Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The general problem
- 3 The communal option
- 4 Traditional and ethnic nationalism
- 5 From imperial British to national British
- 6 Diasporic politics: Sikhs and the demand for Khalistan
- 7 Diasporic politics: the demand for democracy in Guyana
- 8 Nationalism and the new pluralism in Britain
- 9 Conclusion: the need for a new national consciousness
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - Nationalism and the new pluralism in Britain
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The general problem
- 3 The communal option
- 4 Traditional and ethnic nationalism
- 5 From imperial British to national British
- 6 Diasporic politics: Sikhs and the demand for Khalistan
- 7 Diasporic politics: the demand for democracy in Guyana
- 8 Nationalism and the new pluralism in Britain
- 9 Conclusion: the need for a new national consciousness
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Introduction
In this chapter I want to relate to each other some of the central points raised in the last three chapters about historical/traditional and ethnic nationalism and diasporic politics. Secondly, I also want to set these points alongside what, earlier in the discussion, I called the new pluralism. Whilst I will discuss these points generally, I will pay particular attention to how Britain is affected by these phenomena.
Traditional and ethnic nationalism
There are, of course, many more pressing questions with which Britain has had to contend in this period than those I have raised in this discussion over ethnicity and nationalism. Questions, for example, relating to defence, economic recovery and adjustment in an increasingly competitive world system, education, internal social peace and so forth are all important problems which have exercised the minds of British statesmen and stateswomen since the Second World War. Each of these stands on its own as worthy of the extensive discussion received elsewhere. The question, however, of whether the less than five per cent non-white population of around fifty-six million Britons can become part or parts of the national community not only continues to have immediate and grave implications for other national concerns, but is likely to continue to be of paramount importance in the foreseeable future.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ethnicity and Nationalism in Post-Imperial Britain , pp. 214 - 233Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991