Nuno Dias SociNova- New University of Lisbon

1. History-building and diversity-making. Contemporary inter-ethnic relations and the legacy of past asymmetries. Nuno Dias SociNova- New University of Lisbon

2. Synopsis Description: A comparative analysis on the role of history in the definition of contemporary inter-ethnic relations. Objective: To underline the importance of the observation of the phenomenon of ethnicity production and its relational contingencies in old colonial centres and their influence on modern systems of institutional, and popular, racial and/or ethnic classifications. Unit analysis: Hindu populations in two colonial, and following post-imperial, contexts: the Portuguese and the British. International Metropolis Viena 2003

3. The challenge of old categories and conceptual frames that read inter-ethnic relations, reminiscences of the colonial epoch, are indeed obstacles to the edification of a society capable of dealing, without prejudice, with ‘difference’ of any kind, not only in politic discourse but also, and above all, in the academic sphere. We say ‘above all’ because that should be the privileged space for: • A critical reflection of the new forms of racism and discrimination; • The discussion of the ‘difference’ imbued in the cultural vicissitudes instead of biased presumption of understudied concepts of the term race. • In sum, creating a systemic space for debate over what represent the words race, ethnicity in the public sphere and how they affect integration of immigrants and other minorities. International Metropolis Viena 2003

4. in Portugal, as in England, Indians, generally speaking, are one of the most successful minorities, in what concerns economic and generational performance. • Despite these similar economic, and even generational, achievements and developments, by Indian origin Hindu communities in both countries, there is a great difference on the way inter-ethnic relations, concerning this populations and the host society, evolved and are reciprocally perceived. • What thus sets the limits of the frontiers of integration, alongside the perception of diversity or otherness? International Metropolis Viena 2003

5. According to our theoretical options it is important to search: • in historiography the foundations, and defining philosophical environments, of inter-ethnic relations (in colonial documentation and other types of literary and academic productions of the epoch); • in life histories the representations of the subjects (as product and producers of the interactive definitions that uphold the spaces of ethnicity). International Metropolis Viena 2003

6. 1.Race, colonialism and nationalisms. Close relation between: • Explosion of Nationalist impulses; • Justification theories of expansionist projects and natives exploitation. • Ambiguity in colonial rhetoric: • On one side racial differentiation was imbued by binary definitions such as white-energetic/black-lethargic; • On the other hand the absence of autonomy of the native populations, consecrated in the law, allowed the creation of an army, and respective reserves, of free manual workers, thus bringing down the production costs constituting one of the most conspicuous wealth provider for the colonisers. • In fact, modern notions of race and religion were fabricated during the process of Nation-State formation. With the help of science racial differentiation theories had a hold over Victorian Britain colonial stance, as also in Portugal. International Metropolis Viena 2003

7. Indians during the colonial period are represented, in a general way, as sneaky individuals, without affective relations, perseverant and with a suspect sacrifice capability. In Mozambique they didn't have a statute similar to the one of the white colonisers. The distrust was plenty and its growing presence a menace to colonial sovereignty as can be read in reports from the political police in the territory. However, they represented a large quote in terms of tax paying and in addition assured the bulk of the commercial distribution routes (Zamparoni, 2000). • Regarding the Portuguese colonial experience Indians do not correspond to the stereotyped indigene, being instead, a middle minority in a racially tripod social structure. • The demean descriptions of Indians exist, in the Portuguese colonial documents (besides, an entire series of manoeuvres in the backstage of the Portuguese colonial administration, and through the PIDE -the Portuguese regime political police-, in order to ascertain the loyalty of the Indian Hindus, in particular following the invasion of the Portuguese colonies in India by the Indian Union). International Metropolis Viena 2003

8. The social and political convulsions lived in Mozambique, near the independence, began to hinder the continuity of the Indian communities in the territory. Similar to what had already happened in the rest of the African oriental coast (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, etc.) Indian origin individuals were being persecuted, given the socio-economic hiatus that separated them from the great majority of the native population (vd. Bonacich 1973). • These communities established in Mozambique, mainly original from Gujarat and Punjab, owned of the Portuguese passport, which associated to the knowledge of the language of the colonizer nation and some other factors, ‘conditioned’ the choice of the country where to migrate after the independence. International Metropolis Viena 2003

