Mass displacement and immigration after World War II generated expanded racial tensions in Europe. In Britain, increased immigration led to the creation of a political group called the White Defense League. The group stressed British identity based on race, and emphasized strong anti-immigration rhetoric. The White Defense League brought to light the anti-immigration sentiment in Britain based on stereotypes and white British superiority. In the photograph of a rally (below), one can see the great amount of people who are in support of the group.
Members of the White Defence League preach violence and hatred towards black immigrants at Trafalgar Square in London on March 24, 1959.
Why did immigration cause this fervent attitude of racism in British society? Chris Waters, an associate professor of history at Williams College, argues in his article, “‘Dark Strangers’ in Our Midst – Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain,” that this racism was a reaction to national insecurity over British identity. This identity crisis in England resulted in imagined definitions of “Britishness” that intended to separate “us” (born British) and “them” (immigrants). British academics described the African migrant with words like “primitiveness, savagery, violence” (Waters, 227). People used these stereotypes and racist sentiments in order to justify their desire for restrictions on immigration. Currently, in the United States, one can see a similar creation of stereotypes for the Mexican immigrant. Using Waters’ reasoning for racist attitudes, one could say that racist sentiments toward Mexican immigrants reflect a questioning of what it means to be an American. The Mexican stereotype of “laziness” and a culture negatively thought of as “other” do not fit in with the imagined positive and industrious American identity. People create negative stereotypes to feel better about their own identity.
The stereotypical belief that African immigrants were criminals was an explanation for anti-immigration in Britain. Wendy Webster, senior lecturer in women’s history at the University of Central Lancashire, argues in her article, ‘There’ll Always Be an England’ – Representations of Colonial Wars and Immigration, 1948-68, that British media depicted Britain as the feminine and domestic victim against the vicious and criminal portrayal of black immigrants. I found the representation of Britain as a victim to be incredibly ironic. Britain exploited colonized land through the belief that Britain was saving a savage and incompetent race. Britain maintained colonial states through force, without the consent of the governed. It is interesting to see that British society perceived itself as the hero, and never the offender.
There seems to be a difference between the reception of European refugees and immigrants from British colonies. This difference highlights the racist desire for the exclusion of black immigrants from Britain. According to Gerard Daniel Cohen in In War’s Wake – Europe’s Displaced Persons in the Postwar Order, the “pool of laborers [from Europe] immediately appealed to Western European governments in need of a replenished workforce” (Cohen, 104). So, the people who supported the White Defense League were staunchly anti-immigration when the immigrant was not white. If Britain was in need of people to help reconstruct the nation, why would so many people have a problem with the race of an immigrant? I would think that people would appreciate the labor of any person who helps reconstruct their nation. It seems that many British people worried that increasing numbers of people not born British would ‘taint’ their identity. Is the issue race, or immigration? Was Britain more receptive to the European refugees because they were refugees, or because they were white?
The question of “what does it mean to be British?” is the same identity question that currently many French people have because of their huge increase in immigrants. Is “whiteness” implicit in being French or British? I think national identities are becoming more and more complicated (in a good way). It is difficult to think of a state’s main characteristic in terms of race. The movement of people is very common, and national identity is increasingly based on expectations and similar ideologies. People grappled with this concept of identity in post-war society, just as we are today. People cannot be generalized into a racial category like the White Defense League tried to do with black immigrants.
Your comparison between what was going on in Britain then and what is going on in the US now with Mexico was really interesting. Sad how History tends to repeat itself. I also saw a lot of irony in the way that Britain saw itself as becoming a victim from immigrants.
The White Defense League created in England sounds very similar to the Citizen Councils created in the USA around the same time period with the same goal, to project white supremacy. I do not feel that England was alone in stating that being British and britishness depended on being white. For so long the rhetoric and imagery of the nation had been of a white family with a women at home and a man exploring the world. I think it was simply challenging for the postwar generation of Brits to accept that their standard construct of what it meant to be British was changing due to decolonization.