First BME to ascend to one of the Four Great Offices of the State.
as a friend quipped: Sons of Pakistani bus drivers are doing very well…with the London Mayor AND the Home Secretary!
As an aside it’s interesting to note just how conservative the British Asian community is compared to the Home Countries. Westernisation/Westoxification is the acid that burns through traditional culture (is it always a bad thing; I don’t know, no comment) but among the diasporic communities (which moved as families) they have been remarkably resilient against it.
It’s not a good thing as we have casteism and honour killings in Britain but it strikes that Bollywood has hauled India into the post-modern age while in Britain we have happily recreated 1970’s Jullundar/Gujarat
I have always found Sajid Javed bit of a waffler. I did not know so far that he is an atheist – not that I follow politicians’ every pronouncements. He is also a strong Bexiteer – i.e. Britain would be much better off outside the European Union – which is coming true.
Another bus driver’s son who has made it big is Lord Mayor of London Sadiq Khan – who I always think is a closet Islamist ; a position which is easy under Labour Party since Labour bend over backwards to appease/accommodate fundamentalists.
Anyhow, any system which gives highest opportunities to immigrant bus drivers’ families is preferable to feudal where the system is loaded in favour of rich and powerful dynasties
I don’t think Sadiq Khan is a closet Islamist at all!
However Sajed Javed is a waffler!
A former investment banker and Margaret Thatcher devotee, Javid’s instincts are on the right of the party.
His other hero apart from Thatcher is Ayn Rand – he recounted once that he regularly rereads the courtroom scene from her novel The Fountainhead
None of the above are leanings I think are great.
re: The father being a bus driver. Was Javid Snr an educated person, probably upper middle class in Pakistan.
If the father was a bus driver (or equivalent) in Pakistan too, kudos to Sajid Javid whatever his political leanings.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/30/for-sajid-javid-the-hostile-environment-is-political-and-personal
Agreed 🙂
Diasporas tend to be conservative actually. it’s a cultural trend for them to ‘cyrstallize’ when they left.
I see lots of Bangladeshi and Pakistani men, women and children adopt Arab dress , girls as young as five covered up and give up south Asian dress , children sent off to religious classes that means more religion is in the air. That means more maladaption in the future.
Why maladaptation?
Maybe some Pakistanis (or Bangladeshis) are really Arab descendants and want to go back to that culture. Others may find that culture worth emulating because it makes them feel closer to their religious prophet. Nothing amiss with that.
Why do Indians get so anal about “South Asian” heritage? Let people be what they want to be.
There are lots of reports of (south Asian and Arab) taxi drivers refusing blind people since they have guide dogs , and dogs are no-no according to those people’s beliefs. Reports of employees in supermarkets suddenly refusing to handle pork or alcoholic drinks since they are no-no according to their beliefs . All thi are only tip of the iceberg . Last year an Ahmedi shop keeper in Glasgow was murdered in cold blood , an echo from south Asia . If your beliefs , I mean your community beliefs -are radically different from that of others – you will go into self-made ghettos , which will only lead to more social and mental separation from the rest of the society and a permanent feeling of victim hood and a sense of entitlement
If the principle of “Let people be what they want to be” is to be applied to all , why oppose racists, fascists and anti-immigrant fanatics and make laws banning these ? If ” feel closer to their religious prophet” is fine, what if the majority people say “very good, goto the prophet’s country where you will be even closer” .
Yes, people are free to say that. but they would be wrong saying that about local born and bred Muslims. The local muslims have every right to ask for a local enclave. A Communist professor in Hampstead or Islington may be living in the capital of a Monarchy, but if you ask them you’d realize she/he doesn’t give a flying fuck about queenie and her brood. She/he’d rather Britain be a leftist ruled republic (with or w/o democracy). Forget the commie prof, apparently even the Leader of the Opposition, Jez Corbyn, wants it…
So what?? They have a moral view (whatever its validity) about the path their country should take. And yours or any white Briton’s does not take precedence over it by fiat.
Eg Pakistan is a large enclave (or a ghetto, depending on whom you ask) of primarily Indian Muslims. They carved it out because they wanted to live by their Muslim/Mughal/Arab/Persian whatever culture. That’s great. Many of them feel they required the ultimate insurance policy for Indian Muslims and if some still feel like it they aren’t stopped from emigrating. If British Muslims in Bradford or some place want out of Britain, they should be free to lobby and ask for a referendum too.
Why do Hindus (also Sikhs to a lesser degree) and Europeans get so het up about cultural ownership? just because what you follow has older provenance in the region, it doesn’t follow your descendants will stick to your ways. not the first time a rebellious kid gave the middle finger to her/his parents … maybe they want to change the culture of land in situ, and maybe that change really is for the better (even though you may not think so)…
The way forward is dialogue and argument and accommodation. Not pulling rank. Or threats of violence.
I see lots of Bangladeshi and Pakistani men, women and children adopt Arab dress
Define “lots”. It’s nowhere near the majority, if we are talking about niqab-style. The vast majority of UK Muslim South Asians [particularly Bangladeshi but AFAICS Pakistani] are basically wearing Western/South Asian [Salwaar] with a hijab thrown in. I don’t think you can call that “Arab”. Though I agree nikab is more common, mainly because the religious right has a lot of “Arab purity” crap running through it, which just mirrors the trends in the religion amongst Westerners.
I mean I also never saw Hijab with tight jeans 15 years ago but these days it’s all the rage.
My own experience of the Pakistani diaspora in the US (at least the circles I interacted with) was that some families were quite conservative and others were raising what I would call (for lack of a better word) “generic” American kids.
My own family was not particularly “Islamic” but we were made very conscious of the fact that we were “Pakistani”. Dating, for example, was considered an American thing and was not even a question that could be brought up at home. (In retrospect, I’m not sure this was a particularly good parental policy, but it is what it is). We were just supposed to focus on academics and get straight As. We were also supposed to speak Urdu at home (not that this happened a lot in practice). Hindustani Music was initially pushed on us (younger brother and I) as a way of keeping us in touch with our culture, getting us to wear shalwar kameez and speak Urdu/Hindi. Granted, most of the other Pakistani families were sending their kids to some sort of Islamic “sunday school”, which didn’t last too long in our household (it was attempted). So I guess in our (one atypical) family, Hindustani Music served as a proxy for desi culture.
I had some limited interactions with Indian-Americans and Bangladeshi-Americans as we all learned Hindustani Music from the same Ustad (a Bangladeshi-American himself). Most of the Indian-Americans in my school thought I was weird because I had no ambition to become a doctor or engineer. From what I gather from LinkedIn (I have not really stayed in touch with these kids), they have grown up to be your typical doctors and biochemists who happen to also have studied Bharatanatyam and Hindustani Classical. I have no idea how many have married fellow Indian-Americans (I would guess most) vs. how many have married into the white community.