9. 2. Post-colonial Contemporary Inter-Ethnic Relations: a workable comparative analysis. • The problematic of immigration and inter-ethnic conviviality does not, we believe, accepts a-historical approaches that are insensitive to the possibility of individual choices and collective existences. • In this plan some proposals already have been made by researchers aiming at avoiding restricted perspectives, by instead moving on to work with post-ethnic citizenships where multiple affiliations are considered and where social identities are not protected by an imagined, as in political, national identity. • The portuguese and the british cases are examples of societies where discrimination exists and where a colonial, condescending, state of mind disturbs the discernment between perception and reality. International Metropolis Viena 2003

10. There is , however, a chronological disparity amongst the Indian origin immigration experiences to both countries which could possibly help to perceive some differences: • If in the British case these populations already crossed several global crises with repercussions in the British labour market, what implies the rebirth of the, nowadays, inevitable causal connection between unemployment and immigration; • Given the fact that labour migrations could be potential disruptive elements to the illusion of national homogeneity and singularity (Fenton, 1999) usually spoken through right-wing political parties in Portugal we can, possibly, be in the imminence of a similar situation with the diversification of the immigrant populations that makes ethnic differentiation of the Portuguese society more noticeable. In particular in what concerns the increasing flows from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. An immigration with similar characteristics to the one that reshaped, during the 50’s and the 60’s, Britain ethnic, social, economic and political settings’. International Metropolis Viena 2003

11. Britain The first England immigrant populations from India were Parsis, coming from Gujarate, in the end of the XVIII century and during the XIX century. Also, during the First and Second World War many of the soldiers of Indian origin that fought in the British army settled down in England. The largest flow of immigrants happened in the period after the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan, during the decades of 50 and 60. As of middle 60’s to middle 70’s the largest immigrant flow corresponded predominantly to Gujarati naturals that escaped from former British colonies in the African continent. The habits of this contingents, at arrival, soon created them plenty of integration difficulties by virtue of its contrast with the autochthonous population conventions, thus emerging at that time several ethnic enclaves (Ballard, 1996). Moodod (1991) quotes an investigation carried out by the European Community in 1989 that discloses ‘Asians’ as the most hated group in Great Britain, and not only the one which accuses a larger contrast. Bearing in mind those results, and the results of the study he accomplished, Moodod concluded that what exists is not a generalized success of the macro category ‘Asians’, but instead, an ‘Indian’ success. This success, he asserts, is consequence of the operationalization of its norms and values, in which family appears before the individual, and where the previous migratory experience allowed the constitution of a knowledge reservoir fundamental in disruptive situations (1991: 86). This study allowed, according to the author, starting from the Indian case, to bring an end to the causal relationship that usually connects racial discrimination to weak socio-economic performance. International Metropolis Viena 2003

12. Portugal The near period after decolonization, and the circumstances involving the process of arrival of Hindu and Muslim populations in the latter Portuguese metropolis (the substantial part sought a place to dwell in Lisbon and its peripheries) were already been fairly discussed (Malheiros, 1996; Bastos and Bastos, 1999; Dias 2001). Hindus clearly depended on the support of social networks and personal resources in the reconstruction of some businesses and finding a way to create independent ways of subsistence. Yet, there was also a numerous contingent of individuals channelled for disqualified segments of the labour market, resembling what had happened in England. In Portugal there is a practically immediate association between populations of Indian origin and commerce, and furthermore a relative success in the integration process; on the other hand, as we know, discrimination towards Indian origin individuals doesn't seem to be significant in the picture of the inter-ethnic tensions and of the racist and xenophobic speeches and that have been increasing in the last years (Dias, 2002). In an enquiry directed by José Luís Garcia (2000) 70% of the respondents affirm to recognize an immigrant by his skin colour. The successive studies accomplished near the Portuguese population on immigrants and other groups, potential discrimination targets, allows us to characterize the populations of Indian origin as almost invisible, in what concerns the theme of social representations. International Metropolis Viena 2003

13. In an inquiry sponsored by the Portuguese High Commissioner for Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities where the main objective was to unravel the representations of Portuguese society about three categories (which, we must say, lacked scientific objectivity): African (violence); Brazilian (prostitution); East (Mafia). • In this inquiry previous studies seem to be discredited by the vox populi. Machado (1999) affirms that the Luso-African populations are the ones that demonstrate a larger cultural proximity with the Portuguese society, from where we should infer a smaller probability of conflict situations, unlike the ones of Indian origin that present the largest degree of contrast regarding the Portuguese society. The result seems to be contradictive. • In the other mentioned inquiry the African category is perceived as the one that presents more differences from the religion to the educational practices. It is also curious to notice that Africans, the group residing in Portugal for the longest period of time (comparatively to Brazilians and Eastern Europeans), are simultaneously the ones who claim, in a larger percentage, that Portuguese are racists. • What stands out is that unlike Portugal, British surveys results point to a far greater equivalence between the categories of Blacks and Asians in answers regarding racism, discrimination and deficient integration in the host society. International Metropolis Viena 2003

