Subject: Re: HOW MANY FOREIGNERS DO YOU LET IN?
Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 13:32:54 GMT


Hi all:

I stopped following this debate a while ago when I discovered that it was 
fast becoming a mere linguistic exercise. However, I over-ruled myself and 
read Liam's posting... and I am very glad that I did. I am happy to note 
that finally someone is putting flesh and blood to the abstract, theoretical 
discussion (my prof, Terry Goldie, can bear witness to my suspicion of such 
abstractions) that has been going on in this list, while maintaining 
theoretical savinnes.

I would like to start by using the American context. If I remember my 
undergraduate American Lit, there is an essay entitled "Who is an American?" 
by Creveceour(?), a French man. That essay is his exposition of what it 
means to be American in the 19th century (I think). Now the interesting 
thing about this essay is Creveceour's  assertion that an American is one 
who has left the tumoils of Europe to set up in the New World and build a 
new life; S/he is one who cohabits with his neighbour from other countries, 
language groups, and religious denominations of Europe and works hard to 
tame the wildness of America. Finally, he says that the new land is the new 
home of Europeans since it provides them subsistence: "Ubi panis, ibi sunt" 
is the latin addage that he used.

The question now is: why does this justification for European expansion not 
good for the Other? Why is it not legitimate for the Bangladeshi to make his 
home where the bread is? Why the double standard?

As far as I know, the aborigines of America and Australia did not put any 
numerical restriction on European immigrants. I beleive the search for a 
better life is a human instict. Why is the third world native forbidden this 
basic human right?  I don't think that the West can be swamped by hordes of 
hungry and diseased people from Asia or Africa because it is really few who 
who want to make the trip; and even fewer who can afford it. If capitalist 
structures have made some areas of the world more desirable than others, it 
is only natural that the people in the dark quarters (to borrow from Neto) 
of the earth would want a piece of the good life. They would, as of 
necessity, want to make their home where the bread is. AND NOTE THAT THE 
ISSUE HERE IS "BREAD".

The recent G8 meeting accentuates the problems being faced by those who 
would want the life of people improved where they are so that they don't 
have to engage in perilious journeys in search of it. Surely, providing 
internet access to the developing world will not put food on their table. If 
anything, it will provide avenue for those Ngugi calls the "myanpala" class 
(comprador) to loot more in other to satisfy their obsession for things 
western via the internet. As far as I can see it, wiring the developing 
world without first feeding the hungry and providing medicare for the sick 
will only increase the gap that it is supposed to bridge (I am happy to note 
the proposed Canadian increase in foreign aid over the next five years). As 
this gaps increases, more people will undertake the desperate attempt to 
land on Dover beach or walk across the Mexican/American border and the likes 
of Eric will continue to spout trash couched in empty, high falluting 
language.

I do agree with Liam that some people on this list should take a break; 
however, instead of reading, I would suggest that they go out into the sun 
(it is summer, after all) and look around them and see things that are not 
coloured by too much reading. Those types remind me of another American 
short story "The Adventure of the German Student" ... I forget the writer.

Amandi Esonwanne
York University
Toronto Canada.


