Disputing a booming economy and improving consumer life for its people, the changing global power structure, not subordinate to the United States and USSR, caused many throughout Western Europe to question their new place in the world. The loss of the India for Britain and Vietnam and Algeria for France, along with the African colonies of both, caused many to question the new place of both countries in their world and what was wrong in their country. Many argued that imperial decline was the cause of many of these problems. Additionally, many argued about a changing sense of manhood (the decline its peaking during World War Two) and, to many, white settlers in Rhodesia and Algeria represented a lost masculinity and self-reliance.
The Suez Crisis in 1956 highlighted the collapse of European power. The leader of the newly independent country of Egypt, Abdel Nasser, worked to forge his own foreign policy, distance himself and his country away from the United Kingdom and nationalized the canal, a crucial link in world trade, in the name of Egypt. In response, soldiers from the United Kingdom, France and Israel invaded the nearby Sinai Peninsula and landed paratroopers along the canal and seized back the waterway. However, pressure of the United States, worried about their international reputation, and threats from Eisenhower to devalue the British pound caused all three countries to withdraw their forces. Egypt won a symbolically important battle and the United States demonstrated its political and economic might-just hinting at an action was enough to achieve its goal (and the leader of the United Kingdom, Anthony Eden, resigned).
SIR ANTHONY EDEN on the Suez: “Throughout recent months, and, in particular, since the seizure of the Canal, the Egyptian Government have kept up a violent campaign against Israel, against this country and against the West. The Egyptian Government have made clear over and over again, with increased emphasis since the seizure of the Canal, their intention to destroy Israel, just as they have made it plain that they would drive the Western Powers out of the Middle East… It is really not tolerable that the greatest sea highway in the world, one on which our Western life so largely depends, should be subject to the dangers of an explosive situation in the Middle East which, it must be admitted, has been largely created by the Egyptian Government along familiar lines. I would remind the House that we have witnessed, all of us, the growth of a specific Egyptian threat to the peace of the Middle East. Everybody knows that to be true. THE GOVERNMENT ARE NOT PREPARED TO EMBARK ON A POLICY OF ABJECT APPEASEMENT”
New waves of migrants began arriving throughout Europe, attracted by the booming economies, colonial ties and limited economic opportunity at home. The arrival of the ship “Windrush” from Jamaica in 1946 signified the start of large-scale immigration which grew from less than 20,000 people per year to over 500,000 per year in 1962.
One immigrant from Hong Kong recalled: I worked as a waiter when I first came. Then I saved some money and got married, and opened a takeaway. Sometimes I had to cook as well. I partnered with my wife. The children were still young at that time. If you were a chef then you had to know how to cook. I worked at the front desk, therefore I had to know how to deal with the customers. Sometimes the customers were not so good and rude. I didn’t like it but I had no choice as I had to do it for a living. I worked in the takeaway until 1997 – I had been in the food business for a few decades.
Officials in Britain worried that these non-white immigrants would spread non British culture, religious views and would intermarry with the host population, in effect (and ignoring the irony), the British feared being colonized by the same people they colonized. Continuing colonial attitudes, fears over African, Indian and Afro-Caribbean sexuality and miscegenation dominated the debate and announcements of British politicians and officials. The negative, especially criminal, behavior (especially assaults on white women) also dominated debates. White Britons (often working class) participated in violent attacks against the incomers with the most famous Notting Hill riots taking place in 1958, pushed by fears over black settlement in the area. The British Nationality Act, passed in 1962, worked to ensure that new migrants have a job or special skills, and the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1968 required that migrants be connected to the United Kingdom being a descendant of a British national–thus, non-white immigrant was checked without mentioning race.
Figure 9: Percentage of non-UK born people in England and Wales from 1951 to 2011. )
Figure 10: Enoch Powell
Immigrants were welcomed in small numbers, if they were white, if they seemed likely to return and to work unskilled jobs during years of economic growth. If any of this criteria failed to be met, Western European societies quickly turned against these new communities. While the new communities reshaped life and culture in the societies they went to, they were largely excluded from everyday life, possessed limited access to the welfare state and continued to exist as marginalized communities that most preferred to ignore.
In another example of more extreme European views, L’Aurore, a French periodical, wrote: “In Paris, North Africans are specialists and record makers in the nocturnal attack. The Arab is, quite precisely, the thief who waits on the corner of the road for the late passerby, whom he clubs for the sake of a watch…”
