englishness

The term ‘multiculturalism’ deals with the ideology of racial, cultural and ethnic diversity usually under one umbrella such as a school, neighborhood, city or a nation at all. Today’s leading example is the U.S.A without any doubt which is resembled to a ‘salad bowl’ with its specialty of including people from almost every nationality. But besides the U.S.A, with its colonial past; Britain also leads the term ‘multicultural’. By the way, many people have a very superficial view of racism like the English do. They all see it as a belief that one race is superior to another. More or less, racism is the concept that one’s race determines one’s identity. In other words, one’s character, values, culture are determined not by his/her acceptance with mind but by ‘blood’. Thus, the spread of racism caused the destruction of individual’s self-confidence in his/her own mind. Because they all started to see themselves as the ‘outsiders’ or the ‘others’ in the society they accept as their homes. So, they began to seek the ways of gaining a sense of ‘identity’. But is that the only way to get an identity by trying to be a member of a group or are there any other ways that make one ‘accepted’?

            Before searching for a certain answer of that question, we have to take a deep look over the term identity, its effects on people actually, on the ones who live in a society in which they are not accepted and abused at all. Our concern here is of course, the second and third generations of the first immigrants who came to Britain as a result of its colonial past or their dreaming it as a land to where ‘‘if only they make their way, they will never remain poor’’ (Lahiri 204). By that aspect, it reminds us all the well known ‘American Dream’. Anyway, these immigrants never felt like at home in Britain neither their children have the sense of being a ‘British’ still. And that is the point from where ‘identity crisis’ emerges. Identity can be defined simply as ‘the essence of a self-conscious person that makes him or her unique not only in the country he/she lives but on the whole universe’. But unfortunately, when the term comes to discrimination, it does not count for something at all…

            That discrimination starts at schools from childhood. Because they are ‘colored’ they are seen as different from the other children, from the white ones. Usually, it is started by an adult; by the teacher himself. As Hanif Kureishi whose nationality in heritage is Pakistani says; ‘‘At school, one teacher always spoke to me in a ‘Peter Sellers’ Indian accent. Another refused to call me by my name, calling me Pakistani Pete instead’’ (Kureishi 73). That ‘seen apart’ is later taken over by the children, by their classmates who are in origin White Anglo Saxons. Although these children are so little to become aware of the racial differences between them and their ‘colored’ friends, the adults around them like their parents or teachers make them also feel by this way; feel like they are superior to them. The sense of ‘pride’ strikes its roots in these little brains from childhood and leading them to be grown as racists. Andrea Levy who is a Jamaican in origin also shared the same discrimination with Hanif Kureishi when she was a child. In her article; ‘This is My England’ she says; ‘‘They asked – oh, they asked all the time. ‘Where are you from?’ was as constant a noise as a ticking clock. But if I answered ‘Jamaica’, lips would curl or tongues would tut’’ (Levy 2). Apart from that, she also tells the changing attitudes of the whites towards the ones coming from a well known superior country, explicitly in terms of her childhood remembrance; ‘‘America was a great place to come from. I remember a white American girl coming to school…Everyone wanted to be her friend. To see her toys, to hear her parents’ wonderful accent, to try their food with an ‘Ooohh isn’t it lovely’ ’’ (Levy 2).

            As we see from the first hand experiences of both writers, that ‘sense of loss’ is disposed in their minds, in their lives  at a very early age even if they accept Britain as their mother country. ‘‘I was educated to be English. Alongside me- learning, watching, eating and playing- were white children. But those white children would never hate to grow up to question whether they were English or not’’ (Levy 2). Taken apart from a group caused them be ashamed of their origins even of their parents, families and their cultural heritage. ‘‘I was embarrassed that my parents were not English. One of the reasons was that no one around me was interested in the country my parents came from. To them, it was just a place full of ‘inferior black people’ ’’ (Levy 2). ‘‘I wanted just to fit in and be part of everything that was around me, and these strange parents were holding me back’’ (Levy 2). ‘‘From the start I tried to deny my Pakistani self. I was ashamed. It was a curse and I wanted to get rid of it. I wanted to be like everyone else’’ (Kureishi 73).

            However; with the increasing numbers of new comers to the mother country; Britain, they started to gain the confidence in themselves again. Becoming more in majority made them feel like a part of something, feel like being accepted as they used to be. Thus, they started to be curious about their origins, their cultures and anything traditional in their home lands although they all hated once. ‘‘Along with this immigration – this safety in numbers- came a new interest for me in the country my parents had left. I was gaining a fledgling sense of pride in having a Jamaican heritage’’ (Levy 3). While trying to be a part of something, they continued to face with difficulties. In every research back to their origins, there was something missing, something lost, uncertain which caused them turn to the beginning where they left all racial thoughts behind; again the same feeling of belonging or unbelonging- where to belong? ‘‘It is hard for anyone to research their genealogy; but it is even harder (though not impossible) for someone with my background. Most of the records are incomplete or unavailable at best; destroyed or non-existent at worst’’ (Levy 3).

