Andrea Levy, the British-born daughter of Jamaican parents and winner of the 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction, once famously revealed how she saw her identity as a black British person, when she announced that “if Englishness doesn’t define me, then redefine Englishness”. 16 Since the word “Englishness” immediately invokes complicated senses of belonging and unbelonging, inclusion and exclusion, wantedness and unwantedness, such a strong challenge to Englishness by Levy has subsequently led to the arousal of critical reaction whenever any discussion takes place on the notion of Englishness. A clear example of this is discernible in Black British Literature: Novels of Transformation, where Mark Stein keenly observes “a strong and
clear element of rejection in Levy’s statement – the rejection of a traditional, exclusive, unattainable Englishness – but also one of attachment, however tenuous and circumspect” (17).
Any sense of belonging in Britain is determined for Levy as much by social exclusion as by inclusion; it therefore becomes clear that in making such a comment, she is ultimately attempting to reject the traditional view that Englishness is established as an exclusive identity to which she is denied any access, which therefore
16 Jaggi relates the story of an interview on the way Andrea Levy felt about being English in racialized Britain, to which she requested a redefinition of “Englishness” (qtd in Stein 17).
explains why she makes her demand for the redefinition of Englishness.
Levy is not, however, the only novelist to confront the issue of redefining Englishness; ever since the end of the Second World War and the decline of the British Empire, there has been continuing renewal of interest in British national identity. The redefinition of Englishness, alongside the issues of race, ethnicity, gender, nation and empire has thus become an increasingly rich vein of study. In White, Male and Middle Class: Explorations in Feminism and History, Catherine Hall examines the specific
historical relationship between “whiteness” and particular forms of male, middle-class Englishness, defining Englishness
not as a fixed identity, but a series of contesting identities, a terrain of struggles as to what it means to be English. Different groups competed for the domination of this space and the political and cultural power which followed from such domination. Englishness is defined through an imagined community: who is “one of us” [. . .] is quite as important in the definition as who is excluded. (26)
Catherine Hall is just one amongst many critics who argue for the cultural imperative of imagining Britain. There are those within the discussion of Englishness who approach the whole notion of Englishness from a perspective of the theoretical analysis of British history, focusing mainly on the amalgamation of imperial and national identity, whereas others focus on the analysis of totally different concepts of the relationship between Englishness and Britishness, by defining each of the constituent elements. The first approach is apparent in Simon Gikandi’s Maps of
Englishness, Writing Identity in the Culture of Colonialism (1996), Ian Baucom’s Out
of Place: Englishness, Empire and the Location of Culture (1999) and Krishan
Kumar’s The Making of English National Identity (2003), whilst the second is manifest in Paul Gilroy’s Small Acts: Thoughts on the Politics of Black Culture (1993) and The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain: The Parekh Report (2000).
In Maps of Englishness, Gikandi asserts that he does not see Englishness emerging from “a body of stable values and shared experiences” but rather, from the
“continuous conflict between the center and its Celtic and colonial peripheries” (xvii).
Gikandi alludes to an Englishness that is the product of factors intrinsic to the incessant conflict between Britain (as the center) and its colonies (as the peripheries).
On the other hand, he defines “Britishness” as an invented identity shared by a colonial
“other.” The colonial periphery (and its inhabitants) which formed the Empire became the “other” against which British identity was able to define itself. Thus, Gikandi sees this “other” as a constituent of the invention of “Britishness.”
