2.4.6 The Black African Community

Black Africans have a long history of residence in the UK, well before the more recent period of large-scale immigration in the 1960s. The history of their migration differs significantly from those immigrants who were recruited directly for employment. Well-established African communities existed in the seaports of Liverpool, London and Cardiff as far back as the 1940s. Since the post-independence period of the 1960s there has been a marked increase in the number of Africans traveling to the UK for higher education and technical training. The wealth and prestige associated with studying abroad has been one of the key drivers for the African community's migration to the UK - they are 'students who stayed'. Back in 1991, Black Africans were the most qualified ethnic minority group in Britain, with over 26% of the population over 18 years of age possessing higher qualifications. Traditionally there were quite clear career aspirations and targets for the Black African communities. The principal fields of qualification were: management studies, nursing, sociology, education, clinical medicine, engineering, accountancy and law. Within this, there are also clear gender differences, with women outnumbering men in nursing and education. With 53 potential countries of origin, and varied social backgrounds, the Black African population is characterized by diversity, both internally and in comparison with other ethnic groups. The current UK population of Black Africans are largely from: Nigeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Somalia. Language is a differentiator amongst the communities, with each country of origin having its own mother tongue. However, the social structures of the communities that migrated to the U.K. and the strong educational influences that have played a part in the migration have meant that English is now the dominant language amongst the communities. The two main religions practiced by the African communities in the UK are Christianity and Islam. Both have very strong links into the communities and are a reflection of the cultural traditions that bind the groups together. [7]

This chapter includes information about the communities of ethnicity. From that it is seen what great impact ethnic minority communities have on the country. The food the British eat, the music they listen to, the clothes they wear and how they relax have all been influenced by the widely diverse range of cultures which make up Britain. The quality and breadth of the arts and popular culture have been enriched through the contribution of individuals from many backgrounds and traditions. British music, cinema and television, theatre and literature all owe a debt to the creative and talented input from the many people who have come to settle here over the years.

Non British born Black, Asian and other minority ethnic individuals and communities are also making their mark on the new face of Britain as a centre of style, fashion and pioneering ideas in culture and the arts. Londoners speak over 300 languages other than English. Widely spoken languages include Punjabi (spoken by 52% of British Asians), Urdu (32%), Hindi (27%), Gujarati (25%), Bengali, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese. Many European languages, such as Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese and Greek are also spoken. These languages are thriving through newspapers and other print media, broadcasting, theatre and the arts.

Britain's urban youth culture influences youth across the world. This culture owes much to the ethnic diversity of Britain's young people, which they can draw on and fuse together, resulting in a unique crossover of ethnic and cultural influences. Youth culture is an important influence on the arts and culture, at home and abroad. The clothes on London's streets appear on Paris catwalks; the sounds young people create in dance clubs and warehouse parties end up on the music charts.

The impact of ethnic minorities is also noticeable in the sheer variety of ethnic foods available in Britain today. Ethnic food is now a part of the everyday British diet, whether it's eating at home or eating out. [4]

3. Today's Population in the UK

3.1 Migration Waves

Migration has become a widely spread problem in the whole UK. Millions of people come there to earn money or even to settle there. From the beginning of the 15th century until the 20th the balance of emigration was markedly outward due to colonial expansions. During the 19th century over 20 mln people left Britain for destinations outside Europe, mainly in the Commonwealth and the United states.

But since 1930s the balance of Migration for Britain was inward. Many emigrants began to return. The dismantling of the Empire has been a gradual process accompanied by the great inflow of people to Britain. Right up until 1962 the citizens of the huge area of the former Empire had the automatic right to live and work in Britain. [8 p. 84-85]

Many Irish people came to England in 1845 to escape famine, to find work. Most of the roads, railways and canals built in the 19th century, were made by Irish workers. The greatest wave of immigration was in the 1950s and 1960s. Many companies needed people for unskilled or semi-skilled jobs. Britain advertised and many people came from the Caribbean islands, from Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Hong Kong. People came here in search of better life, political or religious freedom. British government and people regarded this as a threat to the health of the nation: it increased unemployment, worsened living conditions. It was in these circumstances that the Government introduced the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 which gave it power to restrict the number of people from the Commonwealth, especially from the Irish Republic. Another Act was passed in 1968 and still another in 1971. The last has sharply reduced the number of people allowed to stay in Britain. [9 p. 72]

