About thirty years after the ‘Cricket Test’ was first proposed by Tebbit as a way of assessing one’s allegiance to a country, questions of who truly belongs to a country are still debated on the political agenda.
For those in the first and second generation of immigrants, including myself, a series of questions are often raised surrounding one’s identity and place in the country. I argue that the rhetoric of policy-makers and those in power has the capacity to shape public perception of one’s allegiance and identity in relation to a country. To explore this further, I examine historical and current examples of political rhetoric which question how truly the subjects in question belong to their respective nations.
In 1990, Norman Tebbit controversially developed a method for determining how loyal British Asians and Caribbeans, as well as their children, are to England. It became known as The Cricket Test (or ‘Tebbit Test’). He said, “A large proportion of Britain’s Asian population fail to pass the cricket test. Which side do they cheer for? It’s an interesting test. Are you still harking back to where you came from or where you are?”. It asks which team is supported in a cricket match between England and the country of their heritage: generally this tends to be of their parents or grandparents. The outcome of the test, according to Tebbit, is that the person who supports their heritage country over England has not fully integrated into British society, and is thus rejecting crucial aspects of British culture.
Almost three decades later, the same questions surrounding integration and assimilation are still discussed in the political sphere, worldwide. A few years ago during Obama’s presidential campaign, there were accusations that he is not American enough to be President of the United States, and a degree of obsession arose with his birth certificate. This raised questions about how the State and policy-makers define who is considered a true American. It is an interesting thought, given America’s immigrant history.
More recently, President Trump infamously made comments of four US Democratic Congresswomen, saying that they should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” adding that they “can’t leave fast enough”. It is notable that three of these Congresswomen are US-born (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley), and Ilhan Omar came to America when she was a young child. It is doubtable that they would have been the recipient of such comments if they were not of minority origin.
In the UK, during the Prime Minister Leadership Election 2019, Hunt responded to Trump’s comments by calling them “totally offensive” and Johnson replied saying that Trump’s comments are “unacceptable”. However, it is notable that neither condemned the remarks as racist, possibly as a means of protecting UK-US relations for the future. A short while after, Farage added that the comments were “genius”. These responses have at least as much impact to shape the rhetoric surrounding national identity and belonging as the original comments by Trump. Those in power have an important role in developing the narrative that determines the extent to which someone might feel like they belong in their own country. They have the ability to determine which comments and narratives are legitimised and acceptable in personal conversations. It is easy to believe that, if it is acceptable for leaders to condone such sentiments, that this rhetoric is acceptable in personal conversation. Without fully condemning and rejecting this rhetoric, it normalises it, leaving people as vulnerable targets to these comments in everyday conversation.
This is crucial when many people of immigrant descent have been told similar words themselves. Seeing these comments in the media can evoke insecurity over their acceptance in the country and it can bring back foul memories for the children who heard these comments whilst growing up. When even the leaders of these nations seem to have doubts over their acceptance, this converts into insecurity over their acceptance from fellow citizens. It embodies a broader scope since this rhetoric crosses borders and has prevalence on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed across the globe. Both leaders in the US and the UK share a perception of what national identity incorporates. If policy makers and those in power have a relatively fixed idea of what it means to be a native, what it means to be truly ‘British’ or ‘American’ as in these examples, or indeed a national of any country in the world, then this raises questions about belonging for those whose identity transcends this fixed idea. In many ways, then, leaders have the power to shape how inclusive national communities are, in the public and private sphere, with their rhetoric.
Originally published on 23rd October 2019 in Agora Think Tank
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Preeti Kaur 