>From: Liam Connell <liam.connell-AT-britishlibrary.net>
>Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: HOW MANY FOREIGNERS DO YOU LET IN?
>Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2000 07:08:42 +0100
>
>First of all - apologies for the length of this email - but I have to get
>this off my chest.
>
>For all his attempts to postulate them in terms of a genuine intellectual -
>and somewhat abstract - debate I personally found Eric's recent
>contributions to border on and perhaps slip over into a racist discourse on
>immigration which is currently being peddled by all sections of the
>political establishment in the UK at the moment.  He wrote
>
> >One central question is: can any nation cope with large numbers of
>immigrants, whatever the original cause of their coming? There seems to be 
>a
>basic unwillingness by people to discuss this crucial issue.<
>
>I must say that I'm flabbergasted by the ignorance of this statement since
>the whole debate about immigration currently is precisely about this point.
>As Stuart Hall et al. ably argued, in what I had taken to be a canonical
>text _Policing the Crisis_ (1978), the ability to frame the debate about
>immigration solely in terms of numbers is one of the most successful
>strategies of a racist establishment.  Part of this has been to 
>consistently
>exaggerate the actual numbers being talked about.  Hence the objections to
>the use of language such as swamping and floods!  When figures are produced
>about the amount of immigrants arriving in Britain with all the attached
>alarm bells and scandalised comparisons with other EU countries it is easy
>to miss the fact that the actual numbers of immigrants mentioned are both
>objectively and relatively (when compared with, say, some countries in
>Africa or even in Eastern and Central Europe outwith the EU) small.
>
>To suggest, as Eric did, that Powell was simply speaking the unthinkable
>truth to a deaf middle England is absolute rubbish - although it is a myth
>that Powell stoked and one that has been successfully reanimated by his
>acolytes including Thatcher and numerous members of more extreme racist
>organisations such as the British National Party (BNP).  If the debate was
>really about numbers why did Powell have to invent the example of a street
>where his elderly white constituent remained the sole white inhabitant and
>who was being forced out by her aggressive black neighbours?  The combined
>resources of the Wolverhampton media could not identify this street and I
>think we must assume, as they did, that it did not exist.  The invention of
>such a fantastic place was precisely to exaggerate the actual numbers of
>immigrants into the UK and to frame this as a problem which needed to be
>addressed.  Ever after the argument in government has not been about the
>right or wrong of immigration per se, but instead about how many is too
>much.  (With the usual answer being not very many.)
>
>Well let us ask the question.  If, say, the UK admitted 1 million people
>from, say, Bangladesh next year (roughly 1/60th of the UK population) what
>would be the effect.  Presumably this would present a genuine economic
>problem in terms of the need to house these new citizens - the UK currently
>has a problem of over-demand for housing.  However this problem of
>over-demand derives solely from the fact that UK families all wish to own a
>house of their own - a desire which is historically new and which is not
>shared  by much of mainland Europe.  The UK does not have levels of 
>multiple
>occupancy such as is commonly found in many countries throughout the world.
>My partner and I live in a house with four rooms in which only we live.  I
>would be interested to know how many of the hypothetical Bengalis would be
>so privileged.  There are, of course, problems created by trying to house
>all new arrivals in geographically limited places and more so with high
>profile attempts to house 'asylum seekers' in well publicised centres 
>around
>the country within the terms of a public debate that has virtually 
>prejudged
>their claim to be 'bogus'.
>
>Let us assume for the sake of argument that none of these Bangladeshi new
>arrivals could find work - a fact which I am supposing for rhetorical 
>effect
>and which under no theory or experience of economics is remotely likely.
>This would create a new burden on existing tax payers who would have to 
>find
>money for social security payments.  However, would the attendant loss of
>income
>create levels of poverty such as those routinely experienced in Bangladesh?
>I'll answer the question Eric - no.
>
>Would there be a genuine problem of clash of cultures?  Well, lets really 
>be
>historical about this and try to imagine the last time the UK didn't
>experience the arrival of a culturally different community ... Hold on, I'm
>still thinking ...
>
>Some one else on the list has already made the point that national
>cultures - cultures in general - are not fixed.  To my mind, and however
>much the majority British population may (or may not) deny it.
>Sub-Continental cultures in general and Bengali culture in particular
>already plays a big part in British culture.  Go to Manchester during Eid
>(apologies for misspelling?) and watch young Muslims driving through 
>Rushome
>waving enormous Pakistani flags out of the car windows - then shouting to
>their friends in Manchester-English.  Or go when it isn't Eid and just take
>a look at Rushome which is deeply marked by its South East Asian community
>in terms of its local infrastructure.  This is a scene that is repeated in
>most major cities south of Newcastle.  This is a British scene and it is 
>not
>a ghetto: many white British people still live here - contrary to Powell's
>apocalyptic rhetoric.  Their culture hasn't been swamped by these facts, 
>and
>indeed it has genuine incorporated them.  This is not to say that there
>isn't some level of racism directed towards Britain's Asian population, and
>it appears to have become worse more recently within the context of an
>ongoing debate about immigration levels.  But at an important level that
>racism is incidental to a genuine experience of cohabitation.  I have to
>believe that if our political/media establishment stopped peddling racist
>ideology that, contrary to received wisdom, there would not be a racist
>backlash as Powell predicted but that our population would settle down into
>a more tolerant pattern of cultural exchange.
>
>So, finally, why pose the question in the first place?  It seems to me much
>more radical to ask not how many but to ask why should there be any limits
>at all?  Why do we impose any restrictions upon the movements of 
>individuals
>between nations?  Perhaps, Eric, you believe that the world's population
>would all arrive unannounced at Dover - creating a global imbalance that
>would send the world spinning out of orbit into disastrously uninhabitable
>realms of space?  What would happen, I suspect, is that we might have to
>face the more important question of why the 'developed' economies of 
>Western
>Europe and North America think it is legitimate to structure global capital
>solely for their benefit?  This is certainly the question which animates my
>interest in post-colonialism and it why I believe nationalism in all its
>forms  (which I take to be mostly a question of occluding such a situation)
>to be a brutally reactionary ideology.
>
>P.S.. Eric, might I suggest that you take a break from the list for a while
>to read more material in your library.  There appear to be some major 
>points
>of theory and history on which you are weak.
>
>
>Liam Connell
>3 Mordaunt Road
>Inner Avenue
>Southampton
>SO14  6GQ
>
>Email: liam.connell-AT-britishlibrary.net
>Web: pages.britishlibrary.net/liam.connell/home.html
>
>
>
>
>
>
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