Professor Stephanie Hemelryk Donald in a panel discussion hosted by the Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism [GRFDT] on ‘Migrants and Immigrants during COVID 19: Country Specific Cases’, there is still colonial hangover among British government resulting racial discrimination and other forms of discrimination during the Covid19.
Fault Lines Brought to Surface
Prof. Stephanie spoke about how the COVID crisis unearthed hidden fault lines of the British society. She stated that these fault lines are a reflection of the British history: the hangover from colonialism and imperialism, the ghost of the global stock market crash of 1928 and the British response of ‘Austerity’ which “completely undermined health and social services across the country”, amongst other conditions that created deep pockets of poverty in the country.
Lack of Care and Concern
Prof. Stephanie highlighted that though Britain considers itself a major global player, it did not take the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic serious enough to warrant a serious action against it. This was apparently an outcome of the British “psyche” of a “total lack of humility”, the roots of which can be traced to the history. From imperialism and colonialism to the strategy of austerity that lasted over 10 years, these can be seen as the metaphorical causes that led to the cultivation of a social culture marked by total lack of humbleness and care, whose parallel can be drawn to the lack of facilities to care for those affected by the pandemic.
Hostile Policies Towards Migrants
By citing the example of almost 1000 migrants under detention during the pandemic despite the NGOs, other Civil Society Organizations and even the judiciary fighting to get these migrants released in order to protect them from being infected in the detention centers, she proves her above mentioned points. She mentioned that there is a huge difference between the government and the judiciary on this issue and she blames “the anti-migrant sensibility in the Home Office” for continuing to keep migrants who can’t be deported, in detention.
COVID-19 has opened up dark fissures in the way British society think about itself. It shows that it has really poor understanding of itself historically and it makes decisions based on that poor understanding particularly at the current government level: Stephanie Hemelryk Donald. She also puts forward the case of British Chinese citizens. These are a group of well-educated young individuals who are not well represented and therefore neglected by the authority. She mentions that because of this negligence these highly skilled British Chinese could migrate out of UK, causing brain drain.
Megha Rangaraj, The Writer is an under graduate student with Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Pune, India. She is an avid advocate for the emancipation of women and immensely passionate about social issues. She can be found on twitter handle @MeghaRangaraj