Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood
By Joe Duggan
What do you get when you cross Anglo-Saxons, Africans, Asians, Europeans and the Irish? No, this isn’t a joke, but it is the question that has troubled our politicians and journalists for over a century.
Our former PM Tony Blair argued that the answer is “a country at ease with different races, religions and cultures.” So he believes Britain is a country in which a multicultural society exists, despite the failure of certain parts of certain communities to integrate and co-exist.
However, other politicians have painted a rather less optimistic picture of the idea of a ‘multicultural Britain.’ This picture today is illustrated by a section of the media who claim multiculturalism leads to terrorism, illegal immigrants and the unemployment of ‘British Nationals.’
One politician sceptical of the effects of immigration was Enoch Powell, the former Conservative MP for Wolverhampton, hailed by some as ‘the greatest Prime Minister Britain never had.’ Powell boldly described immigration as a ‘preventable evil’ which would lead to the grave, ‘total transformation’ of modern Britain.
In his notorious ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech in 1968, Powell called for the immediate halt of immigration and the re-emigration of all settled immigrants to their previous homelands. The speech sparked strong emotions and Powell was dismissed from his role in the shadow cabinet on grounds of racism.
However, he also received large amounts of public support and crowds gathered on the streets of the Black Country whilst letters of encouragement from across the nation brought the local post service to a standstill.
Reactions to Powell’s message were intensified locally by high levels of West Indian immigration into Wolverhampton, rising unemployment and financial insecurity. It seems no coincidence that the closure of the last mine in the Black Country was followed by a speech on immigration, which seemed to play on fears of the local people.
However, it was not just popular opinion which divided the repose to Powell’s speech, but also the intellectual interpretations of his message. Was Powell speaking from his notoriously brilliant head, or from hatred? This debate was reignited in 1998 after Powell’s death again provoked the question: was Powell simply a racist or did he harbour genuine warnings of the potential dangers of multiculturalism?
Enoch Powell’s description of immigration as an ‘avoidable evil’ and the use of ‘Enoch was right’ by extreme racist political groups, makes it hard to dismiss claims he was a racist. However, the claim by Tony ‘champion of multiculturalism’ Blair that Powell was “one of the great figures of 20th-century British politics, gifted with a brilliant mind” causes us to at least examine the messages of his speech more closely. That is not to accept or even suggest that immigration is a bad thing, but instead to address the potential problems and dangers of a modern multicultural society.
Conflicts around the world, such as that between Israel and Palestine in the Middle East, suggest that race, religious belief and regional identity are essential factors in the identity of both an individual and a nation. These factors, therefore, clearly cannot be simply prescribed by an individual’s geographical location. In other words, multiculturalism does not mean immigrants shedding there old identity and culture like a snake, to then ‘grow’ a new one.
Immigrants cannot and should not be expected to slip into another religion and regional identity just because they have journeyed to another place. Paradoxically, that is not to say that multiculturalism is a collection of separated religions, races and cultures operating in isolated communities within a geographical region.
So what does multiculturalism look like and how is it achieved when things like race, religion and culture make up who we are?
Looking closer to home, the modern history of Northern Ireland suggests multiculturalism is a learning process which cannot exist without tolerance and compromise. It suggests a learning process that cannot be enforced by politicians, soldiers or terrorists but which requires individuals to embrace those they don’t understand with openness and bravery, not fear.
A learning process which causes us to learn from one another, not simply dismiss that which is different and unknown. Powell’s speech is a classic example of fear of the unknown. He prescribed the problems that more immigrants would cause, before many of them even decided to move to the country.
His message also exemplifies the way in which the fear of uncertainty often leads the masses to identify a scapegoat. Scapegoats, defined as those punished for the errors of others, could be used to map out modern history from witches in 18th century America, to the Jews in Nazi Germany, through to the stereotyping of Muslims in some part of the modern western world. What is clear from all these examples is that fear of the unknown amongst the masses, channelled towards a certain race, religion or culture, has the potential to lead to the grave atrocities of death and destruction.
Some extreme political groups proudly adopt the slogan that ‘Enoch was Right.’ And perhaps he was, in the sense that the refusal to accept and embrace unknown races, religions or cultures will lead to ‘grave future’ indeed. However, when Powell said “to be integrated into a population means to be undistinguishable from its other members,” he grossly failed to predict and understand what immigration would in fact lead to: multiculturalism.
Inherently, the term multiculturalism does not represent one race, one religion, one culture or one way of life. Instead it promotes many only integrated through operating together, not identically. Powell was right to claim that integration of immigrants, whereby every citizen becomes undistinguishable by race, religion and culture, is impossible.
Therefore, inadvertently he accepted difference as both an essential and inevitable component of any modern society. However, multiculturalism represents more than just difference. It represents an integrated difference, operating alongside and interchangeably with other differences. It is only put into motion by tolerance, compromise and the willingness and bravery to learn from that which is different and unknown.
LINKS
There are many examples, throughout this anthology, of British history being a multi-cultural history. And very often, whenever there’s a crisis in the nation, or a region, it’s the ‘outsiders’ – those who look or live differently to the majority – who get blamed. A perfect example is during the Whitechapel Murders of 1888 – see ‘Exodus and Exile’ article, in the London section – where the public suspected the Jews of being behind the Ripper murders. During the Great Fire of London, gangs went around beating up foreigners, because there were rumours that ‘someone foreign started it’. Refugees and immigrants have always been ‘scape-goated’ during times of economic hardship – but Joe is right: that’s exactly why Hitler’s crusade against the Jews was so effective – partly because unemployment was so high in Germany.