Focusing on place, with the idea of ius soli, Baucom presents an alternative conception of Englishness and Britishness, distinguishing the “slippage” between the two; from his observations on the total transformation within the legislation governing
postwar immigration, Baucom concludes:
In the context of the discourses on imperialism, Appadurai’s arguments suggest exactly what I will be arguing throughout the book: that
Englishness has been identified with Britishness which, in its turn, has been identified as coterminous with, and proceeding from, the sovereign territory of the empire; and that Englishness has also defined itself against the British Empire, first by retaining a spatial theory of collective identity but privileging the English soil of the “sceptered isle.” (12)
Taken together, Gikandi and Baucom seem to suggest that British national identity is in conflict with “the empire,” but that such opposition between them is what mutually strengthens and shapes them. Whereas both of these writers view Englishness as the coming together of imperial and national identity, Krishan Kumar takes an alternative view of Englishness, as the product of imperialism. Following Linda Colley’s historical perspective on English national identity,17 Kumar considers that the making of English identity cannot be examined in isolation, but rather, that it can only be studied through its relationship with its neighbors and other countries. According to
Kumar, English identity is constructed by
not exclusion and opposition, but inclusion and expansion, not inwardness but outwardness, mark the English way of conceiving themselves. They found their identity as constructors of Great Britain, creators of the British Empire, pioneers of the world’s first industrial civilization. (ix)
It is quite clear that Kumar’s argument on Englishness is essentially that it is
17 The study of defining Englishness has mainly grown out of Linda Colley’s 1992 essay “Britishness and Otherness: An Argument,” which analyses British national identity from historical perspectives.
Colley argues that the constitution of Britishness should be viewed from its relations to the broader context of external empire instead of emergence as a blending of all the different cultures within the British Isles. Although Colley’s analysis focuses on Britishness, her historical speculation has had an important impact on the revival of interest in Englishness, notably Simon Gikandi’s Maps of Englishness (1996), Ian Baucom’s Out of Place: Englishness, Empire and the Locations of Identity (1999) and Krishan Kumar’s The Making of English National Identity (2003).
made up of a notion of “missionary” or “imperial” nationalism, with the English being seen as an imperial people with control, not only over the British Isles, but also a worldwide empire. Kumar passionately asserts that the missionary activity aims to pursue the nation’s “religious, cultural or political nationalism,” with such an approach accordingly committing him to a stricter distinction between Englishness and Britishness, the former as “ethnic or cultural nationalism,” and the latter which he sees as “civic” rather than “ethnic” nationalism (34, 238).
Kumar refers to this as a “moment of Englishness” – the period around 1900 – in which he perceives English nationalism emerging from a crisis of beliefs in the imperial mission. According to Kumar, the Englishness identified in the nineteenth century has continued incessantly, extending into the postwar era. As he observes, Englishness retained its meanings “when the Britons wound up their empire in the 1950s and 1960s,” for “it was common to remark how little difference it seemed to make to the ordinary people of the country” (194).
Whilst certain critics, such as Gikandi, Baucom and Kumar, undertake their analyses of the construction of Englishness through the relationship between imperialism and colonialism, Gilroy’s analysis makes it clear that he sees “xenophobia
and paranoia” as the main characteristics of Englishness.18 In “There Ain’t No Black in
18 Analyzing the conception of Englishness, and elaborating the national particularities of metropoles, Laura Chrisman explicitly argues that Gilroy’s conception is one of xenophobia and paranoia (11).
the Union Jack,” Gilroy places race at the centre of the British cultural framework,
and acknowledges the significance of race in the making of Englishness. He approaches the concept of Englishness through the issues of race and ethnicity, and in Small Acts, defines, quite succinctly, the exclusiveness inscribed in the very idea of
Englishness:
Nationalism and racism become so closely identified that to speak of nation is to speak automatically in racially exclusive terms. Blackness and Englishness are constructed as incompatible, mutually exclusive identities (27).
For Gilroy, the lines of exclusiveness and inclusiveness are clearly drawn, in terms of either blackness or Englishness, and he further explains the concept of Englishness through his analysis of the continuing debate over Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel The Satanic Verses. Through his observations on the series of struggles associated with this novel, Gilroy comes to recognize the emergence of a
“new” racism which arises from ethnically absolute and cultural racism, discovering a new trend for close racial alignment based upon the idea that national belonging generates a new racism in which “blackness and Englishness appear suddenly to be mutually exclusive attributes” (Small Acts 10).
Webster also asserts that, in tandem with the exclusive nature of the Englishness articulated by Gilroy, Englishness is being “increasingly invoked as an intimate, private, exclusive identity, that is white” (Webster 8). Clearly, both Gilroy and Webster
firmly believe that race is an important marker which essentially defines English identity; however, if whiteness is indeed an identity formation, as the “core” of Englishness, the question then arises as to whether such ideological Englishness and/or whiteness is central to multiculturalism. Indeed, the 2001 census clearly reveals the fact that England has become a multi-ethnic and multicultural society.
