The shadow of the lion; Dark Migration

Adding the shadow of the lion. Emerging from a memorable thanks and defining. Our. Story. This is bottom yesterday.

Temper. Is common in covering. Revolution in Britain. Program 12 dark migration. From an Indiana University Radio documented essay about contemporary Britain. We present the shadow of the lion with William Kinzer as your narrator.

Quickly turned the page. Look back through history to an era of influence would be of empire and world dominance to a period when the shadow of the lie stretched across the lives and feet down. Many people and many nations. I think the fact of having it had it in him. In some ways is a handicap. That's the whole history of the white Empire ruling all these countries. Is reflected in our history books and in some ways it's rubbed off on us. And so there is a danger right of the notion that we are superior or else there is the notion of paternalism. Morris fully he's a parliamentary under secretary of state in the Department of Economic Affairs. He's charged with the task of promoting better relations in behalf of Commonwealth immigrants. And if you should ask him why he's concerned he will explain it this way.

The post World War 2 has been the giving of independence to countries like India Pakistan Singapore and so on. And while these countries prior to their independence through the Colonial Office and you had the means at your disposal then because you were in effect controlling their laws and their regulations you could control the flow of people from those countries too. But now that these nations are independent and now that the white empire has emerged into a multi-racial Commonwealth that these nations are suffering and what we have attempted to do is to recognize that this new changing situation. But why is it that we must respond in terms of looking out on methods of inflow and outflow. Question of control is a question of evasions.

To try and preserve this country. It is a multi-racial society and to make it work because it would make a multi-racial coming with the mother country could put its own house in order and had always had an open door policy. Citizens of the Commonwealth could be pleased and Britain in her past was often a haven of rest for political refugees during the war. Too many Poles and Ukrainians came to serve and settle and I did but it was in the main nine hundred fifty years that the influx of it was reached a record high opportunities it opened up to me due to a critical shortage of labor in certain industries and so they came in growing numbers. In Pakistani West India.

And the king with little else but hope. Migrating immediately to centers of industrial activity like London Birmingham Manchester Sheffield Leeds or Bradford. There I've been a show was not very long ago one could see whole groups of immigrants arriving at the next station arriving from the Bradford social worker Irving who Scott remembers the scene. We would see them as groups but in actual fact they were individual immigrants as it were. They had individually come to this company. They would arrive here probably armed with a piece of paper. And they would go to the address given on this piece that the man might be a stranger to them and they would be received. With hospitality. The people who come to Bradford are primarily from India or Pakistan. A Pakistani who is a liaison officer for the Bradford health department describes the immigrants in this way.

A new immigrant can be off. To the different one who already has. Elative. Second who doesn't have a relative but he has a friend. From is down and Kurd who has no relatives no friends but his friends friends are here so he may bring an introductory letter that's always coming and he's known to me and he will be received. As as good or add hearted as good as his own friend. Many that come without accommodations or contacts most without a job and some with little or no knowledge of the country or the English language they are open to being exploited. They're the innocent. In this. The needs are very great. They are bewildered in the feel abandoned they lost and isolated and so

they are the victims of a considerable lot of exploitation as much by their own as by anybody else. Monsoor army the Health Department liaison officer from Pakistan speaks of the pressures the immigrants face. Their main propriety at the moment is to earn money because they have come from a poor country and they are in need of funds she said they're not worried about very high living because they must have some money to help their relatives to give education to their children. And when that is done then all the frailest are accounted for to them at the moment I know this is this is the wrong behavior come in a country you must maintain that standard. And if you if you don't you bring a bad name to yourself and you. Sort of have bad health and phone as monsoonal army to explain things. They are subject to many diseases. Most of them predominantly they come from the rural villages where

they haven't got any any immunity from this disease and then they come into a society which is overcrowded and they have no distance. And they get the disease very quickly. But their worst malady of all is often times a sickness for whole that is really a problem. They have been here for four years or five years and after that. Time to become so frustrated. And lonely. We had to know that big down and things like that. This is the bright big. This is the price of course. She looked very small sitting. Dressed in her native sorry. She was very pretty. And her he was just a memory as she recalled leaving India. And home. For the string slam.

I never thought. But. It was better for you. They had the place. To go. To the weekend. And. They came with me. I never left my. Side. We came to India. Like so many sheep on feet. She came on the word of a

friend. A young man whom she was to marry. She came of course with a dream but her man had told her little of the realities of life in northern India. Or of the struggles she was to share. So now she dreams of a hole. And a warmth that his family. So. Little preparation is being given to the immigrant before he leaves his native land before he leaves his home that he comes here to this country. I would describe it as a refugee from poverty. He has high hopes and aspirations. And he doesn't immediately look for a change of habits naturally he tends to cling as you and I would tend to cling to our vision of co-chairing back. Similarly the horse population has not been prepared. Bodied people. They don't understand. What applies in this country doesn't

