International
Minorities must learn English, says report
By Hasan Suroor
LONDON, DEC. 11. The debate on race relations in Britain intensified today after an official report echoed the Home Secretary, Mr. David Blunkett's controversial view that ethnic minorities have not done enough to integrate into the British society, and that some of their social practices are at odds with the acceptability threshold of the host country.
The report, based on an inquiry into the race riots that shook several predominantly immigrant northern England cities this summer, highlights a disturbing degree of racial segregation - to the extent that the non-whites and their white ``hosts'' lead ``parallel lives''. The physical segregation of housing estates, it points out, is ``compounded'' by a deep polarisation in other areas of daily lives such as education, language and social and cultural interaction. ``It means that many communities operate on the basis of a series of parallel lives. They do not seem to touch at any point, let alone overlap and promote any meaningful interchange,'' the report says.
The inquiry team, led by Mr. Ted Cantle, former chief executive of Nottingham City Council, was shocked when a Pakistani youth said it during his deposition: ``When I leave this meeting with you, I will not see another white face until I come back here next week.'' Similarly, a white man said he had never met anyone from outside his own housing estate. ``Little wonder,'' notes the report, ``that the ignorance about each other's communities can grow into fear, especially when extremist groups are determined to undermine community harmony.''
The team, which included representatives from Asian and black communities, supports Mr. Blunkett's widely criticised call to the ethnic groups to develop a sense of Britishness through a basic knowledge of English language, and by giving up social practices which are not acceptable in Britain. These include forced marriages, and various forms of discrimination suffered by women. ``Whilst such customs and norms may be the result of the most sincere intention, half of these communities can be effectively disenfranchised,'' it says and goes on to stress the need for immigrants to learn English as a means of greater social cohesion.
Mr. Blunkett's remarks in a newspaper interview two days ago that certain practices of ethnic minorities and the inability of many of them to speak English hindered social cohesion were attacked by many of his own party colleagues as ``patronising'' and ``insulting''. But emboldened by the Cantle committee's findings, he was expected to step up his bid to force a debate on a number of race-related issues which, he believes, have been shrouded in political correctness for too long. He was expected to press ahead with his plans for a ``soft naturalisation'' programme for immigrants as a means of inculcating a sense of ``citizenship'' among them.
The report, however, also blamed government policies for the growing gulf between black/brown and white communities. It criticised the official encouragement to single-faith schools crammed with children from ``mono-cultural'' background, and suggested that every such school should make room for 25 per cent of the children to come from other backgrounds. It also criticised the police and the local political and community leadership for failing to tackle problems on the ground.
The report, commissioned by the Home Office, is based on interviews with people of all shades from Oldham, Burnley and Bradford where extensive rioting, allegedly inspired by the racist British National Party, took place in summer. Representatives from seven black groups accused Mr. Blunkett of ``shamefully'' diverting attention from the ``real'' causes of the riots. They said he was trying to ``shift'' the blame for ``institutional racism from the perpetrators on to the victims.'' More Asians also joined the attack on Mr. Blunkett's ``insensitive'' remarks which he, however, strongly defended in a speech in Birmingham today.
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