PRESENT THE FOLLOWING BITS ABOUT CLASS-CONSCIOUSNESS IN CLASS

 British (American / Russian?) class-consciousness

15Although England is a highly class-conscious culture, the real-life ways in which the English think about social class – and determine a person’s position in the class structure – bear little relation either to simplistic three-tier (upper, middle, working) models, or to the rather abstract alphabetical systems (A, B, C1, C2, D, E), based entirely on occupation, favoured by market research experts. A schoolteacher and an estate agent would both technically be ‘middle class’. They might even both live in a terraced house, drive a Volvo, drink in the same pub and earn roughly the same annual income. But we judge social class in much more subtle and complex ways: precisely how you arrange, furnish and decorate your terraced house; not just the make of car you drive, but whether you wash it yourself on Sundays, take it to a car wash or rely on the English climate to sluice off the worst of the dirt for you. Similar fine distinctions are applied to exactly what, where, when, how and with whom you eat and drink; the words you use and how you pronounce them; where and how you shop; the clothes you wear; the pets you keep; how you spend your free time; the chat-up lines you use and so on.

16At the same time, I will try to avoid being ‘dazzled’ by class differences, remembering Orwell’s point that such differences ‘fade away the moment any two Britons are confronted by a European’ and that ‘even the distinction between rich and poor dwindles somewhat when one regards the nation from the outside’. -COMMENT

READ THE FOLLOWING PASSAGES AND GET READY TO DISCUSS THE ISSUES OF CROSSCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND ETHNIC MINORITIES’ ACCULTURATION IN THE CONTEXT OF THE HOST CULTURE. DO YOU THINK THE PROBLEM IS TYPICAL OF BRITAIN ONLY?

Ethnic minorities and “going native”

16 Having noted that I was conveniently avoiding the issues of Scottish, Welsh and Irish national identities by confining my research to ‘the English’ rather than ‘the British’ or ‘the UK’, they invariably went on to ask whether or not Asians, Afro-Caribbeans and other ethnic minorities would be included in my

definition of Englishness.

There are several answers to this question. The first is that ethnic minorities are included, by definition, in any attempt to define Englishness. The extent to which immigrant populations adapt to, adopt and in turn influence the culture and customs of their host country, particularly over several generations, is a complex issue.

Although ethnic minorities constitute only about six per cent of the population of this country, their influence on many aspects of English culture has been, and is, considerable.Any ‘snapshot’ of English behaviour as it is now, such as I am attempting here, will inevitably be coloured by this influence. Although very few of the Asians, Africans and Caribbeans living in England would define themselves as English (most call themselves British, which has come to be regarded as a more inclusive term), they have clearly contributed to the ‘grammar’ of Englishness.

18-20 Immigrants can, of course, choose to ‘go native’, and some in this country become ‘more English than the English’. Among my own friends, the two I would most readily describe as ‘very English’ are a first-generation Indian immigrant and a first-generation Polish refugee. In both cases, their degree of Englishness was initially a conscious choice, and although it has since become second nature, they can still stand back and analyse their behaviour – and explain the rules they have learnt to obey – in a way that most native English find difficult, as we tend to take these things for granted.

My sister had much the same experience when she married a Lebanese man and emigrated to Lebanon (from America) about eight years ago. She became very quickly, to her Bek’aa Valley family and neighbours, a fully ‘acculturated’ Lebanese village housewife, but can switch back to Englishness (or Americanness, or indeed her teenage Frenchness) as easily as she changes languages – and often does both in mid-sentence. Her children are American-Arab, with a few hints of Englishness, and equally adept at switching language, manners and mores when it suits them.

Many of those who pontificate about ‘acculturation’ are inclined to underestimate this element of choice. Such processes are often described in terms suggesting that the ‘dominant’ culture is simply imposed on unwitting, passive minorities, rather than focusing on the extent to which individuals quite consciously, deliberately, cleverly and even mockingly pick and choose among the behaviours and customs of their host culture. I accept that some degree of acculturation or conformity to English ways is often ‘demanded’ or effectively ‘enforced’ (although this would surely be true of any host culture, unless one enters it as a conquering invader or passing tourist), and the rights and wrongs of specific demands can and should be debated. But my point is that compliance with such demands is still a conscious process, and not, as some accounts of acculturation imply, a form of brainwashing.

My only way of understanding this process is to assume that every immigrant to this country is at least as bright and clever as I was when we emigrated to France, just as capable of exercising free will and maintaining a sense of their own cultural identity while complying with the demands, however irrational or unfair, of the local culture. I could crank up or tone down my Frenchness, by subtle degrees, in an entirely calculated manner. My sister can choose and calibrate her Arabness, and my immigrant friends can do the same with their Englishness, sometimes for practical social purposes, including the avoidance of exclusion, but also purely for amusement.

Perhaps the earnest researchers studying acculturation just don’t want to see that their ‘subjects’ have got the whole thing sussed, understand our culture better than we do, and are, much of the time, privately laughing at us.

It should be obvious from all of this (but I’ll say it anyway) that when I speak of Englishness I am not putting a value on it, not holding it up above any other ‘-ness’. When I say that some immigrants are more English than

others, I am not (unlike Norman Tebbit with his infamous ‘Cricket Test’) implying that these individuals are in any way superior, or that their rights or status as citizens should be any different from those who are less English.

And when I say that anyone can – given enough time and effort – ‘learn’ or ‘adopt’ Englishness, I am not suggesting that they ought to do so.

The degree to which immigrants and ethnic minorities should be expected to adapt to fit in with English culture is a matter for debate. Where immigrants from former British colonies are concerned, perhaps the degree of acculturation demanded should match that which we achieved as uninvited residents in their cultures. Of all

peoples, the English are surely historically the least qualified to preach about the importance of adapting to hostculture manners and mores. Our own track-record on this is abysmal. Wherever we settle in any numbers, we not only create pockets of utterly insular Englishness, but also often attempt to impose our cultural norms and habits on the local population.