necessarily apply. They fall five six out of the way. So that. We can have social tensions arising out of these differences in culture and standards and habits of dress more motive dress down as a behavior and so it's true these tensions as seen by Irvin Scott head of Bradford social services and yet one might wonder if Britain's experience as a ruler of nations as an empire builder might not have provided the attitude and the ability to manage a multiracial society. Parliamentary Minister Morris fully points out that if anything the Empire left in its wake feelings of smug superiority that is in this country is traditional. And to proceed if you like to foreigners into intruders from different parts of the country takes time but we assume that people from the commonwealth even if their skin was a different color

would be welcomed and would be helped and that we would tell them and so on. And frankly this assumption too is proved false. We're not just tolerant as we thought we were a social worker in London. Nadine Peppard puts it quite bluntly. This country a great deal of pain and discrimination. So of course problems misunderstanding of people not being appropriate to job there always. You know two sides to things but I think we have sufficient evidence that we have really quite a serious incidence of prejudice and discrimination and the problem is complicated by rumors of a mixture of fact and fiction. I mean the notion that immigrants come into the country and bring all kinds of diseases with the notion that they won't work and that they're lazy and that they'll just live on the national systems and on the state. The notion that somehow they

don't. Don't want to mix yet those mid-teen peppered suggested earlier there can be mis understanding on both sides. Urban Scots again we as members of the horse population know what we mean by integration. Meaning. In actual fact social acceptance. Equal opportunity. But I misread that this word being bandied about quite a lot and the immigrant who hears this word associate integration with Westernized to create a common understanding to acknowledge the immigrants needs. Officials are trying to establish better communications as fully declares we are firmly into the idea of talking about immigrants and very rarely with them. We're devising programs for them without them being involved in this is fatal. This gets you nowhere. He would like to see more responsible immigrant leadership better organisation among the immigrants there is a greater

fragmentation of effort that is no cohesion on a national level in terms of an Indian or Pakistani or Jamaican oxen a daddy and organizations. But you will find in every town either grouped around a mosque or a Sikh temple you will find the Asian groupings that you will find groups of the Indian Workers Association of the Pakistani Welfare Association. You will find groups of Jamaicans and Trinidadians forming one association at another link with one church on another. They're there but there's no cohesion and they don't represent very much but they are an important element. There is stationed in Britain. Official governmental representatives from the immigrant countries being of the same culture these officials find it easier to communicate with the immigrants to interpret their problems and their needs. In Bradford for instance the liaison officer of the Pakistani government is FH elderly and Mr. Choate Lee accepts

is his responsibility. The task of creating better relations within his area. Yes this is actually one of my very important goal I said to create thought of it understanding between between the heart and the communities and. That is why I go around a lot here now and then meeting in dusty in the hostel organisations in the first kind of meeting you know and tell them about about the background of the people what sort of background that come from and what kind of people that are here. And what sort of people forsake a homeland for life a new untried abroad. What incentive prompts them to pursue you would dream to depart from things from near and far and to seek dignity and identity upon unknown shores. Most are looking for security economic well-being an escape from a social doom that forms the

dimension of their former life. And many will come in ignorance of what really awaits them on the other ramp. You have people coming through with rain country rain climate language that brought you're bound to have problems. And there is the problem of being counted as a simple statistic. When we talk about a million immigrants. You can't just lump them all together. We have about half a million from the West Indies from Jamaica from Trinidad and the smaller islands. We have 300000 from India and Pakistan. And smaller numbers from one model to Cyprus malicious and so on. When they each do present a different situation a different picture as Motors for we will tell you. Britain has to catch up on five years of inertia for Britain accustomed to the comings and goings of Commonwealth citizen was never really

bothered to keep records. According to the dean peppered it was thought to be discriminatory. That unfortunately meant that. Riley they said Be not discriminating we were equally busy not really getting on with the problem and beginning to understand them or equipping ourselves for them. I think that Britain has always had. Call it immigrants but they have been confined to the shores of Britain. We had for instance the. Establishment of colored immigrant groups in places like Cardiff Bay where they call it immigrants probably deserted from the ships. I said apply to Glasgow South Sea it was North Sea of and around the coast of Britain and then suddenly and 1950 in following the Second World War we had the speed of travel. The easy access to the centers of Britain. It was the attraction of. The

employment of better standard of living. Even as urban Scott describes the beginning of a problem there is evidence already on the record book. Britain's first restrictive legislation regarding Commonwealth immigration and the parliamentary under secretary of state in charge of immigrant relation Morris 40 explains the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962. If Initially it was an act too limited. The number of people that were entitled to come into this country. What developed to it to get a job. And it limited to certain categories those who could get such a vote. It didn't limit them bringing that dependence but it meant slowing down a perceptible slowing down of the Floyd and regulating the flow. This was the essence of the 1962 act. The flow in and out of Britain has fluctuated through the years in the post-war era. Migration outward reached its peak in

1952 when did 1957 when more than 200000 Britons left to seek their fortunes abroad in 1059. However the trend reversed itself and in the three years of 1960 until the end of 1962 some three hundred and eighty eight thousand persons about three quarters of them from the Commonwealth and nearly half from the West Indies immigrated to Britain. These were the circumstances them that convinced the government that it would have to curb the influx of Commonwealth citizens. After all there was more than just the initial arrivals to consider. There were the dependents to follow. And so we're now seeing the full weight of the dependents arriving in this country. And this was one of the reasons of the basic reasons I would say was firstly that we haven't successfully absolved the million away.

