Page 2 of 2 The immigration reality
show By Chan Akya
Britain's mainstream parties have given
some way to right-wing parties such as the British
National Party, who have characterized a Britain
under siege by Polish plumbers and Indian
information-technology workers.
In this
debate of those on the dole versus the Poles (and
Indians), it is but natural that the boundaries of
dialogue often exceed acceptable norms, leading to
the apparent rise in overt racism across the
United Kingdom. Where does the reality show fit in
within all this? As mentioned above, Britain's own
population has
become more diverse in the
past few years, necessitating greater variety in
entertainment. In the US, significant immigration
led to the launch of dedicated Spanish-language
television channels, while in the UK, terrestrial
channels have been broadening their appeal to new
immigrants by providing programming more to their
tastes.
The invitation of a Bollywood
actress to participate in Celebrity Big
Brother was thus a purely commercial decision,
reflecting the desire of the television channel to
attract non-traditional views to its program. A
casual read of UK newspapers' online editions this
week suggests that the move was broadly a success,
albeit for the "wrong" reasons, ie, the racism
controversy. Commentators who had first castigated
the channel for attracting unknown celebrities
have switched tack to criticizing the behavior of
the British contingent on the program (Channel 4's
website shows that other participants are of
American extraction). The British celebrities had
been accused of using derogatory terms to describe
the Bollywood actress, although it is as yet
unclear to yours truly whether the verbiage
exceeded the usual norms of discourse that are to
be expected from lowbrow television in general.
Brown and Oz In a previous
article, [3] I wrote about the muddled and often
xenophobic policies of Australia's government that
defied the country's economic position. Since
then, a decline in oil and commodity prices has
precipitated Australia's economic decline. The
country's inability to transition to products
higher on the value chain in essence reflects a
failure of its immigration policies, which is why
I found its continued posturing against
neighboring countries and emerging Asian powers
both unsettling and illogical. Much like the
failure of Japan and Germany to attract new
immigrants who could have helped these countries
move up in service industries such as software,
Australia has failed to tap into its key
advantages.
In that light, Gordon Brown's
statements appear more farsighted, aiming as they
do to nip in the bud any notion of the United
Kingdom being a xenophobic country. It is thus not
so much a matter of humble pie as recognition of
new economic realities that the UK's prime
minister in waiting chose to issue the apology to
his Indian hosts. The pragmatism stands in sharp
contrast to the unnecessary sound-bite-chasing
that foreign ministries across Asia indulge in far
too often.
Notes 1.
"United Kingdom - Recent Economic Developments",
various dates, International Monetary Fund Staff
Country Reports. 2. "Wage Inequality in the
United Kingdom 1975-99", Eswar Prasad, IMF,
February 1, 2002. 3. Hazards of Oz , Asia
Times Online, November 18, 2006.
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