[Socialism Today, No 19, June 1997, p. 18-21]
Darcus Howe describes the mood in the black community after 1 May as one not of exhilaration but of ‚a huge sense of relief that the 18 year siege is over‘. Yet days later the New York-based Human Rights Watch described racially-motivated attacks in Britain as having ’some of the quality of ethnic cleansing‘. What does the future really hold for Britain’s black and Asian population? Andrea Enisuoh spoke to black Socialist Party activists, Hugo Pierre and Nasima Patel.
The publicity earlier this year around the case of racist murder victim Stephen Lawrence highlighted again the racism that exists in British society and the justice system in particular. What effect do you think that the long list of such injustices has had on the black community?
Hugo Pierre (HP): Each racist attack or murder, each black youth that is killed in police custody or harassed by the police, further breaks black people’s belief in this justice system. Many older blacks came to Britain in the 1950s and 1960s with the idea that there would be some justice here. They held onto that belief for as long as they could but there have been too many incidents over many years to keep them believing that now. On the other hand, for young blacks, daily realities have meant that they never really believed that they would get justice here. They are the ones getting harassed by the police. The percentage of black people being stopped and searched is far above their proportion in the population as a whole.
Nasima Patel (NP): The campaign organised by the Lawrence family has been inspirational but, if something like the Stephen Lawrence case had happened ten years ago, I think that there would have been a lot more anger spilling out onto the streets. In the last few years, although there is a general anger towards racism and towards the system in the black community, it has not found a political expression.
Are you saying that blacks are less political than ten years ago?
NP: No, its more that there is no political outlet for the anger in the community. The fact that a couple of polls last year, one of them commissioned by the BBC’s Black Britain programme, showed that 40% of black and Asian people support the setting up of a black party, is very significant. It shows the complete disillusionment towards mainstream political parties and also the dominance of a racial consciousness. Existing parties don’t deliver anything for our communities and it is believed that what we need is a black party.
Although the media analysis of the general election exit polls has not provided any evidence about the turnout of black and Asian voters, before the election it was revealed that only 40% of the black electorate said they were certain to vote. Black people were four times less likely even to register than whites. But that’s not a reaction against politics in general. In many white communities people would say that they wouldn’t vote more than ‚we want our own party‘. So there is a different level of consciousness. In our communities the problem is seen as access to power. ‚If we as black people get access to power through our own parties then things will be better for us‘.
There is a lot of confusion, however, about what the nature of such a party would be. In the Asian community there have been a few stabs at setting up Islamic or Pan-Islamic parties and the Muslim parliament, but they haven’t dealt with the important issues: they haven’t had a programme that actually deals with the social and economic realities. With the Muslim parliament people welcomed it but they saw it more as a lever, to exert pressure to make the Labour Party do things. When it comes to elections a lot of people still think that the real choice is between Labour and the Tories.
So has there been any organisational expression of this enhanced racial consciousness in the black and Asian community?
HP: There has been a marked increase in attraction to religious groups; young Asians going to mosques but also the growth of black churches, a turn away from politics in search of ‚a better way‘. The Nation of Islam also claim to be growing. Yet there is no overall strategy being offered by these organisations even as to how blacks will actually get a better slice of the system.
Also there is the experience of the black and Asian MPs that are already in parliament. There is a questioning of what they have really done for us.
NP: That’s true, but a lot of young blacks wouldn’t necessarily know that it was just ten years ago that black MPs were first elected to parliament. They would probably also say, „why so few? Its a drop in the ocean, what we need is our own party. We’re not going to change anything from within the existing established parties‘. In that sense that shows a level of consciousness that is heading towards some sort of separatist ideas. Not necessarily entrenched but a reaction to the fact that we are living in a complete political vacuum in terms of who is putting forward any sort of alternative to the system.
Do you think that there is a different level of consciousness, that racial consciousness is less dominant, amongst blacks in the workplace?
NP: Even in workplaces where cuts and redundancies are being made there is often a feeling of ‚they’re doing this to us because we’re black‘. Not just because of the economic system but also because we are black.
HP: It’s still the case that a large number of blacks join unions, especially in local government where Labour councils are implementing cuts. If the unions conducted a concerted recruitment drive you could get back to a position where the majority of the workforce would be unionised. Blacks in particular see that there is no job security.
NP: I think that most black people agree with the principle of being part of a trade union but there is a lot of cynicism caused by the pathetic stand of the union leaders. Because of this, the emphasis in the workplace in general has moved from the idea of collective action being able to solve workers problems to more individual action and black workers are affected by those trends: there are a lot more racial discrimination cases being taken through industrial tribunals, for example, So a lot of black workers don’t have faith in trade unions at the minute but that will change when there is struggle, because there is no other forum for that struggle to take place. It won’t be done through the Islamic group or church.
The role of black workers‘ groups has also been quite interesting. Many black workers had quite a lot of expectations when these groups were formed. They were seen as a way of somehow reforming the unions or getting the unions to take up their cause, but in general that hasn’t happened.