And then I thought it was in the interests of those here. And those in taking Still to come that we should do something one to slow down further the flow into the country while tackling as vigorously as we can in the social and cultural problems and tensions which that image did instead of a big city in August 1965 a government white paper introduced important revisions in Britain's new system of immigration control. Essentially it proposed tighter regulations regarding entries into Britain and also provided greater consideration for the encouragement of integration. So it is in fact an expression of the mind of government. On this subject I can sum it up briefly. The net flow into the country. We make certain tangible proposals one to reduce the number of years to

8500 per year. Secondly to take measures to deal with this of the controls. We don't have a system here once you get through the ports. You can go where you like you don't have to show a passport or anything with no identity card system in the country. Just a free agent. So the question of revisions of the control is the person who says he's a dependent and is allowed through fact he just come to take a child off someone. The wife of someone second is the person who says he's just a visitor. But in fact he's come to take a job. And the third is the person who says he's come to do to be a student. But the object of the exercise is that he wants to live to take a job and so on. Now these are of the country so that part deals with reducing and tackling the question of evasion. Is the part really which is the major concern to me is an

analysis of the social and cultural problems arising from the presence of a million colored people and tangible suggestions as to how we tackle this question of eliminating racial prejudice. Creating the kind of multi-racial society where people's rights and responsibilities safeguarded the way people are encouraged to help to bring about this change in society. And what is the future and immigrant faces. Hopefully there will be a job a steady income better standard of living. Hopefully there will be for us a feeling of belonging. Hopefully. He will have by his side some day his loved ones the ones he left behind. He's optimistic at first but

inevitably there will be problems. Well I think this topic and the major one in Britain and in many other countries is across the housing problem. Now Dean Peppard is secretary to the national committee for Commonwealth immigrants. She has seen the poverty of homeless people and their struggle in a Strange Land. And as you know the immigrant in any country always is in a situation of moving and dilapidated housing that other people have moved out. So that one of that problem is first of all the difficulty of getting accommodation and then difficulty in moving out to the immigrant areas. It's not unusual and often not by choice that the immigrants fight for survival is carried on in a community of his own and the movie immigrants may appreciate the sympathy and understanding of those who really know. Many would much prefer closer identity to the country they've adopted.

Unfortunately according to Mr. Peppard they were imprisoned by prejudice she explains. An immigrant that America has rounded her out side begin to show discrimination and they come in and other that is in town. And so it is that large colored communities have been created all across the Midlands and within the slums of London. Jobs too can be a problem for though they're available they're limited. Didn't mean you and avoid a promotion and because of the climate because of the language barrier. Many immigrants find themselves totally unprepared for many types of employment but still they come. Many of them illegally being smuggled across the English Channel to deserted beaches. The immigrant inflow for Great Britain has been rising and last year alone it came to more than 50000 persons a number considerably enlarged by illegal entries. Both the populace and

the politicians are becoming worried. And today's Britain casts a wary eye at the racial unrest in America. Although we have a tremendous amount to learn in this day and if we must never lose track of the fact that psychologically we are dealing with a different situation. There isn't as yet he is and I hope it never will be the kind of polarizing of attitudes that you have in the status. That is being very very little open. My first stations of violence or even tendency to violence. What it is however is a brought him a hero. But this too is undoubtedly changing and more fully may well have a different view today tomorrow. For is the generations of immigrant citizens mature the indignity of discrimination and the identity of rights come into sharper focus.

Already there are signs of resentment as both sides brood about a future that is yet very much on subtle. I think that the immigrants object in a shock to the treatment they get. I think that the local blong people are shocked at the sudden arrival of all these people and they haven't adjusted to meeting it. In February 1968 a thousand Pakistanis paraded through London streets demonstrating against the government's failure to redress their longstanding grievances. And in parliament. Worried MP s wondered about the loopholes that still existed in Britain's immigration laws. Social workers labor union leaders the clergy urban officials all have expressed fears that Britain's simmering race problem may soon too soon reach the magnitude of that in the United States. But his mood being peppered points out the situation in Britain is still relatively new and infinitely complex and we can look at other countries and

see different things and we can see that this generation different from the second generation said generation will be different again. I think you have to say that I think what we've got to expect in the first place. No such thing as a motherless British way of life which must be changed because you know we've got to be part of the modern world. I am. From Indiana University Radio we have presented a dark migration program 12 in a special series of documented essays about contemporary Britain entitled The shadow of the law as written and produced by the Roy Butler when the narrator was William concert production assistants were John Hopkins and Tom Gray the engineer Jack Tracy. This is John Dimmock