political equality of white and black is impossible. The white man must rule
because he is elevated by many, many steps above the black man.�

Even at the highest levels, racism formed a respectable discourse. Winston
Churchill, during his term as the UK Prime Minister, declared that there was no
reason to be “apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority� for the simple
explanation that “We are superior.� The origin of such racist discourse has, of
course, a long and violent history in the UK and Europe, involving in the case
of the former, the colonial and imperialistic brutalities committed since the
fifteenth century. As Van Dijk points out:

“For centuries, the predominant feature of the political and other elites in
Europe has been the derogation, inferiorization, exploitation, subjugation and
occasional genocide of non-Europeans.�

After the Second World War, various factors, including popular horror expressed
at the explicit racism of the Holocaust, the process of decolonisation and the
civil rights movement in the USA, made overt expressions of racism more of a
political liability, as well as becoming increasingly against the law. Racist
language certainly continued in a non-official context away from the public gaze
but became increasing less prevalent in official discourse. An example of such
discourse and motivations can be seen in the comments of Lord Swinton of the
Commonwealth Relations Office, recorded in 1954:

“If we legislate on immigration, though we can draft it in non-discriminatory
terms, we cannot conceal the obvious fact that the object is to keep out
coloured people. […] [A large coloured community] is certainly no part of the
concept of England or Britain to which British stock throughout the Commonwealth
are attached.�

The discriminatory intent of the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act was borne out
by the comments of the Conservative Home Secretary who privately explained the
Act’s new requirements as follows:

“The great merit of this scheme is that it can be presented as making no
distinction on race or colour […] Although the scheme purports to relate solely
to employment and to be non-discriminatory, the aim is primarily social and its
restrictive effect is intended to, and would in fact, operate on coloured people
almost exclusively.�

The 1971 Immigration Act effectively ended primary immigration from the less
wealthy areas of the Commonwealth by abolishing the distinction between ‘Aliens’
and ‘British Subjects’, whilst just two year later, the inherently racist, as
opposed to practical, nature of this decision was exposed by the complete lack
of government opposition to EEC membership, opening Britain to a potential 200
million people.

As Van Djik points out there are two main channels through which the political
elite in Europe continues to propagate racism in a covert way. Firstly political
debate and subsequent legislation relating to ethnic issues, in particular
immigration, has been confined almost exclusively to the exact stereotypes and
prejudices that fuel racism, and secondly the whole force of political policies
surrounding non-European, or more accurately non-white, immigration, has always
been approached from an exclusionary rather than a welcoming or supporting point
of view.

The UK political elite’s policy record explicitly reflects this observation. The
steady flow of legislation since the 1905 Aliens Act has seen a significant
majority of political debate to concern overtly negative aspects of immigration,
including disease, crime, overcrowding, security, and other such concepts that
fuel racist stereotyping. This has predictably helped to ensure that each piece
of legislation has had, at its base, the goal to reduce the chance of certain
immigrants entering Britain, in most cases explicitly stated as a policy goal.
The historical policy distinctions between minority, non-white immigrants and
other groups, indicates the inherent racism guiding the political agenda.

2) Nationalism. Apart from reflecting the overt and covert racist ideologies of
the political elite, the fuelling of stereotyping also indicates the strong
connection between immigration policies in the UK and Europe and the concept of
nationalism. This has been marked by an obsession with border controls that can
appear totally out of proportion to the financial and demographic effects of
immigration. However once placed into a wider historical context of political
power in Europe a pattern of elite agenda can be seen to emerge. Nationalism has
traditionally been a useful conceptual tool of elites to retain control over
populaces through a process of artificial standardisation, exploiting the human
desire to belong to a group and to measure that membership through defining the
‘other.’ Panayi, in his work on European minorities , views nationalism as a
consequence of changes in the elite levels of society, from kingship to the
control of the bourgeoisie. In this light nationalism was initially used to
“divide proletarians of one nation from those of another and therefore allowing
bourgeois values to become dominant.�

Following industrialisation nationalism began to play a leading role in its
provision of a “home market� and the mobilising of an artificially unified
populace who would work towards the interests of the ruling classes. Later the
concept became popular in persuading the poorer members of society to fight for
the goals and strategies of the political elites.

In term of contemporary European immigration policy, nationalism’s endurance in
the face of the opening of world trade barriers and massively increased global
communication systems can be seen to represent the continued usefulness of this
concept in mobilizing populaces to support the goals of the political elites. As
Räthzel points out:

“Constant preoccupation with refuges and so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ is one
of the few ways through which the nation state can still reproduce itself as a
social agent and prove to a less consenting population that it has things ‘under
control’ and is willing and able to protect its population – not from social
hardships but from a threatening alien force.�

3) The usefulness of Scapegoating for power retention and the continuation of
the status quo (i.e. inequality and elite dominance). This promotion of
disproportionate fears in order to retain respect and control amongst the
populace can also be described as political scapegoating, long recognized as a
common strategy of politicians. In short, it involves the deliberate use of
foreign labour as an excuse or reason for a growth in unemployment or other
social problems, thus diverting attention away from more realistic questions
being asked of governmental policy. Räthzel has explored this concept in greater
detail, linking it in particular with notions of control. She sees the success
of scapegoating as primarily due to its ability to enable the victim (of
unemployment for example) to be transformed from a passive figure to a conscious
social actor, a transformation she calls “the externalisation of internal
conflicts� . This manifests itself in western societies by removing the negative
aspects of control and exclusion that accompany restrictions on the movements of
immigrants and asylum seekers and transforming them into positive personal
aspects of control:

“[…] control of the Other enables the majority to feel in control of their own
fate: internal conflicts like unemployment, housing problems, cultural
conflicts, etc., can be externalised, that is projected on ‘outsiders’ and thus
made the object of political and economic measures and convey the idea that
things are under control.�

Dummet describes the political expolitation of this psychology in
straightforward power terms:

“The principle governing the policies of the Conservative and Labour
Governments, and indeed, with a very few honourable exceptions, of all
Conservative and Labour politicians, has been exactly the same. The objective,
in this case has been to maximise electoral support: to gain votes. This, indeed
has been the principle on which British governments have acted in respect of
would-be immigrants and refugees.�

4) The economic benefits of a large stock of illegal immigrants who are unable
to access union/legal access for employment/wage abuses. You have already
mentioned this so I won’t go into detail! A further pertinent comment is that it
also prevents this immigrant group from gaining any potential democratic rights
with regard to the host country, potentially upsetting the elite status quo.
Incidently on the issue of cheap foreign labour, this can be already directly
accessed +within+ foreign countries by large western multinationals with the
added benefits that working conditions are far from the daily observation of
western populations who might potentially react democratically to prevent such
exploitation. This could be seen to diminish the need for immigration to fulfill
this, whilst lending greater precendent to the other factors mentioned above .

I hope this provides helps in some way. Apologies if I cover ground you already
knew! Thanks once again for the message of support.

Kind regards

Matthew

:: Tony 14:09 [link] ::

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