It was claimed last week that by 2066, white Britons will be a minority, but should we really be worried by this?
Amardeep Sohi
The Observer, Sunday 21 November 2010
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I'm British, but Professor David Coleman has made me feel like a permanent immigrant. He's the Oxford University migration adviser who claimed last week that by 2066, white Britons will be a minority. He believes that this shift, based on skin colour will "represent an enormous change to national identity". But surely, national identity should be based on a system of values upheld by a population, not skin colour.
It wasn't until I ventured to India, the country of my parents' birth, that I realised how true this was.
Although my family originate from the Punjab, I was born and educated in London. Growing up, a real sense of being British was embedded within me, but I was always conscious of this "other" place from which my grandparents and parents had migrated in the 1960s, a reminder that resurfaces every time I have to tick the "Asian or British Asian" box on a form.
At 24, I finally made the journey to the Punjab. It was late by anybody's standards, but I was curious to visit the land my parents had left behind as children. A number of people were intrigued and keen to find out how I would react and I felt pressured to relate to the country that I was expected to look upon as the "motherland". I expected the experience to shed light on my family history, but it did so much more.
It confirmed what I had always known; first and foremost I was British. My ethnic background marginalised me in the UK, but my British upbringing did the same in India. When I ventured out, I was deemed the foreigner and even an attempt to blend in with traditional dress did little to dispel my British air and mannerisms. I was "the British girl" and the experience was dumbfounding.
But it wasn't just this reception that confirmed my sense of self. Although I was visiting a rural area, I naturally found myself comparing attitudes towards health, education, politics and even tax, all the things that bind a society.
The most striking difference was in healthcare. We Brits sometimes complain about the quality of care we receive in the NHS, but compared with a country where healthcare can only be obtained privately, isn't it a sign of our equality and sense of responsibility to one another? It soon became clear that I had a very British attitude to the elements which make up a society and this, I realised, is what defined me.
The trip was illuminating in so many ways and although I'm very proud of my heritage, I came away with the realisation that our attitudes and contributions to society, whether they be financial, vocational or political, define who we are. Skin colour and religious or cultural beliefs need not define national identity.
When Professor Coleman speaks of immigration in terms of colour, he is marginalising generations of Britons and disregarding decades' worth of contributions made to British society by immigrants and their offspring. And he is playing into the hands of the far right. Immigration should remain on the agenda, but the arguments should be about numbers, not colour.
Focusing on the issue in terms of the effects on "white Britons" is short-sighted and reductive. National identity should be based on values we uphold collectively. Before there's a crisis of national identity, we would do well to remember that.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
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