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| Speech to the Franco-British Council Diversity Seminar. |
| Tuesday, 14 November 2006 |
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Commonwealth Club
I’m pleased to be here today to discuss an issue which affected me personally as a black man growing up in Tottenham, which still affects people in my constituency on a daily basis – and which has become an increasingly high profile national issue for both Britain and France.
Because we come together at this conference as two nations who share a common challenge: how we can learn to live together in the modern, multi-ethnic societies.
As the timing of this conference indicates, that challenge seems particualrly pressing at the moment. But before I talk about some of the things that I think make 2006 a unique time to live in, we should also remind ourselves that diversity of heritage, of culture and of background is not a new phenomenon.
Longstanding diversity.
In playhouses across Britain and France, we go to see plays written four hundred years ago by Shakespeare, which tell the story of a Europe of Italian, Jewish and Moorish families living alongside one another
Shortly before the French Revolution, Benjamin Franklin wrote, "Each man has two countries, I think: His own, and France."
And when George Orwell sought to capture the essence of Englishness at the height of the Second World War, he found himself asking, “How can anyone make a pattern out of this muddle?”. He could not help but be struck by what he described as ‘The diversity of it, the chaos!’. English culture, he found, was far from homogenous.
And since the time that Orwell was writing, the flow of people across national borders has added further to the diversity of populations in Britain, France and beyond.
The 1950s and 60s saw over a million immigrants arrive in Britain from the Carribean, the Indian sub-continent, Africa and the far East. And at the same time, a wave of immigrants from North Africa reached French shores.
The legacy of that period remains for both of our countries. Just as France turned to immigrants to help rebuild it’s great cities, Britain turned to the migrants of the Windrush generation to help build the modern welfare state. Men and women arriving from the West Indies and beyond took up many vital roles in the new public institutions that were created in that period.
Even today, nearly half of all doctors and a quarter of all nurses in London were trained and qualified overseas. Go into your local hospital and you will see the doctor from India or New Zealand or Ireland working alongside the nurse from South Africa or Egypt or Israel.
Creating and sustaining a National Health Service – one of this country’s proudest achievements – has depended in no small part on the hard work and endeavour of people from around the world.
So, an openness to people from all backgrounds has not only been a longstanding feature of both of our nations’ history – it has also been a source of great strength.
My parents were part of that generation of people who arrived in Britain during the 1960s. They made their contribution – and they also made Britain their home.
The rise – and achievements – of multiculturalism.
And the rise of many of the policies that we have come to be associated with ‘multiculturalism’ in both Britain and France were designed to reflect that. Our two countries had evolved once again – becoming more ethnically and culturally diverse – bringing great rewards but also new challenges.
It was during the 1960s and 70s that campaigners from both sides of the channel sought due rights and recognition for new those new citizens. And it was that period that witnessed some important achievements: the passing of successive race relations acts, and the creation of the Commission for Racial Equality in Britain, and the passage of the Act of 1 July 1972 in France.
The measures introduced in 60s and 70s – and the philosophy that underpinned them – brought real benefits.
They helped open doors for people from minority ethnic backgrounds to play a more prominent role in all walks of life. They helped tackle the unacceptable prejudice that led to wasted talent, divided communities, and an undercurrent of resentment.
And I think it is no accident that I speak to you today as one of the few minority ethnic elected government ministers in the EU. Twenty five years ago, there was not a single ethnic minority MP or peer in this country: a statistic that tells you how far we have come.
So there is still progress to be made, but our democratic institutions in this country are more genuinely representative than many others around the world. And partly because of that sense of representation – and the wider social progress that it reflects – surveys show that people from a spread of backgrounds feel more comfortable in this country than in many others across Europe.
Over the past forty or fifty years, France has charted its own course, with a studied separation of religion and state guiding its approach to diversity. And this led to a different approach to questions around multi-culturalism and a different interpretation of what we regard and public and private expressions of faith.
But what both our countries still share is a growing sense of urgency around this question of how we live together in multi-ethnic societies. Because despite some of the progress that we have seen, it is clear that all is not well, in either this country, or in France.
The challenges ahead.
The riots in Paris last year revealed a deep sense of exculsion, frustration and anger amongst many young black men in France.
And the bombings in London were shocking to many people in this country not just because of the scale and the savagery of the violence, but because that violence was perpetrated by young men who had been born and raised in Britain.
The realisation that these acts of violence were committed not just against Britons, but by Britons had a profound effect on our national consciousness. And I know the events of the last year-and-a-half have led to some soul-searching on both sides of the Channel.
In France, President Chirac has responded with calls for more representation of people from all backgrounds in public life. And as a nation, France has been making progress in this area. Young black people all over France now have a role model in Harry Roselmack, following his period presenting the most-watched news programme in the country. That is enormously important.
