Multiculturalism In British Essay

Communities have always existed inside of the United Kingdom. During centuries, Catholics and Protestants have fought and torn the country apart. Communities have always tried to live in harmony with each other but conflicts have often been inevitable. Today violence has stopped. However differences between communities can still be observed. It is the historical immigration context of the United Kingdom which has originally resulted to the apparition of the term 'multiculturalism ' in the 1970s. When one employs this word, reactions are not the same depending on people we are facing. Some can even be afraid of the word that is often misunderstood by British. But can we say that multiculturalism is a threat? Does multiculturalism threatened

Immigration and so multiculturalism began to be visible after the second World War. The first important immigration wave occurred in 1948 when a ship carrying 493 Jamaicans came to Britain. By 1955, 18,000 Caribbean people had come to Great Britain. It was a first step into the multi-cultural society Britain was about to become. In 1948, after India 's independence and partition, many Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis settled in the mother country that Britain used to be. Between 1955 and 1957, about 180,000 Indians had arrived. In 2004, with the expansion of the European Union, many European citizens (mostly Eastern Europeans) have come in search of

Orwell used to say that “it is somehow bound up with solid breakfasts and gloomy sundays, smoky towns & winding roads, green fields and red pillar boxes”. Although a little cliché, it is what outside people think about Britain. In 2011, 80% of British inhabitants were white and 92% had english as their main language. Britain was originally a white country and what could be scary for white people is seeing coloured people massively arrived in what they considered as their country. If we follow this logic, being British would mean being white and speaking English. And white British people should be proud of what they are. But, the 2011 census made and revealed that only 20% of people under 60 and 13% of the over-75s chose 'British ' as their identity. Moreover, the census revealed that the white British ethnicity was the least numerous to have chosen British as their identity whereas half of the Asian and Black communities for example chose British. White British people tended to choose a more national identity such as English, Scottish, etc. It reflects the increasing diversity of the British