06.09.2006
New Tebbit test
Mary Godwin reports on the crisis of multiculturalism - and why communists should have never supported it
In 1990, Conservative MP Norman Tebbit formulated the infamous 'cricket test' to question the "loyalty" to Britain of Asian and West Indian fans who supported teams from their parents' countries of origin. He was using cricket to highlight divisions.
But his approach was rejected by the liberal establishment in favour of the celebration of diversity, with support for touring teams being welcomed as enhancing the game and demonstrating the tolerant, multi-ethnic vibrancy of modern Britain. Now cricket is held up as a shining example of the success of multiculturalism.
Today, it seems, many British-Asian fans would pass the Tebbit test. In a two-part radio programme, Taking the cricket test, writer and broadcaster Sarfraz Manzoor spoke to people at the England v Pakistan test matches this summer, and was surprised by how many British-Asian Pakistanis were cheering on the England team. Similarly, in The Wisden Cricketer (September 2006) Adam Licudi describes the good-natured banter among a group of young British-Asians at Lords, of whom only one was supporting Pakistan. Other fans interviewed by Manzoor supported Pakistan at cricket but England at football - a perfect example of the multiple identity that is the reality.
The success of British-Asian players such as Sajid Mahmood and Monty Panesar obviously plays a part in this phenomenon. These stars emerged from the English development system of clubs, leagues and counties which are now declared to be free of the 'unofficial apartheid' which existed in the early 1990s. Cricket now officially embraces all races and cultures, it is claimed. In Leicestershire, a group of cricket-loving businessmen set up Investors in Cricket, a commercial company whose activities were designed to make a profit from boosting the British-Asian membership of the county club.
In cricket, profit depends on the success of particular teams, and there is an incentive to promote the game among all sections of the population in order to maximise the pool of talented players. Most counties have strategies to attract youngsters from ethnic minorities, and the proportion of their first-team players who are of Asian descent has increased steadily to about six percent. This is higher than the overall percentage of British-Asians in the UK population, reflecting the enthusiasm for the game among people in the Indian subcontinent.
British-Asian cricketers playing for England or county first teams are held up as examples to be emulated. Adil Rashid, an all-rounder who plays for Yorkshire, told The Wisden Cricketer: "I'm happy to be a role model for young Asians." The magazine also interviewed five British-Asians who have either played for England or are in the selectors' sights. All said they had never experienced racism, either at the top level of the game or when they were coming up through junior and club teams. Sajid Mahmood told Wisden: "I think it's pretty good in the dressing room. Having different cultures helps and you get to know quite a lot about them. The England side is mixed and seeing Asians getting in is a massive boost for British-Asians. It gives people hope."
But not all British-Asians are won over to love of England and its cricket team. Sarfraz Manzoor reports that one of the July 7 2005 suicide bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, played cricket the evening before he travelled to London intent on martyrdom. But the problem runs deeper. Much deeper. There is a crisis of multiculturalism.
7/7 caused Tony Blair to establish a 'commission on integration and cohesion', to be headed by Ruth Kelly. She complains that some communities live "in isolation from each other" and blames this on "our attempt to avoid imposing a single British identity and culture".
Prominent ethnic minority members of the British establishment such as archbishop John Sentamu and BBC newsreader George Alagiah have also lined up publicly to cast doubt on multiculturalism. Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, claimed in a recent speech that mass immigration is changing the face of Britain and that the costs of it could no longer be ignored. He also claims that Britain is "sleepwalking to segregation" between its ethnic communities and suggests that muslims who want sharia law should leave Britain (The Times September 1). London mayor Ken Livingstone, an enthusiastic advocate of multiculturalism, accused Phillips of "pandering to the right" in "trying to move the race agenda away from a celebration of multiculturalism" and controversially quipped: "I expect soon he'll be joining the BNP."
Multiculturalism, the ideology of embracing and celebrating differences and respecting all cultures, was once touted as the answer to official Britain's post-empire crisis of identity. In reality it is not only 7/7 which has called this into question. The so-called 'war on terror', the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the threats against Iran have revealed that whole swathes of the muslim population in Britain are profoundly alienated. Many identify more with their co-religionists around the world than 'our brave boys' fighting the 'terrorists' in Basra and Helmand.
The fact of the matter is that post-empire Britain has very weak national glue. Till the 1950s to be British was to be not only a subject of the crown, but a first-class one. To be British was to feel racially superior to the second- and third-class subjects of the crown in the sprawling empire and to materially benefit from the crumbs of British colonialism. Of course, a minority rejected this form of nationalism. But it worked.
The end of empire and the arrival of millions of migrants, especially from the Indian sub-continent and the West Indies, necessitated a change. There was a contradiction, however. If they were to be assimilated from above, everyone had to be made into a first-class subject of the crown. That was the eventual outcome. After a lengthy transition period and many popular struggles and protests, the establishment borrowed multiculturalism (which had been developed by a disorientated section of the left) and cynically used it for its own purposes.
Of course, when everyone is first-class no one can feel superior in their inferiority. To be British is to be an equal subject of the crown, an equal supplicant before the state and to be equally powerless before the market. Hence there is not much by way of positive commonality which binds the masses to their exploiters.
The whole construct is prone to fraying and failure - it is not only brown-skinned muslims who reject official nationalism: so too do large numbers of white-skinned Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish catholics. In fact multicultural British nationalism only holds together because of the defeat of militant trade unionism in the 1980s and the absence of a viable socialist challenge.
We can predict with confidence that Kelly's commission will produce nothing but a combination of liberal-sounding platitudes and draconian proposals. The British nation cannot be remade in a progressive way. Like capitalism, it belongs to the past. That is why communists favour voluntary integration of all peoples across the globe, whereby diverse cultures come together through mutual enrichment and produce a higher, internationalist culture.