Cool Britannia and Multi-Ethnic Britain

Uncorking the Champagne Supernova

Jason Arday

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781315440620
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Cool Britannia and Multi-Ethnic Britain: Uncorking the Champagne Supernova attempts to move away from the melancholia of Cool Britannia and the discourse which often encases the period by repositioning this phenomenon through an ethnic minority perspective.

In March 1997, the front page of the magazine Vanity Fair announced 'London Swings! Again!' This headline was a direct reference to the swinging London of the 1960s – the English capital which became the era-defining epicentre of the world for its burgeoning rock and pop music scene, with its daring new youth culture, and the boutique fashion houses of Carnaby Street captured most indelibly by the Mods, Rockers, and psychedelic hippies of the time. In the 1990s this renewed interest in the swinging 60s seemed to reinvigorate popular culture, after a global period in the 1980s which would see the collapse of traditional communism and the ending of Cold War, while ushering in the beginnings of a new technological age spearheaded by Apple, Microsoft, and IBM. The dawn of the 1990s meant that peace and love would once again reign supreme, with Britannia being at the forefront of 'cool' again. Godfathers of the Mancunian Rock scene New Order would declare 'Love had the world in motion' and, for a fleeting period, Britain was about to encounter its second coming as the cultural epicentre of the world.

Although history proffers a period of utopia, inclusion, and cultural integration, the narrative alters considerably when exploring this euphoric period through a discriminatory and racialised lens. This book repositions the ethnic minority–lived experience during the 1990s from the societal and political margins to the centre. The lexicon explored here attempts to provide an altogether different discourse that allows us to reflect on seminal and racially discriminatory episodes during the 1990s that subsequently illuminated the systemic racism sustained by the state. The Cool Britannia years become a metaphoric reference point for presenting a Britain that was culturally splintered in many ways. This book utilises storytelling and auto-ethnography as an instrument to unpack the historical amnesia that ensues when unpacking the racialised plights of the time.

1 Love spreads

The impact of the Cool Britannia years on multi-ethnic Britain

Introduction

Too often it is assumed that Britain is and has always been an inclusive space, tolerant of all ethnic difference. The vernacular used to describe or define this inclusion is interesting, as the term becomes consumed in whichever applicable rhetoric or discourse suits the narrative at the time. This term has also been conferred to suggest that Black communities are problems to be theorised by White intellectuals, consequently placing ethnic minorities on the periphery of British society, unable to verbalise their experiences of residing in Britain as a minority (Warmington, 2014). The cost to this neglect is the portrayal of a phenomenon that is not entirely inclusive or accurate, resulting in an historical amnesia that ensues when reciting and extolling the virtues of the politically turbulent and drug-fuelled excess of the 90s. What this book attempts to do is reposition the narrative by utilising an auto-ethnographic approach to centre the voices of ethnic minorities during this period in understanding how the environment, the state, and its major institutions at the time were complicit in sustaining a racist, exclusionary, and discriminatory hostile environment.

Cool Britannia and Multi-Ethnic Britain: Uncorking the Champagne Supernova offers a story of how racism unfolded in the 1990s against the backdrop of Cool Britannia. Its focus attempts to dispel the myth that this period was inclusive of all British residents at the time. This book explores how ethnic minorities circumnavigated the landmines of racism throughout the decade by examining the resistance movements of the time and the impact of political discourse on this context. This introductory chapter begins by providing a biographical outline of the time which situates myself as the author, oscillating between the paradigms of inclusion and exclusion regarding the Cool Britannia phenomenon. Considerations within the chapter then move to the advent of New Labour and the subsequent impact on multi-ethnic Britain. This chapter positions the ethnic minority discriminatory plight regarding inclusion, exclusion, and marginalisation, providing the stimulus for further considerations of race and racism, belonging, cultural diversity, and integration throughout this book.

