Identities

Thirty years after the ‘cricket test’ was first proposed by Norman Tebbit as a way of assessing ones allegiance to a country, political rhetoric in the UK and the US still questions who truly belongs in the country.

In 1990 the politician Norman Tebbit controversially developed a method for determining how loyal British Asians and Caribbeans, as well as their children, were to England. It became known as the ‘cricket test’. It asks which team a person supports in a cricket match between England and the country of their heritage (generally where their parents or grandparents are from). The outcome of the test, according to Tebbit, is that the person who supports their heritage country over England has not fully integrated into British society and rejects crucial aspects of British culture. He said, “a large proportion of Britain’s Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It’s an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?”.

This is only one example; many policymakers in the US and the UK continue to question the allegiance and identity of people in their country. This rhetoric has the power to shape perceptions towards ones citizenship, particularly for those in the first and second generation, including myself.

This was captured during the 2008 presidential campaign in the US. There were accusations that candidate Barack Obama was not American enough to lead the US. Although Obama went on to become the first African-American President of America, the controversy raised important questions around how much minorities are considered to “belong” in the US.

For several decades, America has been known as a ‘nation of immigrants’. Given this, it is curious to claim some people are not American enough if they have a minority background.

Trump brought this claim up during his own presidential campaign and again in mid-2019 when he said that four US Democratic Congresswomen should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” adding that they “can’t leave fast enough”. It is notable that three of these Congresswomen – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley – are US-born and Ilhan Omar came to America when she was a child. It is doubtful that they would have received such comments if they were not of minority origin; their minority background meant that they were not perceived to be truly American. The comments were subsequently condemned as racist by many commentators.

The reaction of UK policymakers was worrying. During the UK Conservative Party’s leadership election this year, Jeremy Hunt said Trump’s comments were “totally offensive”, and Boris Johnson replied saying they were “unacceptable”. it is notable, however, that whilst many other commentators condemned the remarks as racist, neither of the Prime Minister candidates did so, possibly as a means of protecting UK-US relations for the future. A short while after, Nigel Farage added that the comments were “genius”.

Those in power have the ability to shape which comments and narratives are legitimised and acceptable in personal conversation and on the international stage. If political leaders make and condone these remarks across nations, it sets the tone for which rhetoric is acceptable in wider society. Without fully condemning and rejecting this rhetoric, it is normalised, leaving people as vulnerable targets to these comments in everyday conversation.

This is crucial when many people of migrant descent have heard similar words themselves in private conversation. Seeing these comments in the media can evoke fear over their belonging and it can bring back foul memories for those who have heard these comments before. Indeed, when the New York Times asked readers to share their tales of being told to ‘go back’, 16,000 people in America alone responded sharing their stories of being made to feel unwelcome in their country of birth or naturalisation. It only takes a quick search online or a chat with colleagues to find these shared stories across the UK and in the US.

If political leaders have a relatively fixed idea of what it means to be a native, then this raises questions about belonging for those whose identity transcends this fixed idea. Leaders have the power to shape how inclusive national communities are, on the international stage and in the private sphere, using their rhetoric. Toxic rhetoric, such as the examples outlined, incite fear and hatred, often with traumatising long-term impacts on those who receive the remarks. Political leaders have the power to incite inclusivity and stronger communities, but for that, the rhetoric must change, and it starts with how our leaders set the tone.

Preeti Pasricha is co-Head of Agora’s Democracy & Governance Programme.

The macro-economic policies underlying globalisation exacerbate female inequality. The ‘hegemonic masculinity’ of global capitalism and corporate non-responsibility have informalised and exploited female labour. Moreover, gendered migrant labour reproduces a gendered and racialised order, which disadvantages women.

Whilst I consider ‘women’ as individuals with a configuration of intersecting identities, rather than a monolith, I believe that globalisation is bad for women overall, on either side of the North/South divide, and particularly those from ethnic minorities and lower socio-economic spheres. In order to explore this issue further, I employ Peterson’s dual understanding of globalisation as both a continuation of the ‘capitalist racialised patriarchy’ that characterises modernity and a new conjecture constituted by neo-liberal policies since the 1970s.

The concept of feminisation is important for understanding the uneven effects of globalisation on men and women. The devalorisation of the feminine, and all things considered so, produces processes of exploitation and violence against feminised concepts. Globalisation and the pursuit of profit has resulted in the ‘feminisation of employment’ with respect to the increased number of women in work and the deterioration of labour conditions, income and employment status. This has resulted in the overall degradation of women’s work as subjective, voluntary, unskilled and poorly paid or not paid at all.

Transnational competition has forced domestic capitalists to cut labour costs in order to increase productivity, with multinational corporations relocating production to the global South in search of cheaper wages. In the global North, women of colour are disproportionately impoverished by the relocation of well-paid jobs due to a legacy of racialised gender inequality. A rise in ‘McJobs’, or low-paid positions lacking in benefits, and reductions in minimum wage are the result of this repositioning. In the global South, poor working-class women fulfil the low-wage labour demands of multinational corporations that establish production in areas with weak labour laws. Globally, labour has become increasingly ‘flexible’ with the expansion of informal sectors, temporary and self-employment or a ‘feminisation’ of labour.