Traditionally Britain gave a lot of emigrants to the rest of the world. During the period from 1836 till 1936 about 11 million people left the British Isles. This mass emigration especially in the 19th century was a movement of ruined peasants, and the unemployed. The people hoped to find new opportunities and happiness on new territories. The migrants went mainly to North America (the USA, Canada), Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, to other lands in Asia and Africa. They settled there, spreading the economic, political and cultural influence of Great Britain, as well as the English language, which became the state language of many countries.

Mass emigration from Great Britain stopped during and after World War I, when many countries had to limit immigration. After the 1950s and in the 1960s many people entered Britain especially from the West Indies, Asia and Africa and settled permanently in the country. They made an important contribution to the development of the economy and the public services. British monopolies took great profits from the exploitation of cheap migrant labour. Today there are also groups of Americans, Australians, Chinese and various European communities living in Britain. In the last generation British society has therefore become more multiracial as people from almost all parts of the world have made a permanent home in the country.

Table 3.1. Timeline: Immigration to Britain

3.2 Overpopulation

Great Britain as a whole is a densely populated country; but like all countries it contains areas of very sparse population. Britain has not solved the problem of a multi-racial society. The number of people asking to settle in Britain is rising. With every wave of migration the population is being increased. It causes the problem of overpopulation, which brings to the country a number of difficulties Overcrowding is, however, by no means the only serious feature of the present housing situation.

In mid-2005 the UK was home to 60.2 million people, of which 50.4 million lived in England. 2005 UK population grows to more than 60m. The average age was 38.8 years, an increase on 1971 when it was 34.1 years. In mid-2005 approximately one in five people in the UK were aged under 16 and one in six people were aged 65 or over. The UK has a growing population. It grew by 375,100 people in the year to mid-2005 (0.6 per cent). The UK population increased by 7.7 per cent since 1971, from 55.9 million. Growth has been faster in more recent years. Between mid-1991 and mid-2004 the population grew by an annual rate of 0.3 per cent and the average growth per year since mid-2001 has been 0.5 per cent.

The average age of the population has been estimated using the median value. The median is the mid-point age that separates the younger half of the population from the older half. Mid-2005 population estimates are available at national level by single year of age and sex and subnationally (local authority health area) by five year age group and sex. These include additional selected age groups and broad components of population change along with a methodological guide explaining how the mid-2005 population estimates were produced. For England and Wales at a subnational level, they reflect the local authority administrative boundaries that were in place on 1 April 2005. For Scotland they reflect the council area boundaries that were in place on 29 April 2001. For Northern Ireland at a subnational level, current Local Government District boundaries were set following the 1992 Boundary Commission review which was published in 1993. The estimated resident population of an area includes all people who usually live there, whatever their nationality. Members of UK and non-UK armed forces stationed in the UK are included in their respective Countries and UK forces stationed outside the UK are excluded. Students are taken to be resident at their term time address. The methodology used to update mid-year estimates includes an estimate of the population change due to flows of International migrants. These flows are based on estimates of long-term International migrants (where stays of over twelve months only are counted) therefore this does not include flows of short-term International migrants. Methods and sources used by Scotland and Northern Ireland vary slightly to England and Wales. [12 p. 27-29]

3.3 Relations among Nations

Recognition of ethnic diversity is a feature of British policy abroad as well as at home. There can be no place for racism in world affairs. British policy in Europe, the Commonwealth, and the United Nations, and in bi-lateral relations with individual countries is to promote harmony between ethnic groups. Racism is not acceptable and should play no part in international relations in the 21st century.