But one role model, on one news programme, in one area of public life cannot be enough whether in France, Britain, or anywhere in the world. The challenge now is to embed that culture across a range of institutions.
Whether it is the policeman walking the streets of Marseille, the headteacher giving an assembly in the Loire, or the civil servant in Paris, all men and women should be able to see people who look and sound like them shaping their nation’s future.
In Britain, a particular set of concerns have been raised over the last year. People have worried that by emphasising the uniquness of different cultures, there is a danger of reinforcing separation rather than supporting togetherness.
This is an important discussion and one that I would like to spend some time on today. Because it is clear that those common bonds between people of different backgrounds matter – whether that difference is due to age, race or religion. It matters because that sense of community is central to helping us live alongside one another in the twenty-first century – whether in France or Britain.
But how we build those common bonds – and on what terms – also matters.
Aside from the changes to the law, one of the one of the other significant legacies 1960s and 1970s in Britain was the argument that we should reject the doctrine of assimilation – the idea that new entrants should leave their customs and practices at the door in the name of fitting in with the majority.
For me, this legacy continues to have both moral and practical force. People today are less deferential today than ever before – as ask any priest, politician, trade unionist or parent.
In 2006 identity seems increasingly something we can choose, shape or discard. So there is little reason to think that simply demanding that people people dispense with their heritage and customs is even a practical precription, let alone a desirable one.
But I also believe very strongly that rejecting the dogma of assimilation is not to deny the importance of what we hold in common.
Because for me, the challenge is not to become more like one another. It is to learn how much like one another we already are.
Multiple identities.
The great danger of either demanding assimilation or emphasing our differences is that it gives the false impression of large, homogenous groups who have little in common with one another.
And in making that assumption, we risk reducing complex, many-sided people into one-dimensional characters, defined by just a single element of their identity.
Now apply this way of thinking to anyone you actually know and immediately you can see the flaws in it. How many one dimensional people have you met this week?
A young Pakistani man arriving in Britain may well be a Muslim, but also a musician, and Manchester United supporter and a dedicated father. An Algerian woman living in France can also be a loving mother, an aspiring entrepeneur, and a keen follower of the arts all at the same time.
These are characteristics shared by people all over Britain and France. But they are also characteristics which can easily be obscured when we categorise people in one dimensional terms.
To avoid becoming strangers from one another we need to start seeing whole people again.
And to understand how to achieve this we need only look at the evidence. The government’s citizenship survey shows time and again that people who live in the most ethnically diverse areas are those that feel most positive towards people from ethnic minority backgrounds.
It is unfamiliarity – not incompatibility – that breeds distrust and resentment. As I said earlier, it’s difficult to see anyone in one dimensional terms once you actually know them.
An encounter culture.
So, if we are going to build those common bonds and that sense of affiliation with one another, we need what I describe as an ‘encounter culture’. By this, I mean a civic culture in which in which it is easier and more rewarding to interact with people from different backgrounds.
The word civic there is an important one – this is not just about what government can deliver alone, but the progress that we can make when we find ways to build spaces in which people can engage with others who look, sound and live differently from themselves,
And for me, this is becomes ever more important: at a time when people can spend their way out of contact with others, through their choice of where and how to live at a time when people are living longer but the gap between the young and old seems to be growing at a time when the those from urban and rural areas can feel like they are living not just in different parts of the country, but in completely different worlds from one another
This is about as much it is about everyday interactions and in communities and workplaces as much as it is about government white papers.
That is not to say that government cannot make it’s contribution to an encounter culture, however. Today, we are far more aware of the impact that government can have on people’s social networks through decisons it makes, and it is vital that we remain alive to this across a range of areas.
Housing estates in both Britain and France, for example, throw large groups of people together, but still tend to reinforce ethnic segregation rather than help overcome it – leading to a ghettoisation of communities that we cannot accept. This is the legacy of the cités dortoirs in in France and the large tower-blocks of that were built in this country during the 1960s and 70s. This is something that I know the CRE has been working on recently and it matters enormously.
Similarly, we must continue to ask questions about the experience that we all have of our public institutions. If the role of education is to prepare young people for adult life, then it must include interaction with people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds. This is more than a question of the conduct of a few faith schools – it raises important questions about the contribution that all schools can make in reversing the historic segregation of pupils along racial lines.
Sport and culture can also play their role. They offer forums in which common interests can help create common bonds. Meeting other young people from a range of backgrounds on the sportsfield, or a as part of a cultural production can be important formative experiences for young people.
