As with Germany before the war, Britten had a time when they had to also rethink their ideas on national identity. After World War Two, Britain’s national identity began to crumble as there was no conflict to keep their citizens working together. Government officials used the old stories of how Britten came together by itself to defend against the Nazis to bring back the proudness of being part of Britten but this had an interesting effect on the people who lived on the mainland. With a population of mainly whites who were there during these trying times, it made it harder on people who were trying to immigrate to England. This was because that Britten’s new identity was that a true British citizen had to be white no matter the class, forcing racism to take over the country in the late 1940s and through the 50’s.
In the article “’Dark Strangers’ in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947-1963” by Chris Waters explains that these ideas come from the false stories used by the people of Britten to force the people to work together in the reconstruction of the homeland. Some of these ideas that were generated were to further the idea of domestic life that forced the people of Britten to see themselves in a more feminine view that needed to be protected (pg. 212). This would lead to the thought that white men must protect the women and domestic life that was also part of the national identity from outsiders, especially those of different races.
Waters adds more to this by also stating, “representations of working-class communities, with heroic images of their stalwart and stoic residents grimly ‘carrying on’ in the face of adversity, became central to the national fictions of the 1930s and 1940s” (pg.212). These thoughts of the brave, middle-class white man, defending his home and nation from the outsiders gave more fuel to the fire of racism as the people of Britten once again saw an outside force coming into their way of life and infringing on their national identity as these new people began to look for citizenship.
This all came together in Water’s third point in that before the war, there was no tangible way holding on to this national identity or its character. But, during the war, the government tried desperately to show how every one of British descent was connected and that they needed to form together against the Nazis menace that was attacking their very way of life. This settlement would go on into the 1950s as other races came to Britten looking for jobs and as British colonies were beginning to ask more of the mainland and to be treated more like citizens (pg.213). This would again lead to less and less ability for England to look at itself as a combination of countries working together to improve the world and more like a dominate people forcing lesser people to do what they say, leading to the eventual breakup of the official British colonies and the loss of a labor force for rebuilding country.
So with the combination of racism and the ever-changing ideas of national identity, Britten eventually lost its outside workforce by having a government sectioned idea of what it was to be British. The ideas that kept the country together and allowed them to survive the begging and middle of World War Two actually worked against them in its aftermath. Had they chose a more open-minded idea of national identity, they may have been more likely to have a better relationship with other races and their colonies.
Why do you think that Britain enforced their racial identity while other countries didn’t? Do you think that it was because Britain was much less damaged by the war than other countries and therefore didn’t need the foreign workers as much?
One of the major reasons that Britain conquered and colonized was to obtain wealth from the rest of the world, after World War II, the situation was reversed. Do you think that Britain after WWIII regretted their decision to ever colonize in the first place and acting like a parent who was regretful they ever had children; seeing the waves of immigration only in a negative fashion?
You make good points throughout your blog post. However, was the discrimination of the colonials in “little England” purely based of racism and lack of a shared enemy or was it just typical xenophobia caused by the intrusion on the homeland? Or was it both? I believe there is arguements that support both claims. Although racism played a part in it, I do not believe that it was the pure cause of discrimination in “little England.”
Do you think that the British government is at fault for the increase in racism in “little England” following the war? They don’t do much to stop the increase in racists tendencies when the people of the colonies begin moving to England.