Press Release - 11 August 2005

Identities

Many British Muslims have, for one reason or another, disagreed with the suggestion of Home Office minister Hazel Blears that we should introduce the American style of describing one's identity to the UK. It seems that I am among the few who actually agree with her.

Identity is a complex issue. Books and dissertations have been written on it and there will always be a debate on the issue. Most people - myself included - are not even consistent in how they see themselves.

I have lived in the UK for 36 years, and arrived here at the age of 13. Like many other people, I believe that I have a number of identities and the one that I use depends on the circumstances that I find myself in. This is best illustrated by the following story, which is often cited by identity experts:

A plane full of people of many different ethnicities was flying over the Indian Ocean when it suddenly developed a major engine problem. The only way to save lives was to ask some of the passengers to put on parachutes and jump overboard so that the aircraft would be light enough to reach the nearest airport.

The captain was faced with the difficult decision of deciding who should bail out. He wanted to be fair and politically correct so he chose to run through all the different ethnicities of the people on board in alphabetic order. First of all, he asked everyone whose ethnic origin started with the letter 'a' to jump - so all the Americans and Arabs put on their parachutes and leaped overboard. But the plane was still not light enough, so the captain continued to run through the letters of the alphabet - b, c, d and so on.

At this time a terrified small black African boy sitting with his family asked: 'Father, what are we?' But the wise man hushed him and said: 'Be quiet, my son, today we are Zulus!'

I attend many seminars and conferences in Europe and when other delegates ask me who I am, I introduce myself as being British. This always provokes the question: 'But where do you really come from?' Obviously I don't fit their idea of what a British person looks like!

Britain is an island which has been absorbing migrants from all over the world for millennia. The first settlers would have been mainly of European origin but, although black and Asian people have been arriving for centuries, it is only in the last 50 years that most of the new immigrants have not been white. I hope that in time UK citizens of all ethnicities will be regarded as equally British, but this certainly is not the case at the moment.

In the USA, however, people are happy to have dual identities. Bill Clinton probably regards himself as Irish-American and Colin Powell as African-American. Others see themselves as being Italian-American or Indian-American and so on.

I have friends who are happy and proud to describe themselves as British-Indians, for example. Similarly I have come across people who prefer to call themselves Scottish-British or Welsh-British. People should have pride in their ethnic origin: describing yourself as having a dual identity does not make you any less British - or less loyal for that matter. It just makes more sense. You do not even need an in-depth knowledge of your ancestral county of origin to be proud of your roots - as would be expected of Britons of the third generation onwards.

Personally, I would not like to see religion being used to label people because it is personal to each individual. People should be proud of their faith and willing to make it known if asked. But incorporating it into their personal identities will not make them any more or less religious.

But what is to stop us following the American model and encouraging people to adopt dual ethnicities like Scottish-British, Irish-British and British-Pakistani or should it be Pakistani-British to be consistent?

For further information, please contact Dr Mohammed Ali OBE on (01274) 483267 or (0781) 2010918.