A) SOCIAL IMPACT
Today the inflow of refugees and asylum seekers has transformed
English society
into a multiracial and multicultural one. London is a typical
example of that
transformation. Many parts of the capital from the North to the
South, the East to the
West rhyme with foreign traditions, cultures and beliefs. But the
settlement of
foreigners was not easy, they endeavoured xenophobic and racist
aggressions.
Indeed early the 1900s, the settlement of Jew refugees triggered
the hostility of the
host population. They were subject to all kind of remonstrations
among which their
«cultural presence was perceived as incompatible and
inferior to British ways «
(Baldwin-Edwards, 1994, p19).Jew's culture totally different was
seen as a danger
to English values. Hence the statement of Sir Ernest Wild, MP:
«Anybody who wants
to realise what the peril really is has only to walk down the
Mile End Road or
Whitechapel Road or in the East End of London generally. They
will
find these places literally infested by aliens» (Cohen,
1988, p16).the xenophobic
feeling in his statement is well rendered by the use of those
words `peril' and
`infested'. Thus refugees were perceived a real danger that could
induce damages to
the society; in a sense that too many aliens could alter English
identity and culture.
The xenophobic feeling was endorsed by prominent politicians such
as Enoch Powell
and Thatcher.
Enoch Powell in his «river of blood» speech talked
about invasion and transformation
of whole areas into alien territory. He also stressed that Black
immigration was a
threat to the national culture and identity.
As for Thatcher, she said: «people are really rather afraid
that this country might be
rather swamped by people with different culture» (Granada
television, 1978).
Those politicians echoed the population's desire to halt
immigration if not to get rid of
all aliens whose cultures are different from the host society.
Since then different white
groups such as skinheads, British Movement, the National Front
and other groups
have started perpetrating attacks and violence against
immigrants. One Bengali said:
«the National Front organizes street corner meetings. These
meetings are used for hate
campaigns against the Bengalis...They used all sorts of ploys to
incite the local whites
against us. They tell shopkeepers that Bengalis are taking over
their businesses»
(CRE, 1979).Another consequence of the societal threat is
racism.
The feeling of racism was obvious among the population and was
expressed by the
authorities.
In 1948 when the first black immigrants arrived in the the ship
Empire Windrush, it
was a shock. The responsible Colonial Office was sermonized and
told not to let
similar incidents happen in the future. A group of politicians
wrote to the prime
Minister to express their concern: «An influx of coloured
people domiciled here is
likely to impair the harmony, strength and cohesion of our public
and social life and
to cause discord and unhappiness among all
concerned»(Joppke,1999,p106). It is
obvious that black people were not wanted. Even in a period of
severe labour shortage
criteria were set to recruit workers. They need to be «of
good human stock and ...not
prevented by their religion or race from intermarrying with the
host population and
becoming merged in it»(HMSO, Royal Commission on Population
1949 cited in
Hammar, 1985, p95).The arrival of aliens was a subject of
concern. The fear of racial
clashes that happened in the USA makes English very anxious. The
anxiety resulted
from the impossibility to culturally assimilate the newcomers
because of their number
but also because of the preconceived ideas that non whites are
biologically and
intellectually inferiors. They are therefore incapable to
integrate and fit in a white
society. Hence racial harassment, racial attacks, streets
violence to get rid of them.
The words of the politicians shaped the mind, the behaviour of
the host population
and were seen as support of the racial crimes, attacks,
harassments refugees and
asylum seekers were victims in the 1980s. What happened in the
1980s repeated
itself in the 1990s because of the inflow of asylum seekers as
seen in the table below.
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