Immigration and Human Worth

I heard...

on BBC radio that immigration laws instituted in Britain in 2005 are starting to have a negative impact on Britain’s curry houses. Restrictions on the number of “unskilled workers” permitted to migrate to Britain has limited the number of Bangladeshi’s allowed into Britain and one of the results of this is that curry houses are finding it very difficult to get staff. This is a restriction that applies to all unskilled workers except those from Eastern Europe.

This story is illuminating in what it tells us about the ways in which immigration laws reveal a great deal about how a society views human worth. First there is the question of “unskilled workers.” What exactly is an “unskilled worker”? Perhaps this seems like a stupid question. Surely no one could discount the skill differences between a rocket scientist and a dish washer. Nevertheless, let us think about what the curry house story tells us about the category of “unskilled worker.” These disappearing curry house workers are defined as unskilled workers, yet the news reports recounting this story also highlight the fact that it is proving difficult to find people who can do this type of work. This surely begs the question – is this, in fact, unskilled work? Or is it that the skills necessary in this type of work go unrecognized (and underpaid) because they are dismissed as unskilled. To look at it another way, certain skills are afforded social status and certain skills are not – not necessarily because they are inherently more important to the maintenance of our society than other skills, but because certain social hierarchies are at work. Often the maintenance of inequality (as opposed to the maintenance of society) is more apparent in the ascribing of status to certain types of work compared with other types of work.

I think...

that another lesson in this story about immigration and curry houses is one about the benefits of human diversity. Immigration arguments often come down to heated exchanges about keeping certain types of people out. Plans to protect the borders or even erect a big wall are based on the idea that “those people out there” are in some way unsavory (no pun intended) and will corrupt life as “we” know it. However, human creativity and change is dependent upon our exposure to variety, diversity, difference. The anti-immigration fantasies of erecting a wall around a nation (either real or legislative) would rob any nation of its chance to grow in new and interesting directions. The example of the curry house story shows the ways in which immigration can provide one nation with the opportunity to develop new tastes, new traditions, new national identities, and how legislation can put some of those things in jeopardy. I say “some of those things” because of course this British immigration law is permitting so-called “unskilled workers” from Eastern Europe, so it is not as if Britain would be (or could be) totally cut off. But this also raises another question about this story, one that has been mentioned more than once by people commenting on this situation – what responsibilities does Britain as a former imperial power have towards the citizens of its former colonies.

I believe...

that in some ways it is difficult to talk about the special responsibility that Britain might have towards its colonies. There are those who like to behave as if the injustices of the imperial past are well and truly in the past. Certainly WTO regulations seek to push this perspective. However the international political and economic system continues to exert inequalities that have their root in the colonial period. In addition to this, citizens of former colonies know intimately that the unbalanced relationship between their country and their former colonizers is not wiped out by the ink that signs a declaration of independence. Laws such as this immigration law seem to seek to gloss over these histories and their persistent effects. Certainly the old saying “we’re here because you were there” must be modified somewhat (migration patterns are not exclusively predicated on past colonial relationships) nevertheless, it still rings true. A lasting connection was born in the colonial relationship between Britain and its colonies. It was in many, many ways a painful, unequal, even pathological relationship, but it transformed all societies – those of the colonizer and those of the colonized. Thus, for example, curry is at the heart of Britain’s Britishness and potentially losing the curry houses is a loss, not only of a wonderful tasty dish but of a future in which Britons of all heritages –Anglo Saxon, Celtic, Caribbean, Polish, Indian etc. get an opportunity to create a dynamic Britain with their Bangladeshi brothers and sisters.