Capitalist workplaces are built around hidden assumptions of a separation of reproduction and production. Neo-liberal capitalism is characterised by a division between the masculinised and productive ‘monetary’ economy and the feminised and reproductive ‘non-monetary’ economy. The process of capital accumulation renders reproductive survival needs invisible, assuming informal economic activity to be in unlimited supply. Consequently, women are subordinated in both spheres, being responsible for reproductive labour in the ‘private’ sphere and holding a marginalised position in the productive economy.

Although women have increasingly participated in the labour market since the 1970s, this period has seen a deterioration of the material conditions of life for poorer women globally, as a result of macro-economic policies of privatisation, deregulation and structural adjustment. The flexibilisation of labour has seen the creation of feminised jobs that are temporary, part-time, and precarious. Cutbacks in social welfare have increased poverty for women, who are more reliant on social programs due to their burden of caring. In the global North, ethnic minorities and the working class have suffered from reduced public spending – in Britain, 86% of the burden of austerity since 2010 has fallen on women. In the global South, cuts to public health have seen increases in maternal mortality and school dropout rates for girls.

Structural adjustment programs (SAP) imposed on the global South as a form of international debt repayment by International Financial Institutions such as the IMF and World Bank, have forced women to take up additional productive and reproductive labour to survive austerity. Higher prices, reductions in government food subsidies and the devaluation of local currencies have disproportionately affected urban-poor and working-class women and disrupted the education of young girls. In Nicaragua, for instance, macro-economic gains achieved by a SAP, including a drop in inflation and increase in exports, also caused a rise in infant and maternal mortality, malnutrition, poverty and unemployment.

Neo-liberal capitalism’s neglect of the reproductive economy has prompted a commodification of the immigrant labour of Southern women. This ‘maid-trade’ – the employment of immigrant women from the global South to fulfil the domestic needs of the global North – has become a resource, upon which the centres of transnational business in ‘global cities’ depend. Immigrant labour, which frees Western women from their domestic ‘duties’, also exempts men from domestic responsibilities and relieves states’ pressure to support the reproductive economy, instead exploiting the racialised inequality of Southern women. Although foreign domestic work can be an important source of remittances for Southern countries, immigrant workers are particularly vulnerable to employer intimidation and abuse. In Britain, the domestic workers of wealthy Gulf families have faced conditions of slavery and trafficking. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 was introduced to protect migrant workers from exploitative employers, however the UK government’s measures to date have failed to significantly reduce levels of abuse.

To conclude, the ‘hegemonic masculinity’ of neo-liberal capitalism, rooted in the ‘racialised patriarchy’ of colonialism, reproduces female inequality in its neglect of the non-monetary economy and feminisation of women’s labour. Prioritising profit over reproductive needs and rendering domestic work invisible, marginalises women in the global North and South as they are simultaneously devalued in the productive economy and carry the burden of reproductive labour and caring.

Isla Wilson is active in the field of gender equality, and holds a Masters degree in International Relations.

Following the poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal, the UK has crystallised its identity as opposed to Russia. However, this position may be undermined by the growing cleavages in European politics, and the UK’s inability to shape EU policy in the future.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is expected to face unpredictable changes upon Britain’s departure from the European Union. The UK is considered to be more powerful as a member of a collective of European democracies with largely similar values and interests. While the UK will most likely retain a strong relationship with the EU in terms of defence and security cooperation, it could also lose the ability to amplify its interests from within the EU. Having derived a significant part of its international identity from EU membership, the UK could appear politically weaker and more isolated to foreign actors as a result of an inadequate representation. Present ongoing tensions suggest that Russia is a growing area of concern.

Historically speaking, with the exception of a brief rapprochement between Blair and Putin, British relations with post-Soviet Russia have been fraught with crisis and mistrust. According to the Russian narrative, NATO’s neo-imperialist expansion into the post-Soviet space is unjustified and poses a threat to Russian sovereignty. This specific narrative has been used to justify Russian military interventions in Georgia, Ukraine and, more recently, in Syria. In contrast, the British narrative holds that the Kremlin has continually and calculatedly violated international law in relation to its role in the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko on British soil, the illegal annexation of Crimea, its war crimes in Syria, the maintenance of an unlawful military presence in Ukraine, and recent allegations over disinformation campaigns and cyber-attacks. These tensions have led to the re-emergence of Cold War rhetoric and a rejection of the Kremlin’s Russian unlawfulness has become an important factor shaping Britain’s foreign policy.

