RACE RELATIONS IN BRITAIN TODAY
Immigration After the second world war, due to Britain’s shortage of labour (mainly in manual, low-skilled jobs) and to the necessity to rebuild the country, the British government invited Commonwealth citizens (= citizens of the former colonies of the British Empire) to settle in the UK to fill those vacant jobs and to participate to the reconstruction effort. From the 1940s to the 1960s, immigrants came from the three main areas of the Commonwealth: 1. the Indian sub-continent: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh -> they are commonly called ‘Asians’ (normally, unlike France, the Chinese are not counted as “Asians”). These groups are characterised by their strong and ancient cultural traditions, which include: strong religious affiliations (either Hindus, Muslims, or Sikhs), strong family structures (arranged marriages for example), the persistence of linguistic, culinary and dress traditions (languages such as Hindi, Punjabi are all present / Asians both from the Indian sub-continent and, later, from China have made a great contribution to the restaurant trade so much so that curry is the n°1 favourite Br itish meal / traditional dress is worn everyday) 2. the West Indies or Caribbean islands: Jamaica, Trinidad, Tobago, St Lucia, etc. 3. African countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone, etc. Both West Indian and Africans came from cultures that were already creolized (creolization = métissage culturel): English was the official language in their countries and most of them were Protestants. Later, from the 1970s onwards, new generations of immigrants came to the United Kingdom. Unlike previous generations, they did not originate from the Commonwealth. Instead, they came from the Far East (China, Vietnam, Cambodia), the Near-East and the Middle-East (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, later Turkey, Cyprus), or more recently, Northern Africa. A lot of these settlers were actually fleeing persecution at home and seeking “political asylum”;