Commission for Racial Equality The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) was set up under the 1976 Act. Its duties are: to work towards the elimination of racial discrimination; to promote equality of opportunity and good race relations between persons of different racial groups generally; to keep the working of the Act under review. The CRE has powers under race relations legislation to issue Codes of Practice, to carry out formal investigations, and to issue non-discrimination notices after findings of unlawful racial discrimination. The CRE has conducted over 100 such investigations, resulting in significant changes in employment practices of housing allocation policy. The CRE also has a duty to consider requests for assistance from members of the public who wish to bring legal cases alleging unlawful racial discrimination. If the CRE considers the complaint to be within the scope of the Act it can provide investigative, expert and legal representation at no cost to the individual. Cases are taken to employment tribunals, the employment law courts, or to the civil law courts, where a judge sits without a jury for all non-employment cases. This casework is then followed up by the CRE with relevant good practice publications.

While the CRE takes the lead at national level, Racial Equality Councils are on hand locally to assist in cases of discrimination and to promote race equality. There are 98 Racial Equality Councils funded by the CRE and local authorities.

In Northern Ireland, equivalent responsibilities for tackling discrimination and promoting racial equality rest with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, which also covers other grounds of unlawful discrimination.

Much of the CRE's work is educational, advisory and campaigning, encouraging organizations to change their practices and behavior to develop racial equality. The CRE's race equality standards for education, employment, local government, and services for young people aim to help organizations measure their progress towards race equality. [6]

Social Exclusion Unit. The Social Exclusion Unit was set up by the government in December 1997 to coordinate and improve government action to reduce social exclusion. Race is a specific remit of the Unit, which is working to ensure that no groups are excluded from government policy and practice. The work of the SEU forms part of the government's strategic approach to tackling social exclusion including all Whitehall departments and many external partners. Tackling social exclusion has been a priority in budgets and spending reviews, with investment in opportunity a priority for the resources released through better control of public finances. The government has committed itself to annual reporting on its anti-poverty strategy in Opportunity for All. The SEU's work has led to a change in the way social exclusion is understood within government and more widely. [9]

For centuries people from overseas have settled in the UK, either to escape political or religious persecution or in search of better economic opportunities. As a result, the UK has a significant multicultural population. [16 p. 51]

The Labor Force Survey estimated that over the period 2001-02, around 4.5 million people in Great Britain (8%) described themselves as belonging to an ethnic group other than 'White'. In general, minority ethnic groups tend to have a younger age profile than the White population, reflecting past immigration and fertility patterns. [18]

Britain has always been a multi-racial society. What is new is the visibility of its racial diversity. And what is newer still is a willingness to accept that all the races can have parity of esteem. For a long time even when it was acknowledged that there were people of different racial origin within the British Isles, there was an assumption that the white race and culture was, and should, be dominant.

Racial stereotyping echoes through British literature and culture almost to the present day. And for some time, assumptions of racial inferiority colored mainstream British perception of non-white culture and art.

But multi-racialism is a tricky balance to achieve. On the one hand, there has to be a measure of economic equality and genuine parity of esteem. But on the other, it should not mean obliterating differences or pretending differences do not exist. Britain would be the poorer without its different races and their different cultural traditions. But it would also be a mistake to try and iron out these differences in the name of multi-racialism. [19 p. 52]

Conclusion

The found information shows that British society is one of the most multi-racial and ethnically diversed in the world. Also it is clear from the research that culture of the communities greatly contributes in British social life. But it is also seen that Britain is very popular among the people who prefer to leave their country in searches for better and easier life. It is also clear that the government appreciated the flow of immigrants in the past years, but now Britain is faced with such problem as overpopulation. Great amount of people come to Britain to find a job and send the money to the family.

The data goes back far enough, so that it could be said that everyone who lives in Britain today has origins somewhere else. Many of them can probably trace the immigrants in their own family histories. Some may have been among the various invading armies - Roman, Saxon, Viking or Norman. Others had little choice about coming: Africans were brought to Britain by force in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as slaves or servants; and thousands of people arrived at various times as refugees from France, Ireland, Russia, and other countries, escaping from persecution or famine in their own countries.

