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Blunkett Attacks Asian Culture, Criticizes Arranged Marriages
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| Blunkett’s White Paper drew criticism at all fronts, raised fears of racism |
LONDON, Feb. 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is accused of launching a "dangerous" attack on Asian culture when he said arranged marriages should involve partners from Britain and not the Indian subcontinent.
Blunkett, on Thursday, February 7, announced an overhaul of Britain's immigration laws, including a requirement that immigrants undertake "citizenship pledges" to the Queen and British values and that they take tests on their English and knowledge of British law and institutions.
The Home Secretary's package also included measures designed to expose "bogus or sham" marriages by requiring British citizens who marry foreigners to undergo a two-year probationary period.
The Government's White Paper suggested "discussion" on whether more arranged marriages "could be undertaken within the settled community here".
Speaking at the Home Office Thursday, Blunkett said: "We need to be able to encourage people to respond particularly to young women who do actually want to be able to marry someone who speaks their language – namely English – who has been educated in the same way as they have, and has similar social attitudes."
The Home Secretary claimed that it would be a "kind of reverse racism that if you're white and middle-class you can't say or do anything at all that might upset someone who's black or Asian," British daily newspaper, The Independent reported Friday.
Blunkett's comments caused immediate offence. Habib Rahman, chief executive of the Joint Council on the Welfare of Immigrants, said: "Everyone despises forced marriages but such an attack on the institution of arranged marriage is an attack on the whole communities of the Indian subcontinent."
Ahmed Versi, editor of Muslim News, described Blunkett's stance as "a very dangerous move". Versi, who himself has an arranged marriage, complained that similar comments were not made about English men who chose to marry women from south-east Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines.
Iqbal Uddin had emigrated to England with his family from Bangladesh as a teenager and felt fully integrated in his adopted country. However, he chose to opt for a traditional, arranged marriage in keeping with his Muslim religion and strong family culture, according to The Independent.
Uddin, 43, traveled to Bangladesh at the age of 30 to meet prospective partners his family had vetted and he chose Nasima, 33, the fourth woman to whom he was introduced. They married in Chittagong before she joined him in England.
According to the British Muslim Council, Uddin is among the majority of Britain's two million Asians who have arranged marriages and he feels outrage at Blunkett's suggestion that his marriage to Nasima is a "sham" or anything other than genuine.
The decision to have an arranged marriage with a woman from his home town was not purely out of deference to his cultural roots. He also believed it consolidated his identity as a first-generation Asian living in Britain.
“I wanted this kind of marriage, not just because it was expected of me in the community, but because it felt natural. I was given full control of the outcome and I felt that having your family find a suitable person has a lot of safeguards.
“I was happy to marry someone from the same region as my family is originally from because I felt that brought us closer together in our marriage. We share the same customs and we have a lot in common, the same linguistic dialect, the same style of food and mutual friends," said Uddin, who owns a restaurant on Teesside.
Blunkett’s controversial White Paper has raised heated arguments within British
Intellectual circles, Muslim communities there, and the Asian community in particular.
He uses language that will go down well with the xenophobic press but tries also to persuade liberals that the policies themselves are sensible. One result was some offensive comments on arranged marriages that seemed to confuse them with fraudulent marriages and forced ones, The Independent said.
Combined with the suggestion that English language tests would be mandatory for applicants for British citizenship, this carries unpleasant overtones of his demand two months ago for immigrants to "accept British norms".
Observers and analysts, in the Middle East have a different opinion though. They believe Blunkett’s White Paper to be “part of a concerted, long run plan to liquidate Muslim presence in the West”.
An Egyptian analyst and researcher, Dr. Mohamed Seed Saeed had told IslamOnline, in the aftermath of September 11 attacks that he “expected the presence of Western plans, on the long run, to liquidate the Muslim Presence in the West”.
Saeed expected such plans to tackle the “temporary presence” first; short visits, scholarships, before cracking down on “permanent presence”.
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