Medios de Protección Colectivas

4.5.1 Racism during the Colonial Era

It is evident that racism and racialisation is historically and geographically specific. Britain’s colonial policy and ideology was underlined by its romanticising of racial imperialism, wherein the British supposedly had the right to rule over races in colonies they considered inferior (Richards, 1989) This was particularly seen in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and other places where they controlled extensive territories. In the nineteenth century, the British Empire was caught up in a tumultuous and unending race to accumulate capital in order to sustain its capitalism, as there was a fear that other European countries might compete and take over smaller British colonies (Abbott, 1971). According to Appiah and Gutmann (1996), the colonial era considered rebellious natives in the colonies and labour issues as the same, but in different guises. Europe’s mission to enlighten other parts of the world and its talk about barbarians were all a result of ingrained fears

in the homeland. Building on Karl Renner’s idea of social imperialism, Semmel (1962) explains how the ruling class tried to create a stage for imperialism. The links between empire and nation were forged by social imperialism.

The basis of social imperialism is the idea of bringing all classes together to protect the nation and empire and convincing the poorest classes that their best interests lie in alignment with the nation (Olby, 1991). Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of the British race being superior and their colonial subjects being inferior was fed to all. From the 1800s to 1914, patriotism and empire were marketing marvels, as they were the pop culture of the time (Fieldhouse, 1983). The reasons for this include Britain having transformed into an industrial and urban society where social and economic advances were happening; after the 1870 Education Act, basic state education and technical advances with an undertone of imperialism and institutional racism made Britain’s imperialistic ambitions popular and acceptable in music halls, art, employment and education (Conley, 2009). For instance, textbooks propagated the survival and development of the British Empire with regard to the educational ideological state apparatus (ISA) (Cain and Hopkins, 1980). Finally, it was believed than an imperial race was necessary to protect the nation and its subjects. Therefore, Africans were seen through racist eyes as ferocious savages who were uncivilised and unhygienic, whereas free Caribbean slaves were called dangerous, lazy and incapable of work or growth unless they were forced. Likewise, Asians were called barbarians, and Indians and Afghans were commonly held to be rude and incapable of ruling themselves. With all its symptoms, racism had become part of a collective common sense (Balibar and Wallerstein, 1991).

4.5.2 The Post-Second World War Period

After the Second World War, Britain faced serious labour shortages in the post-war economy, just as in other parts of Europe, as White were taking up better jobs with higher pay in the manufacturing, engineering and service sectors. Britain saw huge numbers of immigrants who were now freely

Caribbean (former British subjects who did not undergo immigration control) and Ireland (Panayi, 2014). Asians, Blacks and other minority groups were recruited in their own nations in industries where labour was in high demand. Although a variety of immigrants from different classes arrived in Britain, most had little to no capital and had to work as labourers, where they largely took on semi-skilled and unskilled work (Banton, 1992). Moreover, most of them were recruited into manual work that called for shift working, odd work timings, poor pay and a poor work environment, as labour was short in these jobs.

Since it was not contract labour, Asians, Africans and Caribbeans were permitted to compete with British nationals for high-paying jobs (Bousquet and Douglas, 1991). However, their colonial education made employers believe that people of different races had particular characteristics that were unsuitable for their work environment. Asians were characterised as slow learners; Africans and Caribbeans were identified as lazy, undisciplined, aggressive, accident-prone and in need of more supervision than the average White employee (Miles and Torres, 2003). These disparities manifested in two ways. First, as Barker (1981) argues, when White workers were available, they were automatically preferred over Asians or Africans. Second, Schaffer (2007) further argues that a quota system was introduced to hire limited numbers of racial minorities and they were kept away from certain kinds of jobs. Employers and organised labour frequently conspired to get rid of minority workers. Parliament, the media and political parties during the 1950s were increasingly worried about the after-effects of unrestricted immigration. This led to a change in public policy, from favouring unrestricted immigration to severe regulations on the immigration of non-Whites in order to protect the social fabric and heritage of the nation from irreparable damage (Rose, 1969). Therefore, an Immigration Act was passed in 1962, the first of many. This limited immigrants from the Caribbean and Asia only, not from the Republic of Ireland. The results of these steps were evident and the marginalisation of people of colour over other migrants who were considered ‘White’ remained (Daniel, 1968). Miles (1993) states that racial minorities came and occupied

select positions in the economic, political and ideological fabric of Britain, though within the restrictive space of the working classes. Thus, they can be zeroed down as a racial fraction because they comprise a small number of the working class (Miles and Phizacklea, 1979). After the Second World War, and in the aftermath of these racial developments, the British Cabinet, as befits its colonial history, regarded Africans and Caribbeans as people who wanted to live in poor conditions without a desire to improve (Ben-Tovim and Gabriel, 1979).