TIGblogs - Brian Smith

Here's a pretty interesting article from The Hindu - the online edition of India's National Newspaper:

Diversity is an unalterable fact of life in a multicultural society.

"I'm a Glaswegian Pakistani teenage woman of Muslim descent who supports Glasgow Rangers in a Catholic school," Tahara Khan tells her stunned debating club. And, adds for good measure, "because I'm a mixture and I'm proud of it." The assembly breaks into a shocked outburst, not least because the Glasgow Rangers are a Protestant football club!....

Ken Loach's latest film, "Ae Fond Kiss", briefly flirts with the slippery question of identity while negotiating the minefield of an inter-racial relationship. With this film, Loach digresses from his usual gritty themes of social realism to pose questions of culture, race and religion.

The feisty character of Tahara makes the provocative statement to negate western labels of Islam. But how Pakistani is Tahara?

The essentialising question of what is Pakistani about Tahara is contentious as nobody can be defined by one characteristic alone. Does she construct her identity from the starting point of being Muslim, Pakistani, British or, for that matter, a teenage woman? Tahara is a Pakistani but equally, she is also a Glaswegian. And again, her gender is an essential part of her identity.

Identity cannot be constructed from a single source; it is complex, contested and always changing.

Identity and difference

In an increasingly globalising world, the concept of diaspora problematises the question of identity. And, identity is closely linked to difference. "We are British, But... " a collection of short documentaries screened at the British Council in Chennai recently addresses the concepts of identity, belonging and home.

In "Raj or Radge", Faz, a Scottish man of Pakistani descent asserts he is "more Scottish than the Scottish." If Faz is both Scottish and Pakistani, which one is he really? What does it mean to be British-Asian? The hyphenation serves to incorporate his Pakistani self with the culture of his adopted land. A hyphenated identity such as British-Asian produces a linear equation where the "national" identity of British does not subsume the "ethnic" identity.

The first generation or the authentic Asian immigrant family wore its ethnic identity like a protective cloak over the other, British identity. These first-generation immigrants carefully cultivated values of an Indian/Pakistani culture which contrasted sharply against the stereotypes of "western" culture; a culture, which in their minds was degenerate. The authentic immigrant sees the nationalistic values inherited from an old country as vital to his survival in a new, alien land.

These atavistic interpretations of natal culture are then rigorously enforced and in so doing, the parents, who consider themselves as guardians or upholders of their natal culture, expect their children to follow in their footsteps.

Om Puri's character in "East is East" set in Salford, Manchester, is an inflexible traditionalist who seeks to preserve an imagined "home", complete with its oppressive hierarchical social structure. The second-generation immigrants subjected to the suffocating aspects of their parents' cultural expectations are expected to subscribe to the same ideology, or face the charge of being too "western", an undesirable label!

In "Ae Fond Kiss", the hero Casim falls in love with Roisin, an Irish-Catholic woman and, of course, the relationship scandalises his family. The hero's sister accuses Roisin of tearing apart the fabric of her family and demands to know if Roisin can say without hesitation that she will love Casim forever! The implied belief in the question being that Roisin is incapable of professing undying love because she comes from a "degenerate" culture and so cannot be expected to stick to the "till death do us apart" vow. In the film, the hero defies his "tradition" and decides to be with Roisin.

However, in real life, a friend experienced bitter rejection. Steve, who is English, saw his relationship with a British-Asian girl come to nought because her parents objected to his race. The girl succumbed to their emotional blackmails and relentless badgering and said no to Steve's proposal of marriage.

Negotiating allegiances

Second-generation Asians, who have spent their formative years in a country different from that of their parents, find themselves constantly negotiating their allegiance to their parents' natal culture and the culture of their adopted home. The irony is that the rigidly enforced Indian "tradition" bears little resemblance to contemporary middle-class attitudes in India.

In a number of cases, migrants do seek to become part of the host society and over a period of time their self-identification as immigrants fades, though they may retain an ethnic identity. People who feel displaced and who try to invent or revive a connection with a prior home often use the language of diaspora.

In "Safar", Yashpal Suri, a doctor who arrived in Britain in the 1960s, speaks of the loss of "home" and tries to reconstruct it through a regular exchange of videotapes and letters with his family in India.

The awareness of being different often also leads to a sense of isolation and subsequent ghettoisation of immigrant communities. The immigrant and native communities leading parallel, segregated lives in Oldham and Burnley sparked racial violence in the summer of 2001.

Need for dialogue

A culturally homogeneous society whose members subscribe and adhere to one system of beliefs and practices is in the realm of fiction. Diversity is an unalterable fact of life in a multicultural society. As an increasing number of people migrate from one place to another, they create new cultural spaces and are themselves reshaped in the process. To claim that one culture or civilisation is the best smacks of arrogance and is downright offensive.

In Rethinking Multiculturalism, Bhikhu Parekh rightly argues that different cultures realise different forms of excellence, and their dialogue benefits all.

A dialectic across the boundaries created by cultural differences can create a cohesive global community at ease with cultural diversity.

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