The revival of everything synonymous with eclectic Britain during the 1960s, when the nation held the world’s attention for a period as the epicentre for music, fashion, culture, and sport, was reincarnated in the form of the Cool Britannia years which occupied a period during the mid-1990s. The essence of this period impacted several facets of society which are now engrained within British folklore and history. Integral to this sense of renewed optimism was a feeling of psychedelia and euphoria, a sense of freedom and expression that was perceived to have been suppressed under oppressive Conservative rule. Built upon a wave of hope and optimism, there is a narrative that provides a counter to this melancholia. The counternarrative reflects a different type of oppression which was systemic and insidious throughout the period following the nationalist revival in the 1980s, in which the shackles of subjugation remained and the right of emancipation denied. This decade observed an uprising, in which victimised and racialised multi-ethnic individuals within Britain began to ‘visibly’ challenge the inequity they encountered with a sustained resistance through anti-racist activism and a new breed of civil rights politics which directly challenged the normative orthodoxy and inherent fluidity of discrimination, principally racial discrimination. A brief historical interjection saw the release of anti-Apartheid revolutionary and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nelson Mandela at the beginning of the 1990s after 27 years of imprisonment, after being convicted of attempting to overthrow the state following the Rivonia Trial. However, this did not quell the continuation of institutional racism faced by Black and ethnic minority individuals nationally within the UK or globally. Often this narrative is submerged within the Cool Britannia years which further highlights how particular factions of society during that period of time operated on the periphery of this cultural phenomenon, thus creating a powerful anecdote for inclusion and exclusion and, perhaps more significantly, which types of individuals are able to access this type of ‘belonging’.

The importance of such a period is encapsulated in the eyes of those who experienced this particular phenomenon; this becomes a central theme within this book. The prevailing discourse becomes integral in attempting to challenge the romance of a period which often situates its rhetoric within an inclusive paradigm. The turbulence of this period is punctuated by particular landmark events; within a racialised context there are two significant historical milestones which illuminated the plight of institutional racism within all its forms. The murder of Stephen Lawrence became a yardstick for measuring how insidiously racism was saturated throughout the fabric of British society. The MacPherson Report brought to the British public’s attention the depths of this discriminatory saturation and how it pervaded all of Britain’s major institutions. Importantly, it highlighted the impact of this discriminatory terrain on Black and ethnic minority communities throughout the UK.

This compelling counternarrative is one that often is lost within the rhetoric of the time. The anecdote often proffered regarding the period often symbolises a tale of hope and optimism, which coincides with the resurgence of Britannia at the epicentre of post-modernism. The melancholy and psychedelia which accompanied this period is best typified through The Stone Roses’ mantra of ‘Love Spreading’, a historical and cultural period within Britain that can only be rivalled by the swinging 60s. For Ian Brown and his brothers-in-arms, this mantra would become immortalised at the legendary Spike Island concert in May 1990. This gathering became an enduring symbol of what societal harmony and unity could look like … albeit against a backdrop of semi-psychedelic guitar-based riffs, bewitching melodies, and beatific, bass-laden funk grooves. This opening gambit provides an introductory context considering some of the more definitive nuances of the Cool Britannia years, in addition to exploring some of the features which captivated and generated global interest as Britain became the front-runner in popular culture, music, politics, and the arts. The consideration of this period also lends itself to a biographical account of how this particular period impacted a young Black male teenager from South London, in what essentially became a definitive, life-changing period that would become the catalyst for self-discovery.

Being a young black teenager during the Cool Britannia years

This tale initially is framed within an ‘inclusive’ context during a period of self-discovery. Binaries across the spectrum of intersectionality can sometimes become an interesting anchor towards engagement and expression; they ascribe individuals to a perceived societal narrative which often reflects some type of stereotype or racial ascription (Alleyne, 2002). This is something I became very aware of as a teenager who was heavily into guitar and rock music and who was a Black person – I was continuously reminded, through overt barbs and thinly veiled microaggressions, that as a person from my ethnic background, ‘you should not really be into this type of thing’, swiftly followed by references of Bounty (a term which denotes a Black person as Black on the outside and White on the inside). I remember the first time being labelled with this derogatory term and the feeling of helplessness and vulnerability that accompanied my bemusement, as I had been unaware that there was a blueprint, or a set of ascribed characteristics, for being ‘Black’. Stunned into silence, I was completely taken aback. Interestingly, there was a period of awakening which also embraced the idea that, as a young Black male, I refused to assimilate into the ‘perceived’ stereotype but rather chose to be true to myself and what defined me as an individual, acutely aware that my interests in a particular genre of music and popular culture would situate me in predominantly White domains and spaces, where I would become aware that I was the ‘other’ or was encountering ‘othering’.