HP: People have been wary but that is changing and people are proving more willing to take collective action. Certainly in the public sector black workers often play a key role to that. A lot of them do feel that they would be the first to face redundancy through restructuring or disciplinary action, often because white managers want to settle scores. So a lot of black workers do turn to the union for that sort of security.
With the alienation from the established parties wouldn’t the idea of a new workers party win support in the black and Asian community? The Asian Times, for example, welcomed the prospect raised at last years TUC conference of a break between Labour and the unions as „a breath of fresh air, relieving our communities of the electoral strait-jacket they are now in“.
NP: Processes will be accelerated under a Labour government with the question of who can represent workers posed much more sharply. The idea that a new party to represent workers is needed could win support amongst those who see the need for change most clearly. Advanced layers of blacks will look towards a party that doesn’t only deliver on the social and economic questions but actually does take a fighting stance on the question of racism and the growth of fascism, which will inevitably become a feature under the new government.
HP: it is going to largely depend though on what the forces arguing for such a party say and do, including what support is actually given to black struggles and black issues. Blacks will probably want to come into alliances against certain things as an organised group, not wanting to submerge themselves but organising themselves as blacks.
So if there is a further turn towards blacks organising themselves rather than joining organisations that may be perceived as being ‚white led‘, what would our attitude be?
HP: We’ve always supported the right of blacks to self-organise, you can see that in the activities and campaigns that we have been involved in. We have also always tried to warn against division in the labour movement and therefore have at some stages had to oppose some things being put forward.
Yet we have always tried to work even with organisations that we did not particularly agree with. For example, the Anti-Racist Alliance was really led by a trend of people who wanted to carve out careers in the anti-racist movement; however we approached them on many occasions about doing joint activity, even though we had no illusions in what they were going to be like. In the end they split into a number of different groups.
There will still be people who simply want to make a career out of such organisations but I think that where these formations come up, whether they be in the trade unions or wherever, we should look to work with them where possible and earn respect through our ideas.
Tony Blair has explicitly stated he aims at a US-style political system of two pro-business parties which, as we have seen, is leading to an alienation from the established parties. Do you think that the position and consciousness of blacks in Britain is also moving towards the US model? Are we, in that sense, experiencing an „Americanisation‘ of society?
NP: The experience of the black and Asian community in Britain is very different from that of blacks in the US. Of course there are similarities and many here look towards what is going on in the US. But the American experience is very different because of slavery, because of the civil rights movement and also because of the limited success of the affirmative action programme where in the US now you have got enormous racial polarisation. You have a tiny minority of blacks who are extremely successful and the vast majority of blacks who live probably in worst economic conditions than thirty or forty years ago. The difference between then and now is that now they have absolutely no hope of things getting better.
In Britain the history of immigration is very different. Although people came over for economic reasons there were expectations that things would get better and for a while they seemed to. People did join the trade unions and there was a lot of struggle in the unions, not only in terms of fighting colour bars but actually improving conditions and then joint action on questions like fascism. So that history is very different and that has played a big factor in shaping the consciousness of the black and Asian community in Britain.
I think that under this right-wing Labour government the struggle for jobs, housing and against poverty will again lead to some of the unity that I have talked about coming back on the political agenda. The racial polarisation that exists in Britain is a lot more superficial than the racial polarisation in America. Its not as entrenched and it will be possible to break down those barriers and for united action to take place and raise the level of consciousness of both black and white workers.
HP: Britain is very different in its racial make-up. There is a big difference, for example, between here and the deep south of America. There was enforced segregation and ghettoisation on a much larger scale than here. Its very different to Britain. Even here, where you get blacks and Asians gravitating towards particular areas of London, for example the east side of Tower Hamlets is predominantly Asian, its still not the same as the US.
After the riots of the 1980s the Tory government attempted to mimic the US strategy of buying off some blacks by creating a black middle class. To what extent has this been successful?
HP: There has certainly been some development of a black middle class – but it is tiny, At the moment, in a quiet period, it may hold a bit of sway but when things are going on a lot of those people will not be around. Newspapers like The Voice or New Nation, for example, which are fundamentally right wing, reflect this layer. But they are not seen generally as a political point of reference.
NP: There is a section of the Asian community who are quite wealthy partly because they came here not directly through the Asian sub-continent but through a much more complicated migration process – through East Africa for example – and they played a particular role that allowed them to accumulate some money. So there is a strata within the Asian community that at this time probably holds more sway because of the vacuum rather than numerically! There has also been a lot of references to the Asian middle class, Asian kids doing really well at school, going to university etc. But though those trends are important they are not going to determine the way the Asian community actually enters into political activity.
HP: The day to day experiences of racism affect middle class blacks too, so there is a binding influence. And if you look at the position of young Asians in Britain, even the ones who do well in education are just as badly affected by racism, unemployment and police harassment.
In reality, the overwhelming majority of the black and Asian population are on the margins of ‚prosperity‘. The main strategy of the ruling class is still to try and keep the lid on the discontent in our communities, through the role of the police, the immigration legislation and so on, to the racism that is cultivated as a constant undercurrent in society as a whole.
Schreibe einen Kommentar