14. The constitution of enclaves and spaces regarded as outcasts, relating to the receiving society, doesn't necessary foretell the occurrence of processes of social reproduction that indiscriminately impels successive generations of certain minority groups to inferior segments of the social structure. It is in this chapter precisely that the analysis of the racialization of certain groups reveals itself particularly complex and interesting. • In some situations, studies show an inversely proportional relation between a groups’ socio-economic performance and the representation of the same by the reception society. In England the discriminatory bias of the South-Asians category hides not only a map of diversified proveniences as it halts possible positive effects of successful social trajectories (Ballard, 2002). • How then to reckon the mechanisms that shape the adversarial collective representations that escape to the classic readings on social conflicts? International Metropolis Viena 2003

15. Roger Ballard (1999) proposes a historical approach to discriminatory ethnization processes in England. Those processes, he argues, are not dissociable of the way English Identity was and is constructed. In England, like in United States certain groups became invisible due to the absence of phenotypic markers. • The colour of skin structured societies and conditioned and ruled life experiences of non-white individuals for generations. • In Britain, as in Portugal, identity seems to be politically discussed through fixed, and blurred, notions of ethnicity, culture or even nationality (cf. Banton). • The issue of ethnicity and its association to phenotypical markers carries the integration agenda to the field of visibility or invisibility of minority groups International Metropolis Viena 2003

16. One of the possible explanatory factors advocate in this incipient reflection lies on what we already saw to be a relationship built during the colonial period oriented by different assumptions in the Portuguese and English colonies. The definition of the British identity and its inborn superiority, built trough a relationship with a “other” quite differentiated inwardly, contained a subordinate image of the Indian Sub-continent and unavoidably of the autochthonous population. • Within the Portuguese colony of Mozambique Indians were, in spite of the same chauvinistic and at the same time condescending generalized colonial praxis, not equivalent to legislated inferior ‘others’, such as locals and blacks in a general way. • So, it is true that politics of integration tries to anticipate social disintegration designing inclusion strategies aiming at the more conspicuous groups, on the other hand it is also true that visibility and the way ‘others’ are represented can change and is historically and contemporaneously relational. • In sum, if we will be capable to assimilate ‘others’ in our frame of references difference will be more easy to integrate. International Metropolis Viena 2003

17. Furthermore, it is not necessarily true that we cannot live without stereotypes, as someone already argued, at the least without the ones filled with prejudice. • The absence of policy-makers in this area, the area of defining and discussing concepts, contributed decisively to the crystallisation of stereotypes attached to the legacies of the broader time that compounded colonial histories and western racially structured societies. • Politicians and policy makers should be aware that inter-ethnic relations and the language and stereotypes associated with it are not a matter from a galaxy different to the one where Integration issues dwells. • In Britain, as in Portugal, racism and prejudice still live on as observed in several studies, irrespective of the politicians that emphasize the important role of integration of minorities along with the need to block new immigrants. • Multiracial harmony and a distinctive ability to integrate is presented, in both countries, as a historical trait that still marks the political orientation continuing to push into oblivion unequal racial relations thus jeopardizing a rational analysis of real inherited problems camouflaged with a normative discourse of who is apt to enter the Nation, entrance for which is demanded a ‘super-citizen’ (Soysal, Sayad) performance. International Metropolis Viena 2003

18. Inter-ethnic relations are not an absent element of minorities claim-making. Nor even the issue of how to name that same minorities and groups. A better understanding of the diversity inside borders and a will to take a leap over the urge to categorize just for the sake of stereotyping would certainly lead to a different way of making immigrants, and so-called minorities, part of a Nation. • The variance in the racialized, hence disliked, groups, with similar courses, in both countries demands by itself an effort in commencing comparable transnational frame analysis and joint research plans on inter-ethnic relations in order to perceive what we really have to consider when we discuss integration. The end International Metropolis Viena 2003