Canadian Politics

Ethnic labelling — a step backwards

Hazel Blears, a senior minister in the Home Office of Tony Blair’s government, has come up with the idea of adopting hyphenated identities for those in the United Kingdom whose ancestry is not British (read, visible minorities). Unlike Canada and the United States, those whose families have come to the U.K. relatively recently are referred to as, surprise surprise, "Britons". Hyphenated designations have never been used in England and Blears had decided that now is perhaps the right time to add the hyphen.

The minister came up with the idea after meeting with Muslims in the wake of the two recent terrorist attacks on the London transit system where three of the four July 7 suicide bombers were born in the United Kingdom. She has this strange notion that if a young Briton can be referred to as a Pakistani-Briton instead of simply a Briton, he will give up all thought of ever wanting to bomb babies for Allah and will be willing to forgo the 72 virgins he will met by upon entering paradise seconds after the bomb goes off. Imposing or encouraging the use of hyphenated names is nothing more than politically correct gobbledegook.

The suggestion outraged many of the country’s minorities — the ones who are peaceful and who consider themselves to be loyal citizens of the United Kingdom, a country many of them have been born in. Many of these people have no strong ties to any other country and consider themselves to be Britons. They feel that the use of a hyphen reduces them to the status second class citizens. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, a British Muslim leader put it well when he said, "Nobody cares for labels. Some young people say to me: ‘We have British passports but are treated as Pakis’."

It is one thing if people immigrate to another country and attach labels to themselves. It is quite another thing to have the government impose these labels, even if such labelling is supposedly to be done on a voluntary basis. It is difficult to comprehend how attaching the label will make anyone feel more at home in the country of their birth or adopted citizenship. How can a "Pakistani-Briton be expected to be a better citizen than a "Briton" who just happens to have Pakistani ancestry?

If Canada is any example, the idea of hyphenated citizens should be thrown in the trash and forgotten about. Canada’s obsession with multiculturalism is such that outside of the province of Quebec, we do not have much Canadian culture. Our culture is everybody else’s culture. What little culture we do have is expressed in negative terms (we are not like those "damn" Americans). An example of how pervasive our multiculturalism is was illustrated eleven years ago when Toronto hosted the world basketball championship. When Canada played Greece, many in the crowd waived Greek flags while booing the Canadian team. These people were not immigrants. They were second and third generation Canadians, Canadian citizens by birth who have been taught not necessarily by their parents but by our government and our schools that Canada’s importance as the country is secondary to the countrythat their parents and grandparents came from.

More recently, Prime Minister Paul Martin appointed Michaelle Jean to be the next Governor General of Canada. The way Martin talked about Jean, anything that she managed to accomplish in her life paled in comparison to the fact that she came to Canada as a refugee from Haiti, something that was undoubtedly beyond the control of the then 11-year-old Michaelle. This is supposedly the "new Canada", where one’s roots are more important the country that has given them citizenship.

In light of the Canadian experience it is refreshing to see British minorities prefer to be thought of as Britons rather than a hybrid.

Tony Blair has the right idea. The only way to fight terrorism is to fight it and not try and appease it by adding a few hyphens and different classes of citizenship. Blair is right in wanting to deport or jail those in the United Kingdom who preach hatred and recruit jihadists.

There is nothing to be gained by adding a hyphen.

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Men's News Daily, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck and The Rant. Arthur can be reached at: aweinreb@rogers.com

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