Multicultural Britain

London unquestionably remains the centre the cultural universe. [Neil Bissoondath observes in Digging up the Mountains, (1985) that the population of Western cities tend now to be formed out of the "Constant sedimentation of diverse movement of transcontinental drift". In this context V.S. Naipaul observes in The Enigma of Arrival, (1987) that the ‘great movement of peoples' which has characterized the latter part of the 20th century has fundamentally changed the nature of cities like London : ‘They were to cease being more or less national cities. They were to become cities of the world."

                Contemporary London has come to resemble more vibrantly than before, colonial cities like Calcutta, Bombay or Lagos : extravagantly multicultural and polyglot. Rushdie rightly notes in The Satanic Verses, (1988) that the ‘conglomerate nature' of London now mirrors the diversity of the former Empire. The melange which has resulted from immigration has put under pressure the lasting remnants of colonialist preconception – A Vision of the world as divided between the white man and the ‘other'. Ahdaf Soueif, an Egyption writer resident in London speaks of a ‘mezzaterra' : a meeting point of many cultures in her fiction, The Map of Love (1999).

                With the rapid academic interest in postcolonial studies, critical attention has been focused on the British born writers from Asian, Afro-Caribbean and other ethnic backgrounds. Hanif Kureishi, born in 1954 at Bromley, Kent would perhaps describe them as the ‘Englishman born and bred, almost'. The purpose of this paper is to focus on diversity and identity issues as presented by contemporary British novelists. An article entitled "This is my England", published in the Guardian Weekend, 19 February 2000 reads : "Identity ! sometimes it makes my head hurt sometimes my heart. So what am I ? where do I fit into Britain, 2000 and beyond ?" Multiculturalism for Bhabha has become the most charged sign for scattered social contingencies that characterise the contemporary "Cultures In-Between : People from former British colonies, Blacks and Asians, brought ‘global civilization' to the ‘ever-insular' Britain, along with multiculturalism and a new concept of Britishness. Now, Britain is struggling to come to terms with its imperial past and challenges presented by a post-imperial, multi-racial society.

The novel has proved to be a fruitful site for investigating hybridised cultural forms of Britishness. The ambivalence created by hyphenated identities in British society has become the starting point of most fiction, particularly by the writers of dual backgrounds. The narrator of The Buddha of Suburbia, 1990, by Kureishi, Karim Amir, introduces himself : ‘as having emerged from two old histories .'(Kureishi 3)      

Englishman I am (thorough not proud of it) …

                Perhaps it is the odd mixture of continents and blood, of here and there, of

 belonging and not, that makes me restless and easily bored.

 

 Most of Kureishi's characters reflect this sense of uncertainty. London, historically the heart of the former British Empire, becomes the object of desire of many characters who strive to move from the margins to its centre. As stated by John Clement Ball, Kureshi's works document the actual colonising of London's spaces by its New commonwealth citizens, "as witness to the new imperialism in-reverse".

                The tension in the novel arised from Karim and his Indian father Haroon's desire to be more of an Englishman (Kureishi, 21). After many years of trying, Haroon realises that it is more profitable for him to appropriate English people's preconceived ideas concerning his Indian identity. He wins acclaim through his appropriation of Buddhist teachings. Kureishi satirises the clever marketing of culture or commodification of beliefs. Karim's identity is difficult to define. He identifies himself both with British and Indian culture as he negotiates between the two in his life. This liminality of identity is a debatable issue among contemporary writers in a multicultural space. Though Karim hopes that the former imperial centre will give a new edge to his life, yet he is constantly reminded of his being a half-breed. Thinking about Gene, Eleanor's former West Indian lover, Karim realises that he is in the same position.

They never let him forget they thought him a nigger, a slave, a lower being … we became part of England and yet proudly stood outside it. (Kureishi 227).

While working as an actor, Karim is asked to play ‘ethnic' role, to fake Indian accent and be authentically Indian even if he has never been to India. While he plays Mowgli in Shadwell's production of The Jungle Book he is told that he has ‘been cast for authenticity and not on the basis of experience' (Kureshi, 147). Though these ironical situations Karim learns that the English identity is a privilege he is not entitled to. The historical process by which England accorded a fixed meaning to the colonial identity is echoed in Kureishi's novels. London becomes a microcosm in which coloniser – colonised relations and re-enacted. Haroon and Karim are trapped in historically defined cultural representations of their identity. Even if the British empire has collapsed, certain colonial attitudes and ways of defining identity still prevail.

Collaboration and fusion in the spaces inbetween cultures and may be outside the mainstream is becoming more in vogue. Such a society may be compared with Bhabha's ‘third space' of understanding that transcends the dualism of ‘us and them'. In his introduction to The Location of Culture, Bhabha focuses upon the ‘liminal' negotiation of cultural identity across differences of race and cultural traditions. Instead of a fixed frame, identity is a hall of mirrors with plural selves slipping and shifting. Amidst this plurality new formations are emerging all the time. To experience the joy of multiculturalism, one has to enjoy this diversity and thrive of choice. With these phenomena, attention has shifted to Identity politics that raises the issue whether the notion of a fixed Identity is in itself desirable. These counter-theories combat identity crisis which is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Psychology (2001) as ‘a state of confusion arising from an inability to reconcile conflicting aspects of one's personality.' (598).

I would like to conclude by quotation Stuart Hall's comment on the complex and open mileu of London :

One day the World is going to wake up and discover that whole areas of life in Britain … have been transformed. White hegemony is gradually being painted darker and darker. A kind of hybridisation is happening to the English … new perspectives in black cultural practise may make this a real cultural and historical turning point ….

Ball , John Clement "The Semi-Detached Metropolis:Hanif Kureishi's London"

                A Review of International English Literature.Oct. ,(1996): ARIEL

                13 Feb. 2006 www.postcolonialweb.org/uk/kureishi/gms5.html

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London:Routeledge , 1994.

Brah ,Avtar. Cartographics of Diaspora : Contesting Identities.

 London : Routledge , 1996.

12Feb.2006http://www.lanes.ac.uk/depts/english/21stcentury/multicultural_britain>

Colman, Andrew M. Oxford Dictionary of Psycology . New York: OUP ,2001.

Hall ,Stuart & Paul de Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London. Sage , 1996.

Kureishi , Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia. New York : Penguin Books , 1991.