In January 1998, a Commission set up by the Runnymede Trust published a 400-page report entitled The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (also known as the Parekh Report); this report compiles the views of several conspicuous writers, many from
ethnic minorities, under the chairmanship of the scholar Bhikhu Parekh.19 Although controversial, the report nevertheless stands out as one of the most popular multicultural discourses within the ongoing critical debate on the multi-ethnic identity of Britishness. The overall aim of the report was to redefine British citizenship as being inherently multi-ethnic, whilst simultaneously discarding the equating of Englishness with whiteness in a celebration of difference.
Published in the same year as Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, with a clear and open acknowledgement and celebration of “hybridity,” the report concludes by suggesting ways of “making Britain a confident and vibrant multicultural society at ease with its
rich diversity” (Runnymede Trust viii). Based upon its ultimate aim of moving towards
19 The Commission also involved some of the most prominent black and Asian scholars, such as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Stuart Hall, Trevor Phillips and Tariq Modood.
greater inclusiveness by regarding Britain as a “community of communities,” the
report proposes a new way of breaking up the “us and them” binary:
To say that Britain should be pictured as a community of communities is to refer, first and foremost, to relationships between its three constituent parts, England, Scotland and Wales. But it is also to maintain that each of the constituent parts is in itself a community of communities, not a monolithic whole. Each contains many identities and affiliations; each is in a process of development, with its own internal tensions, arguments and contradictions;
each overlaps with several others. Everyone belongs to more than one community; every community influences and has an impact on, and in turn is influenced by, others. None is self-sufficient, entire of itself. “Britain” is the name of the space they all share. (Runnymede Trust 105)
Although no attempt is made in the Parekh Report to provide any specific, prescriptive definition of “communities,” it does, nevertheless, seek to create a conceptual structure for Britain, by referring to a community comprising of a series of communities, each of which possesses its own identity and relationship. In such a way, the Commission appears to propose cultural pluralism with liberal values; thus, the report is apparently directed towards multiple, hybrid and fluid ways in which these “visible” communities can identify themselves as British, along with a variety of connections through which they can construct a sense of belonging to Britain – a “community of communities.”
Yet, the report is not without its critics, some of whom focus mainly on the issue of cultural pluralism. Robert Hewison, for instance, criticizes the fact that cultural pluralism is expressed as a concept of “community of communities … where identities are fluid, and we can link ourselves to whatever group we choose” (42). Meanwhile, in
The Politics of Englishness, Arthur Aughey analyzes the ways in which the Parekh
Report attempts to promote cultural diversity and acknowledge England as a
multicultural society, arguing that such a contention is a “political preference” rather than a “logical conclusion,” with the ultimate consequence of this political preference being to “thin” Englishness into fluid abstraction and “thicken” ethnicities into rigid communal blocks (116).
It becomes clear that the critique aroused by the Parekh Report is mainly concerned with the report’s over-optimism on the issue of cultural diversity; however, the concerns of most of these critics tend to neglect the attempts by the report to clearly define the characteristics of the dominant national culture, to explain the ways in which they differ from those of ethnic minorities, and most importantly, to unhook the complex political and social issues surrounding identity, citizenship, difference, equality and cohesion. In other words, the focus on these issues essentially aims to re-examine the construction of British national identity; however, it is exactly this focus upon which some other critics centre their argument relating to the issue of re-imagining Britishness.20
Although the Parekh Report suggests that Britain is a multicultural society which
needs to respect its multicultural heritage, it argues that “unless these deep-rooted
20 For instance, Rieko Karatani argues that “Britishness” has never been an exclusive term, and rejects the assertive argument of the Parekh Report (194).