The overwhelming majority of minority ethnic Britons live in cities, with 45% living in Greater London alone. These include Afro-Caribbeans, African Asians, South Asians (Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi) and Chinese. The other regions where minority ethnic Britons tend to live are the West Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside and North West England. In Scotland, minority ethnic people make up only 1.25% of the population. The largest groups there are Pakistani, Chinese and Indian, living mainly in Glasgow, where they make up 3.2% of the population.

Although most of Britain's minority ethnic population live in the main urban areas, they tend to live alongside the majority ethnic community rather than in segregated «ghettos». These main urban areas have greater disadvantage, with higher rates of unemployment, lower household incomes, more overcrowding and poorer housing conditions. Over half of Britain's minority ethnic population, 56%, live in the 44 most deprived local authority districts.

The importance of collecting facts about ethnic minority groups and measuring progress towards equality is now widely recognized. Most major public bodies and increasing numbers of employers and service providers - from government departments to football clubs - now include ethnic monitoring as part of their equal opportunities policies to measure ethnic minority inclusion and participation in the socio-economic and cultural life of Britain. Traditionally Britain gave a lot of emigrants to the rest of the world. During the period from 1836 till 1936 about 11 million people left the British Isles. This mass emigration especially in the 19th century was a movement of ruined peasants, and the unemployed. The people hoped to find new opportunities and happiness on new territories. The migrants went mainly to North America (the USA, Canada), Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, to other lands in Asia and Africa. They settled there, spreading the economic, political and cultural influence of Great Britain, as well as the English language, which became the state language of many countries.

Mass emigration from Great Britain stopped during and after World War I, when many countries had to limit immigration. After the 1950s and in the 1960s many people entered Britain especially from the West Indies, Asia and Africa and settled permanently in the country. They made an important contribution to the development of the economy and the public services. British monopolies took great profits from the exploitation of cheap migrant labour.

Today there are also groups of Americans, Australians, Chinese and various European communities living in Britain. In the last generation British society has therefore become more multiracial as people from almost all parts of the world have made a permanent home in the country. Racial discrimination and poor living conditions have contributed to racial violence, especially in the day-to-day form of relations between young blacks and police, or in the more extreme form of inner-city riots.

Reporting on the Brixton riots of 1981, Lord Scarman wrote, «We must create a black British middle class… black and brown as well as white faces must be seen not only on the production line but also in positions of authority and influence at all levels of society*. But the problem is still vital.

The creed of racial superiority was very much part and parcel of the culture of the empire. The British Empire was built on a theory of racial inferiority. It was the alleged superiority of the non-white races that supposedly legitimized taking over their countries and subordinating them to second class status.

To have a genuinely multi-racial society there needs to be genuine economic equality between the races. It's unbelievable that one can talk about a multi-racial Britain or anywhere else unless there is a measure of economic empowerment for all groups within Society. This means making sure that there is genuine equality of opportunity in education for all races. And that the barriers for black and ethnic minority advancement in business and in the profession are taken down. But economic empowerment for minorities is a necessary precondition but not sufficient to bring about a genuinely multi-racial society. Because nationhood and society is as much about ideas as anything else, the role of culture, literature, philosophy and the arts in building a multi-racial society is key. The first step is that the influence of black and ethnic minorities in the culture of a country like Britain is properly acknowledged.

There is no doubt that the presence of ethnic minorities in Britain and much more foreign travel have transformed the British diet for the better. Noticeably fish and chips have been overtaken by curry as the most popular British takeaway. For many years, Britons have got used to seeing black athletes representing them internationally. We are also seeing an unprecedented level of intermarriage between the races. It is noticeably more common to see mixed race couples in Britain than in the U.S., which has had a larger black population for longer.

So multi-racialism is easy to talk about but hard to achieve. Yet as we have approached the end of a millennium, Britain is a more open, more multi-racial society than ever before, multi-racial society where different races and cultural influences are beginning to be positively acknowledged and given equal respect. British society has come some way but there is still further to go. The indication of Britain's becoming a genuinely multi-racial society is when the skin color of a British MP is no more significant than the color of their eyes.

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