There are many other areas that this idea of en encounter culture applies to – from community groups to volunteering schemes and public spaces to name but a few. But I think the principle is clear: when you begin to meet and interract with people from other backgrounds, you are far less likely to fear or resent them.
I do not suggest here that government becomes one big social engineering project, but rather than we become more aware that the decisions that we take around issues like schooling, housing, culture and public spaces already impact on people’s likelihood to meet and interract with one another.
Ultimately government cannot – and should not – make our friends for us, but what it can do is nurture the kind of civic culture that will prevent us from becoming strangers from one another.
Nor do I suggest that there are not important contributions that people arriving in Britain or France can make themselves.
An encounter culture demands that all British citizens can speak the national language for example. Citizenship is about making an active contribution – and that includes and the ability to communicate with other citizens as well as having some grasp of a nation’s history and traditions.
I would like to finish on one last point though.
And that it is that it is not just schooling or geography, or the absence of inviting public spaces that divides people along racial grounds. It is deep-seated inequality.
Addressing inequality.
Seeing whole people – complete with multiple identities – demands that we recognise some of the other features that we hold in common, aside from our ethnicity. And too often to be a black person, or a Muslim, in either Britain and France is also to be socially excluded. Too often, it is to have poor educational outcomes, to face unemployment, and to live without a real sense of hope and possibility.
These are structural barriers that will always stand in the way of a more integrated and cohesive society until we address them fully. People must share more than their poverty if they are ever to fully integrate.
And it is the responsibility of progressive politicians to offer a vision that will provide that hope by putting people back in control of their life chances. Beacuse when we talk about empowering people that is what we must mean: removing the barriers systematically disempower people, helping individuals and communities shape their own future.
This is the only way that we will convince people that democratic participation – not acts of violence – holds the key to making change happen in their own lives and the world around them.
If we can achieve this, then people from all backgrounds will have one more aspect of their identity to hold in common. And the time to address these challenges is not in ten years. It is not in response the next crisis in Britain or in France, whatever that may be. The time is now.
The UN said last year that there are 200 million people world-wide living outside of their home countries. Ethinic diversity is here to stay. But too often we tend to be reactive in the way that we address the challenges and opportunities that it creates.
If you look back at the history of race relations in this country, measures were often brought in as a response to crisis or tragedy, as was the case even with the latest legislation after the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence.
Similarly, whilst we have nearly two million Muslims living in Britain, the concerns of Muslim were off the political radar until 2001. Their voices were not heard. They were not part of political discourse. They appeared only fleetingly in the news.
It is only now that attention has turned to the disadvantages that many British Muslims face, the challenge of integration, and the risks of radicalisation.
We need to be more ambitious than that. We cannot afford to jump from crisis to crisis, running behind events. We need to spend more time focussing not just what we want to avoid, but on the kind of Britain or France that we want to create.
And we must also recognise that this is not just a concern for first or second or third generation immigrants – it is a concern for all of us.
Because in a globalised world, characterised the by the rise of India and China in the East, we need people from all backgrounds to contribute to a robust and successful economy. Our ability to compete must come from the talent, skills and ingenuity of all our people.
‘The many not the few’ can no longer simply an appeal to people’s sense of fairness – our future depends upon it.
And this means a positive approach that gets beyond the common denominator response to diversity. It means an approach that understands that people from ethnic minorities are themselves diverse.
We know, for example, that children from Indian and Chinese backgrounds tend to achieve very highly in the education system, whilst young people from Caribbean families achieve their potential significantly less often.
We know that Polish men and women are likely to fair well in the labour market, whilst there are significant employment penalties associated with a coming from a Pakistani or Bangladeshi background.
We know that economic migrants have very different circumstances to those from failed states.
And we know that the challenges for first generation migrant are different to those faced by people from ethnic minority backgrounds who are born in this country.
These differentiated circumstances require differentiated responses – whether that is new ways for businesses diversify their workforces through positive action, more personalised education for young people, more flexible support for families, or new ways to help people from varied backgrounds participate and prosper in the labour market.
In a world of rising economic superpowers, diversity can be our greatest strength or our biggest weakness. We can use all of the talent available to us or waste it. We can benefit from the richness that diversity brings, or let it divide us. We can recognise what we hold in common, or be blind to it.
The choice is ours, and it is ours to make now. Because politics as normal will lead only to more of the same. More incremental progress. More disaffection. More blind alleys and fewer solutions.
If we are really serious about settling this issue once and for all then politics as usual – maintaining the status quo – is not an option.
We need more than a response to the events of the last year-and-a-half in both Britian and France, crucial though that it is.
Because, fundamentally, answering the question of how we live together in the twenty-first century is about shaping a future that we all want to live in.
Thank you
Please click here to to see a video of David's speech.
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