CEDRIC WILSON, Guest ColumnistIT TOOK only one day for the British stock market to recover after the July 7 bombing in London and passenger numbers apparently have only fallen slightly in the capital's Underground rail system. But there is doubt that London is the same after near simultaneous explosions in three trains and a fourth blast one hour later on a bus that together killed 52 people and injured 700 in the teeming Thursday morning rush hour.
Religious hate crimes have soared. Muslims have been assaulted and verbally abused, their mosques and property damaged. In a mere three weeks after the July 7 incident, there have been 269 religious hate crimes, which compares with 40 over the same period last year. Race-motivated crimes in Britain have also taken a hideous savagery that is difficult to swallow. Anthony Walker, an 18 year-old with Jamaican roots was murdered with an axe by a gang of white men, while he waited at a bus stop with a white girlfriend and a cousin. Even, the police seem to be over-reacting. Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent 27-year-old Brazilian on his way to work was killed by police bullets on an underground train when they mistakenly believed him to be a suicide bomber.
PREJUDICES
Interestingly, although three of the suicide bombers have Pakistani roots and the fourth has Jamaican parents, they are all British. It is clear that the incident has brought to the surface the prejudices and tensions within the British society and has raised questions with regards to the nature of multicultural life in the country's large cities.
The multicultural nature of British society owes much to the country's rebuilding effort after the Second World War. Faced with a severely battered economy and handicapped by a depleted labour force, Britain turned to the importation of workers from its colonies to breathe new life in its industries. But the multicultural life in London and the large cities across Britain does not exactly equate to a melting pot. Mulicultural life the idea of people of multiple origins and diverse backgrounds coalescing into a single distinctive identity is not exactly taking place.
ESSENCE OF MULTICULTURAL LIFE
Few writers capture the essence of multicultural life in London as does Zadie Smith. Perhaps it is because of her own multicultural roots Smith's mother is Jamaican and her father is British. In her novel White Teeth she examines the complex interaction among three families: a semi-Jamaican family, a family from Bangladesh and an educated white middle-class English family. Indeed, Smith with her sharp, humorous dialogues, outrageous wit and colourful characters, has portrayed multicultural London in a way comparable only to Dickens and his depiction of the dark underbelly of Victorian England.
In a sense, Smith conveys the impression that London is a place where Jamaicans remain Jamaicans, Bangladeshi remain Bangladeshi and the British remain British. Yet, ironically out of necessity, choice and sometimes for reasons of sheer survival, they are forced to mix with each other. This is in sharp contrast to American multicultural life. In the U.S., at least up until recently, there seems to be the sharing of a unifying value.
Sociologists suggest that in the U.S. there is an implicit acceptance among the vast majority of the population of the American dream. Perhaps this might be the reason why, up until the 1980s Jamaicans always considered their relatives returning after a long stay in England to be a little strange in their heads while they did not regard those from the U.S. in the same way. It is a multicultural life that is resistant to a blending of values that leads to madness. The British society is no melting pot.
Some people attribute the bombing to Britain's involvement in the Iraqi war, but others have a difficulty accepting that view because the attack was from British citizens. The British authorities who take pride in cultural tolerance are in the process of rethinking how people from its former colonies, particularly those of the Moslem faith, are integrated in the society. In all of this, the question that must be asked is why have people from former colonies in Britain not embraced 'Britishness'?
Smith's White Teeth may very well provide the answer. There is a scene in which Iqbal, the Bangladeshi protagonist, finds himself hopelessly attracted to his son's white British teacher. Confused, he seeks advice from a younger co-worker, Shiva from Calcutta, who has more experience with women. Shiva explained to Iqbal that he had made love to two Americans, a girl from France and even a Romanian woman but never an English girl. Of course, Iqbal asked "Why?" To this Shiva resolutely replied, "Too much history ... too much bloody history."
Despite its multicultural life in Britain, the greatest challenge to its internal stability may not reside in its present but in its past.
Cedric Wilson is an economist who specialises in market regulations. He may be contacted at conoswil@hotmail.com.
