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The Status of
Immigrants in the UK
The recent elections in the UK brought to fore a most pressing problem
for the black community; the status of immigrants in the UK. The
Conservatives Party, led by Michael Howard made fair game of the issue.
Without using the contentious word – SWAMPED – used by Margaret Thatcher
in the 1980’s he claimed that Britain need to deal with the high levels
of illegal immigration into the UK. Wild references to 500,000 illegal
immigrants roaming the streets of Britain were made and brought forward
images of the “The Rivers of Blood” speech made by Enoch Powell.
Even though the Labour Party led by Tony Blair
responded to the issue of immigration in their missives and speeches,
the tension was lesser than on the Conservatives side. As an immigrant
in Britain it left one to feel inadequate and under constant threat for
ones community. It brought back dark memories of forceful deportation
policies that led to Riots in Britain during the 1980s. But more
significantly in brought home in no uncertain terms how tenuous a life
the immigrant population of Britain lives.
Rescinding the rights of Citizenship is an idea that would be seen as far fetched by most black people in the
UK but there are powers and laws that can be used in institute such
actions. It-couldn’t-happen-to-us belief should not be the basis for the
black community to rush into assimilation and seek protection with a
British Passport. From the evidence of the venomous rhetoric of the far
right parties and the sickening irreverence of the Conservative leader,
making immigration a voting issue, Black people should be alarmed that
at the highest echelons of power, there are people who just don’t want
them in the UK.
The fact that many immigrants communities have been living in the UK for
many decades and have had second and third generation children, doesn’t
divert from the fact that Race and
Colour
is still a major electoral punch bag in UK Politics. It is so offensive
that a Britain in the year 2005 can’t accept its immigrant communities
as legitimate citizens who deserve the right to live without fear of
racial violence and political attacks, speaks volumes to the Black
community not to be identified as British first but as a citizen of
Africa and the Caribbean first.
This is crucial for the sanity of young black people.
They are the ones who don’t know any other land but the UK.
And for them they were told from birth that they are British and growing
up believing that they are British, only to be reminded at Elections
that they are unwanted immigrants.
To me black identity in Britain should be seen as if ones parents took
flight to the moon and had children. Do you call your children monies or
to use the identity of the country of your parent’s birth? If one also
consider that no matter where a German, Russian, English mother has her
child, that child will always be Russian, German or English. It’s only
black people that change their heritage like a prostitute change her
man. Everywhere black people migrate to, they try to assimilate and fail
to gain acceptance.
The black community in the UK will have to accept that there is no shame
in living and working in Britain but to abandon ones heritage to an
assimilated immigrant, is a step too far.
©Desmond Faada Johnson (2005)
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