After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the EU member states multilaterally imposed economic and diplomatic sanctions on Russia. As an EU member state, the UK, alongside the Baltic States, Poland and Denmark, successfully lobbied for the continuation of these anti-Russian sanctions. However, in recent years Russia has exploited cleavages in European politics fomented by the migration crisis and gained support amongst neo-nationalist parties in the EU. In Austria, Hungary and Italy these parties have acceded to power and are calling for an end to anti-Russian sanctions. At the same time, more influential states in the EU – France, Germany and the Netherlands – are currently opposed to escalating tensions, largely due to their productive energy deals with Russia. From the British perspective, the annulment of the multilateral sanctions would undermine the sanctity of international law and leave Britain isolated as other EU member states benefit from closer trade deals with Russia. Brexit has strengthened the resolve of those calling for a revision of the economic and diplomatic penalties, weakening the UK’s foreign policy position.

Given these tensions, the poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal on British sovereign soil was acutely politically charged. Although the Kremlin denies any involvement, British intelligence services, which were corroborated by the European Council and the US security services, concluded that it was a Russian initiative. In response, the UK expelled 23 Russian diplomats – the largest-scale diplomatic ejection since 1985. Significantly, by pleading its case in Brussels, the UK managed to corral 18 out of 28 EU member states into expelling their own Russian diplomats. What does this reaction tell us?

The immediate British response was mild; the expulsion of diplomats was a measure used in 2006 following Litvinenko’s murder and clearly did not work as a deterrent. However, recently British MPs have backed the introduction of a British version of the Magnitsky Act, an effective measure which directly targets Putin’s inner circle of kleptocrats in ‘Londongrad’ by freezing their assets and refusing them visas. This legislation sends a clear message that Britain rejects the human rights violations of the incumbent Kremlin regime. However, the show of European solidarity was nominal – approximately 2 diplomats were expelled by each of the 18 EU member states. This shows the reticence of EU states to seriously confront Russia’s contraventions of international law and the growing fissures in European politics are a concern for post-Brexit Britain.

The British response to the Salisbury poisoning further crystallised the UK’s identity as opposed to Russia, but it remains to be seen if this position will be supported. Unanimity on the continuation of sanctions will be the true litmus test of European solidarity against the gross human rights violations of the Kremlin regime.

Angus McWhirter is studying at UCL for a MA in Politics, Security and Russian.

The world most revered Shia cleric, born in Iran in 1930, is as influential in Iraq than in the UK. His website held by a team of Shia IT specialists, receives hundreds of online advice requests every day. Considering that the UK counts thousands of his followers among its citizens and he unleashes crowds in Iraq, Ayatollah al-Sistani is, more than a cleric, an institution.

Other ‘instagirls’ and ‘instaboys’ may be green with envy: Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani gathers 27.9K followers on his Persian Instagram. Because his charisma spreads widely among the Shia worldwide diaspora and Shia Iraqis, Sistani’s network, enshrined in the UK through the Imam Ali Foundation, is among the richest religious Shia seminary in the world. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani gathers followers from Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere in the West.

Since he shifted from aloofness to centre-stage with his political fatwa in June 2003, he became increasingly proactive. He pushed for democracy and militated against ethno-sectarian policies imposed by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) involved in Iraq since 2003. He stood against the foreign invasion and the coalition’s implementation of the TAL (Transitional Administrative Law). Although, in 2003 al-Sistani was snubbed by the US-led coalition, he forced Paul Bremer to negotiate a deal to ensure a legitimate transition, arguing for Iraqi people to be sovereign and the only ruler of their own condition.

To some extent media outlets worldwide have portrayed him as a religious dictator who seeks to spread his power across the Levantine Peninsula. However, the sectarian narrative, best illustrated by King Abdallah II of Jordan who described it as “the Shia Crescent”, is an obstacle to the understanding of Sistani’s input. Sistani’s involvement on the Iraqi political stage did not aim to bolster sectarian hatred. In fact, quite the opposite, his public statements were supposed to give a sense of national unity against the usurpation of power. It started first with the coalition, and ended with the self-serving ruling elite, namely Nuri al-Maliki, against which Sistani stood to defend the implementation of a civil state.

With the rise of ISIS in Iraq in 2014, Sistani issued a call to arms on national TV for men to mobilise and defend their nations. Although he gathered a clear majority of Shia fighters, some Sunnis also answered his call. As Sistani’s agency is spread worldwide, he had to praise for British Muslims to stay home and leave Iraqis fighting for their own cause.

The Kurdish secessionist impulse, coupled with the fight against ISIS, as well as the awaited outcome of the Syrian conflict, leave Iraq as a fragmented and desolated country. However, if Theresa May is willing to promote UK’s security and stability agenda in the Middle Est, she should reconsider her approach to religion without a sectarian reading grid of the Middle East.

Sistani is among the only buffers against – and potentially, among the only real option – to stop the spread of sectarian violence. However, Sistani’s quietist approach to politics, and his defence of self-determination, lead him to remain silent despite the outbreak of the recent events in Iraq. But we had better keep a close eye on the situation, or follow his Instagram account.

Valentine Debonneville is currently works for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization on human rights issues and minorities rights.