            Identity crisis rose from discrimination or racism, what you wish to call as, went on making ‘colored’ people’s lives harder and harder. As an adult, there are far more issues they have to deal with than as a child. Making friends, getting a job in a white dominated society are the next steps of their survival. In our world, having friendships and being social can be seen very natural as beings living in a society in which discrimination is not so much apparent as it is in Britain. But for a Pakistani, an Indian an Asian or even for all colored ones living with the ‘others’, having white friends and keeping that friendships for so long is something very hard. Because anybody who is not English is ‘black’ for the whites. And being a ‘black’ means that you are inferior, you are ignorant, you are dirty and ‘‘less than human so worthy of abuse and violence’’ (Kureishi 76). How can you be friends with a black who is not seen as an individual with mind, who is not at the same ‘status’ with you, at all? ‘‘A hierarchy of power relationships is being revealed; the superior white (superior in social and human terms) is surrounded by inferior creatures, the black and the dog; who share more or less the same status’’ (Lee 1). How can you be friends with a white who sees you as uncivilized and brutal not as a pure human being with mind, with a life, a past and a future? ‘‘I’d hardly known anyone for more than eight years, and certainly not their parents. People came and went. These was much false intimacy and force friendship. People didn’t take responsibility for each other’’ (Kureishi 85).

            However; there is a possibility of ‘friendship’ with the whites as we see in the movie ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’. For the possibility of that friendship, the most essential thing as shown in the movie is money. Money means power on something, over somebody. That means, if you have money, if you hold the power, you can have white friends but from working class, lower class at all. Racism again comes forward… Rich colored one starts to behave in a racial way. He tries to be superior to the white by holding money in his hand as power. Actually, for this time he wants to play the role of ‘white master’.

            ‘‘Omar: I want big money. I’m not gonna be beat down by this country. When we                                                 

               were at school, you kicked me all round the place. And what are you doing now?                     

               Washing my floor. That’s how I like it. Now get to work. Get to work I said. Or  

               you’re fired!’’ (My Beautiful Laundrette).

            ‘‘Salim: (To Johnny.) These people. What a waste of life. They’re filthy and ignorant.  

               They’re just nothing. But they abuse people. (To Omar.) Our people. (To Johnny.)

               All over England, Asians, as you call us, are beaten, burnt to death. Always we are  

               intimidated. What these scum need is a taste of their own piss’’ (My Beautiful  

               Laundrette). By looking at these quotations from the movie, we have to take into consideration the friendship between Omar and Johnny. There is no possibility of a pure relationship. They both have an intimacy towards each other. But neither Omar nor Johnny can think of without their racist backgrounds. One always reminds the other who the master is. And the other shows his racist side coming from his origin in every opportunity that he finds.

            ‘‘Johnny: Aren’t you giving ammunition to your enemies doing this kind

              of…unscrewing? To people who say Pakis just comes here to hustle other people’s

              lives and jobs and houses.

           ‘‘Nasser: But we’re professional businessman. Not professional Pakistanis. … (My

              Beautiful Laundrette). Anyway, their friendship turns into a homosexual relationship which also shows the absurdity and impossibility of that pure white-black intimacy.

            Besides the hardship in relationships, there is a far more important issue to talk about; problems in working area. There is always an available job for a white but not for the others. In other terms, if there is a job opportunity, it is to be given to a white initially before the ‘colored’ one. Is not discrimination as apparent as it is in every area of life? ‘‘One example was 25-year-old Sohan Lal, who was forced out of a job at a foundry in Derbyshire when 200 of his white colleagues went on strike in protest at his appointment. The workers complained that an agreement with the management of the foundry, whereby no more Asians would be employed if white labor were available, had been breached when Lal, the sixth Asian was employed. – He said; ‘I am a British citizen and I thought when I came here it would count for something, but apparently, it is not so’ ’’ (Lahiri 208). As another example stands for it; ‘‘One Indian who tried to obtain a job in the car industry was told that employment was only open to union members, but when he attempted to obtain a union card, he was refused’’ (Lahiri 208).

            While giving the reasons of second or third generations of the first immigrants’ having a sense of ‘loss identity’ in the country they believed that they belong to, I put aside the most essential effect of these causes on them. More than discrimination but less than not having an identity; ‘alienation’ which is a kind of social schizophrenia bores to several important issues, I have given as reasons above, still forms the basis of these second or third generation writers’ works. ‘‘…Writers who are giving voice to the experiences of their own generation of people; often born in the United Kingdom but still without a clear sense of home either in Britain or back in the islands’’ (Nasta 50). The sense of alienation caused a kind of loneliness in the lives of them. Like one’s feeling alone in the crowd… That sense of loneliness is much clearer in Samuel Selvon’s novels and in the characters of his ‘Londoners’. At the beginning of The Lonely Londoners, the atmosphere of Selvon’s city is described; ‘‘as if it is not London at all but some strange place on another planet’’ (Selvon 23). And the protagonist of the novel; Moses feels that solitude deeply. ‘‘…when you go down a little you bounce up a misery and pathos and a kind of frightening-what? He don’t have the right word, but he have the right feeling in his heart’’ (Selvon 142).

            That sense of something ‘missing’ captured the whole life of these people. And they will always ask themselves the question ‘why’ until the world accepts the term free will. These people whether Pakistani, Indian or Jamaican are to be judged as individuals and that prejudice one’s being whom from one’s belonging where is a corruption- a corruption what Nazi Germany did. But if it continues, we will come to the saying that it is not a nation based on freedom and independence at all.