antagonisms to racial and cultural difference can be defeated in practice, as well as symbolically written out of the national story, the idea of a multicultural postwar nation remains an empty promise” (Runnymede Trust 38). Thus, the report sends out a clear appeal for the uprooting of all of the hostility against cultural and racial difference from the constitution of British national identity, which, as the Report
asserts, contains racial connotations. Prior to this, the report comments that
Britishness as much as Englishness, has systematic, largely unspoken, racial connotations. Whiteness features nowhere as an explicit condition of being British, but it is widely understood that Englishness, and therefore the extension of Britishness is racially coded; “There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack,” it is said. Race is deeply entwined with political culture, with the idea of nation, and underpinned by a distinctively British kind of reticence. (Runnymede Trust 38)
By referring to Gilroy’s illustrious title, “There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack,” the report sees racism as a constituent part of Britishness or Englishness; thus, it argues for a more inclusive Britishness to ensure a truly multicultural Britain of the future. This does, however, leave a number of key issues unresolved, such as the way in which respect for differences can be retained whilst achieving satisfactory cohesion and delivering genuine equality to all members of Britain. Furthermore, a major question remains, which is: Who do the British think they are?21
Salman Rushdie provides the watchword for studies of Englishness in the
21 This phraseology is borrowed from the title of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s work Who Do We Think We Are?: Imagining the New Britain, a prominent book reviewing modern-day race relations in Britain.
twentieth century through his stuttering character in the The Satanic Verses, who notes that “the trouble with the Engenglish is that their hiss hiss history happened overseas, so they dodo don’t know what it means” (343). Through the stammering words of Whisky Sisodia in the novel, Rushdie seems to re-conceptualize Englishness and to subvert its insular manifestations. Rushdie’s words immediately prompt an examination of English identity in terms of its overseas history and diasporic immigration to Britain. Such a vision of Englishness seems to demand a re-examination of the country’s prior history, which is not confined merely to Britain’s past imperial greatness, but also to its colonized countries overseas.
Like Gilroy, Stuart Hall also identifies the exclusivity in the conception of Englishness; however, Hall points out the urgency required, particularly with regard to deconstructing this exclusivity of Englishness from Britain’s past; indeed, from history.22 It is Margaret Thatcher’s nostalgia for the glory of the empire and the ideology of exclusive Englishness against which Hall takes his stance.
Opposing Thatcher’s “narrow, national definition of Englishness, of cultural identity,” which he regards as being grounded in bias, Hall considers that the construction of Englishness should not exclude the political practices of ethnic
minorities; indeed, Englishness should be “negotiated against difference” and have to
22 Stuart Hall, a Jamaican theorist, had earlier revealed that a “closed and exclusive definition of English” would function as “the coded language of colour” (“Mongrel” 6).
absorb “all the differences of class, of region, of gender, in order to present itself as a homogeneous unity” (“The Local” 22).23 For Hall, “Englishness,” as a form of cultural politics, “engages rather than suppresses difference” (“New Ethnicities” 446).
Such emphasis can be traced back to his 1978 essay, Racism and Reaction, which, in the following extract, metaphorically compares the importance of colonial workers in
the construction of Englishness with the making of a “British cuppa”:
If the blood of the colonial workers has not mingled extensively with the English, then their labour-power has long entered the economic bloodstream of British society. It is in the sugar you stir; it is in the sinews of the famous British “sweet tooth”: it is in the tea-leaves at the bottom of the next
“British cuppa.” (25)
In another essay entitled Old and New Identities, Old and New Ethnicities, in which Hall recalls his own experience of being an ex-colonized migrant to England, he again uses the symbolism of the English cup of tea to argue that there is no English history without “other” history: “I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea.
I am the sweet tooth, the sugar plantation that rotted generations of English children’s teeth”.24 By employing this, the most fundamental signifier of English culinary taste and culture, Hall is attempting not only to conjure up images of the history of
empire-building, of invasion and colonization, but also to draw attention to the fact, as
23 Hall went to study at Oxford University in 1951 and has lived in Britain ever since. Procter notes that since Hall was from a lower middle-class family, his experience as a migrant from Britain’s ex-colony
“placed him at an angle to the fading imperial center of postwar Britain” (Stuart 5).
24 For more details on Hall’s idea of “English cuppa” and his own experiences as a migrant, see Hall,
“Old and New Identities” 48.
noted by Procter, that “the empire brought Britain and its black communities together
noted by Procter, that “the empire brought Britain and its black communities together