Immigration Policy, Race Relations and Multiculturalism in Post-Colonial Great Britain Flora Macivor Épouse Lamoureux
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The Setting Sun : Immigration Policy, Race Relations and Multiculturalism in Post-Colonial Great Britain Flora Macivor Épouse Lamoureux To cite this version: Flora Macivor Épouse Lamoureux. The Setting Sun : Immigration Policy, Race Relations and Multi- culturalism in Post-Colonial Great Britain. History. 2010. dumas-00534579 HAL Id: dumas-00534579 https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00534579 Submitted on 10 Nov 2010 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITE DU SUD TOULON-VAR FACULTE DES LETTRES ET SCIENCES HUMAINES MASTER RECHERCHE : CIVILISATIONS CONTEMPORAINES ET COMPAREES ANNÉE 2009-2010, 1ERE SESSION THE SETTING SUN: IMMIGRATION POLICY, RACE RELATIONS AND MULTICULTURALISM IN POST- COLONIAL GREAT BRITAIN FLORA MACIVOR LAMOUREUX UNDER THE DIRECTION OF PROFESSOR GILLES LEYDIER ii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................ 1 THE FIRST BRITISH ASIANS: A HISTORY .............................................................. 8 I. The Colonial Era and Early Immigration ................................................................ 10 The “divide and rule” theory .................................................................................. 10 Segregation in colonial cities.................................................................................. 11 The British colonial attitude ................................................................................... 12 History of immigration to Britain ........................................................................... 13 II. The First “British Asians”: 1945-1968 .................................................................. 15 The post-war period................................................................................................ 15 The Arrival of South Asians in Britain................................................................... 16 The “myth of return”............................................................................................... 18 The Commonwealth Immigrants Act ..................................................................... 20 Immigrants as employees........................................................................................ 25 1965 Revisions to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act......................................... 26 1968 revisions to the Commonwealth Immigrants Act .......................................... 26 III. British Asians Put Down Roots ............................................................................ 27 The interdependency of the South Asian community............................................. 27 The Kenya and Uganda Asians............................................................................... 29 Causes of discrimination against South Asian immigrants .................................... 31 Immigrants and religion.......................................................................................... 34 SOCIAL EXCLUSION OF SOUTH ASIANS IN GREAT BRITAIN TODAY........... 35 I. Race Relations and Immigration Restrictions: South Asians in British Politics.... 37 The UK model: a dual approach............................................................................ 37 Political Racism and the British extreme right ....................................................... 39 Immigration policy and race relations in the Conservative Party........................... 41 Immigration policy and race relations in the Labour Party .................................... 43 Criticism of British anti-discrimination law ........................................................... 46 The Macpherson Report.......................................................................................... 47 Towards new immigration quotas?......................................................................... 48 II. The Situation of Contemporary British Asians..................................................... 49 The British Asian “community” ............................................................................. 49 “Feeling” British..................................................................................................... 50 Physical segregation of South Asians..................................................................... 50 Bradford: the “sum of all fears”?............................................................................ 52 Consequences of physical segregation: a comparison............................................ 54 South Asian Studies in British universities............................................................. 57 Language ability and employment.......................................................................... 58 III. The Generation Gap.............................................................................................. 60 The generation gap in film and literature................................................................ 60 The generation gap in reality .................................................................................. 63 THE PARTICULAR SITUATION OF BRITISH MUSLIMS ...................................... 65 I. Specific Challenges to Muslim Integration ............................................................. 66 Muslims as the Minority......................................................................................... 66 Difficulties in Language Acquisition...................................................................... 67 The Politics of biridari ............................................................................................ 68 Gender inequality.................................................................................................... 70 The Muslim Generation Gap .................................................................................. 71 Sharia courts ........................................................................................................... 71 iii II. British Muslims and Extremism............................................................................. 73 The London subway bombings............................................................................... 73 Young Muslims and Extremism ............................................................................. 74 The colonial hypothesis .......................................................................................... 75 Islamophobia in Britain .......................................................................................... 75 The Bosnia effect.................................................................................................... 76 The problem of foreign imams ............................................................................... 77 Effects of the generation gap .................................................................................. 77 Extremism in universities ....................................................................................... 78 III. Hope for the Future............................................................................................... 79 British Muslim Success Stories .............................................................................. 79 Muslim Youthwork Foundation.............................................................................. 80 The Muslim Youth Hotline..................................................................................... 81 The Nasiha Program ............................................................................................... 81 City Circle............................................................................................................... 82 The An-Nisa Society............................................................................................... 82 Is Islam the culprit?................................................................................................. 83 CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 88 APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ 94 TABLE OF CONTENTS.............................................................................................. 103 iv INTRODUCTION 1 It has long been said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire.” With territories on every continent and an empire that encompassed, at its peak, one quarter of the world’s population and of the world’s land surface, this statement can be taken quite literally. Asians, Indians, Africans, Europeans; white, red, black or yellow, all races and ethnicities were united under the common title of “British subjects.” But since that glorious era of Pax Britannica, the situation in Britain has shifted. Today, Britain’s borders have receeded, and they are now closed to