The Caribbean in Europe

Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France and the Netherland

Colin Brock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9780714632636
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135173531
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

This book is the fourth in a series of volumes to emerge from the commemoration by the University of Hull of the 150th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, and in particular an international conference held to discuss some of the legacies of Caribbean slavery and its abolition. Most of the chapters of this book originated as papers presented on the final day of that conference.

Part A
Migration, Settlement and Disparity

1
The West Indian Dimension of Western Europe

COLIN BROCK

This introductory chapter attempts to set the predominantly British-based discussion of subsequent contributions in a broader context by examining, albeit briefly and from documentary sources alone, the West Indian component of both France and the Netherlands. Consideration of these two cases will be preceded by some general remarks in respect of the wider temporal, spatial and cultural dimensions involved, and succeeded by comparative comment involving Britain also.

The Amerindian period apart, the West Indies emerged politically, economically and even culturally as an extension of Europe – part of the legacy of the so-called ‘Age of Discovery’. To be sure, as Naipaul rightly asserts, the colonial West Indies were ‘manufactured societies’; ‘labour camps’; ‘creations of empire’. In respect of the legacy of slavery, he continued:

It has been said that in concentration camps the inmates began after a time to believe that they were genuinely guilty. Pursuing the Christian – Hellenic tradition, the West Indian accepted his blackness as his guilt, and divided people into the white, fusty, musty, dusty, tea, coffee, cocoa, light black, dark black. He never seriously doubted the validity of the culture to which he aspired. In the French territories he aimed at Frenchness; in the Dutch territories at Dutchness; in the English territories he aimed at simple whiteness and modernity, Englishness being impossible.¹

While fundamentally a question of economics and politics, the story of the myriad migrations of Caribbean people always carries an element of symbolism, so aptly encapsulated in one of the titles of a leading authority in this field, Orlando Patterson.² With the emergence of second and third generations in the communities of West Indian origin in Britain, France and the Netherlands, the symbolism is more Caribbean, even African oriented, the wheel having turned full circle.

West Indian migration to Europe must first be placed in the context of total emigration from the Caribbean. Migration within the Caribbean basin is of long standing and until relatively recent restrictions, almost customary. For the most part twentieth century movements to Canada and the USA have been massive compared to those directed towards Europe. According to Lowenthal:

West Indians who have left their home islands probably outnumber those who remain at home. West Indians in Europe, however, are fewer than a million, less than the number of Caribbean migrants in New York City alone, not to mention the rest of North America.³

In general, migrants from the Commonwealth Caribbean to North America have found the experience more congenial than have West Indian migrants to Europe. However, the relative imbalance in favour of North America and against Europe is largely a question of geographical and economic expediency. In historical terms, the movement to Europe can be viewed as taking up the debt owed to West Indians by the colonial traders who uprooted them from Africa or inveigled them from Asia.

Once in Europe, the West Indian communities find themselves just one component of a broader phenomenon of migrant labour and displaced minorities, and their situation has to be interpreted in this context.⁴ With some justification the black British, Dutch and French regard themselves as North-West Europeans, as opposed to the predominantly Mediterranean origin immigrants in those countries. Yet their distinctiveness of colour and race tends to make them a particular focus of prejudice and discrimination on the part of the white majority. In France this situation is ameliorated to some extent by the almost pathological dislike of the sizeable Algerian minority.

West Indian migration to metropolitan France comes primarily from Guadeloupe and Martinique, both, since 1946, Overseas Departments of France. Very few have come from French Guyana, but a significant number of Haitians have also made this move. The two Departments in question have a long history of migration to mainland France, and there has also been a certain amount of movement in the opposite direction. As Butcher and Ogden put it, migration to metropolitan France is ‘the most potent symbol of dependence of French West Indians’.

The population structures of both Guadeloupe and Martinique are extremely comparable, comprising approximately 75 per cent Afro-Caribbean, 15 per cent ‘mixed’ race, 5 per cent Indian and 5 per cent white. Although migration is of long standing, it accelerated markedly during the 1970s, the annual number being about 5000 for the period 1970–75. Figures are difficult to come by in respect of French West Indians in France due to their being full citizens and therefore not subject to immigration control.

