DAN JACOBSON
583
citizen of a Commonwealth country, which South Africa then
was, I enjoyed an absolute right of entry and residence in Great
Britain. So did millions from the West Indies, India, Pakistan,
Hong Kong, and a host of other, former imperial possessions.
Throughout the fifties and sixties ever-increasing numbers of
people from those countries were to take advantage of this right
as I had done. Great Britain 's "guest workers, " therefore, have had
from the beginning a different civic status from that of the mi–
grants in most European countries: in effect, they were immediate–
ly regarded by British law as citizens, not foreigners. Since then
successive Acts of Parliament have more and more severely re–
stricted immigration; nevertheless the country now has a perma–
nent " New Commonwealth" population of several million. I
wish I could believe that the rights of citizenship granted to the
original entrants will provide a guarantee of order and stability to
the multi-racial Great Britain which has come so abruptly into
existence. The omens, however, are not auspicious. The economy
of the country is in a worse shape than its competitors' , and it has
a higher rate of chronic unemployment than their economies–
two summers ago there were riots in its cities on a bigger scale
than anything that has taken place recently elsewhere on the con–
tinent. However, given the scale of the transformation which has
taken place over such a short period in a traditionally xenophobic
country, what actually surprises me is not that there has been so
much trouble in the streets of England, but that there has been so
little.
Each case is of course different historically from every other,
and all are different from the paradigm case I have recollected from
South Africa. But they evidently have a great deal in common
with one another, too.
In
South Africa we had centers of advanced
industry and commerce which were at a distance of no more than a
day and a night's rail journey from what might nowadays be called
a Third World pool of labor. Those who owned the mines and
shops and factories were quite distinct racially, culturally, and
socially from those whom they were obliged to employ, and they
were determined to remain distinct from them. What is more, the
whites had total control, politically speaking, over all areas of
their country, the industrialized and the undeveloped alike, and
they used their powers of supervision and control with great zeal
and resolution, in order to achieve the ends they desired. The