Two aspects of the increased flow may be worthy of mention here. First, in contrast to Britain where the main influx of West Indians was curtailed in the mid 1960s, there are relatively more of the first generation in the Caribbean community in France. Second, the continuance of the flow at this high level means that considerable numbers are coming from the lower socioeconomic groups. The widening of the social spectrum of migrants did of course characterise the British scene in the 1950s and 1960s, but is not particularly evident over the last twenty years.

Clearly the flow of migrants from Guadeloupe and Martinique to metropolitan France is closely related to economic and demographic change in the islands which again is very strongly influenced by government policy. The startling decline in the rate of population growth – from well over 30 per cent between 1954 and 1967 to under 5 per cent between 1967 and 1982 – had much to do with two particular initiatives. The first was an uncharacteristically vigorous campaign in support of birth control, including contraception, while the second was the active sponsorship of emigration. In consequence, the French speak of the ‘third island’; that is to say the presence of approximately the same number of French West Indians in metropolitan France as now exist in either Guadeloupe or Martinique.

In April 1963 the French government established a quango under the acronym BUMIDOM.⁶ The function of BUMIDOM was clearly to generate as well as facilitate migration, the object being

to secure a cheap, French-speaking labour force for certain sections of the economy of the ‘metropole’; and to help solve the problem of population pressure, unemployment and resultant political unrest in the islands.⁷

These functions and operations go far beyond any similar initiatives in either Britain or the Netherlands, and in addition to resolving the broad demographic needs at either end have much to do with the particular place of the French West Indian within the socio-cultural spectrum of metropolitan France. Resting between the white majority and the officially foreign migrant labour from Africa, they are disproportionately employed in responsible but lower level public sector duties within, especially, the health service, transport, posts and telecommunications and the civil service in general. This may have something to do with levels of education being higher in the French Caribbean than in North Africa – at least in respect of being instrumental in the context of metropolitan France – though with the social broadening through mass immigration, significant numbers of Guadeloupéens and Martiniquais are found in manufacturing industry and, in the case of women, in domestic and service work.

In view of the demographic and social pressures outlined above, BUMIDOM had a strong responsibility towards family migration and cohesion, which accounts for the fact that in nearly two decades of its existence (1963–1981), nearly twofifths of migrations from Guadeloupe and Martinique came under the category of ‘réunion’. In order to meet such objectives, BUMIDOM and associated agencies⁸ had a sophisticated support network of information, selection, habilitation, transportation and employment facilities at both ends.

One of the outcomes of this degree of support, especially for the family, is the very high proportion of young people in the French West Indian community in metropolitan France, nearly 60 per cent being under the age of 24 in 1975. This has clear implications for the future well-being and social experience of the second generation which are already becoming evident in terms of increased perception of discrimination and problems relating to both Antillean and to metropolitan French culture at the same time.⁹ This is part of an intergenerational conflict that is widespread in migrant communities, but the relative recency of the French West Indian immigrant ‘boom’ heightens the problem somewhat.

Despite their evident Frenchness and intermediate functional position in metropolitan society, French West Indians are still strongly clustered in respect of residential location, though perhaps not to the same degree as their British counterparts.¹⁰ Nearly three-quarters of this group reside in Paris, most of them in the arrondissements of the north-east quarter of the city (9, 10, 11, 18, 19, 20), and the adjacent inner suburban departments of Seine St Denis and Val de Marne. On the other hand the relatively low density, even in these sectors of the Paris conurbation, and the relatively wide dispersal of the other 25 per cent in provincial centres, militates against a ghetto situation, which, claims Raveau, does not exist in respect of this group.¹¹ Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that the majority of French West Indians live in those areas which are ‘the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• MIGRATION, SETTLEMENT AND DISPARITY
• SOCIAL AND CULTURAL THEMES
• Index