There is often a catalyst for something that ignites a particular interest. The ignition of this interest is maintained through social dynamics situated within how one identifies with certain types of social capital (Bygott, 1992; Warmington, 2014). As a teenager during this period, I was fortunate to have parents that made me politically conscious of the racialised plights facing people of colour around the world. This particular political compass was carefully navigated throughout my teenage years by parents who continuously made me and my siblings aware that there were several pitfalls and injustices that could be encountered being a young Black man within the global society, and my parents frequently cited examples of this being nowhere more prevalent than in the UK and the United States. What begins to be captured in this narrative growing up is effectively a survival toolkit for how to navigate residence within a racist society that often places people of colour on the periphery of opportunity, equality, and equity. By this point, the idea of inclusion seems a distant feature, whereby the rules for participation are facilitated by particular types of individuals with the power and the privilege to reinforce and perpetuate a cycle of inequality that has been built by historically excluding a particular demographic of individuals.

The topography of this exclusion is one that perhaps I was not privy to as I entered my teenage years immersed within the vacuum of Cool Britannia. During that particular period an obsession grew with a movement that seemed to be challenging the hierarchal and normative Conservative orthodoxy which had prevailed for several decades, disadvantaging many within British society. The antithesis to this orthodoxy was represented by a group of White working-class Mancunians, who would leave an indelible mark on British popular music: Oasis. The story of inclusion emerges when feelings of similarity and familiarity are bound within the context of the music, the sharing of a common language, which ultimately creates a form of tribalism (Harris, 2004). However, entry into the tribe and establishing the terms for belonging become very dependent upon a set of variables that are racialised and exclusionary. This becomes apparent in attempting to understand and decipher the societal construct which surrounds me and why people are resistance to my ‘obvious difference’ in comparison with them. As the music of the band began to take on a different meaning to me, with particular regards to how I conceptualised the world that surrounded me, I found myself often and upon reflection quite naïvely removing the context of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ from this interest.

On reflection, there is an acknowledgement that this may have been an avoidance mechanism situated in denial that ‘race’ and ‘racism’ could not impact such contexts as the communal and collective enjoyment derived from music. Interestingly, this becomes quite a pivotal moment, as a cognition transpires which ignites a political consciousness that potentially this type of music, while enjoyable, did not necessarily speak to my lived and future racialised experiences, particularly because a racialisation occurred in those predominantly White spaces which positioned me as a space invader, an outsider, a traveller absent direction, accidentally ending up in the wrong location. In a way, perhaps my own thinking was restricted and confined to thinking that, as a Black person, I did not belong in those spaces. Although the music acted as a form of escapism, this did not remove me from the physical and emotional reality of racial discrimination, with continual reiterations of this discriminatory instrument reminding me that, as a young Black male, I should not be gaining influence from this particular genre of music, as it had no correlation to being an oppressed person of colour within British society. Intriguingly, and perhaps conversely, this was something that I was actually reminded of by people of colour and White people of a similar age to me at the time. The internal conflict in relation to this context, therefore, becomes more intriguing when a reflection ensues regarding positionality within the story of inclusion and exclusion as an ethnic minority traversing adolescence in the 1990s. The resonance that accompanied the obsession with a band like Oasis affirmed my thoughts on iconic musical acts that had encapsulated a period of time; within this particular cultural period it became apparent that we were residing musically in a period during which we were in the presence of one of the definitive British bands of our time. Upon reflection, this internal affirmation may have been an attempt to integrate and assimilate myself into something that was different from the social and economic deprivation that I encountered daily.

Growing up on a council estate in South London, there were continual reminders of the path that individuals had trodden underpinned by a lack of opportunity to become socially mobile and remove themselves from the cyclical stranglehold of social deprivation, criminal activity, and gang affiliation. The blissfulness and naïveté that accompanies youth did not impair observations which queried and juxtaposed why certain types of individuals lived in a particular way while others lived in more affluent dwellings. Thus, the way in which one stimulates the mind with ideas associated with one day becoming socially mobile and removing oneself from abject poverty becomes an essential vehicle for mentally transporting from a particular situation towards envisaging a perfect utopia. The story of four working-class Mancunians who grew up with each other complimented this narrative for me. It provided an idealistic framework from which there was a feeling that ‘racism’ as a construct could be removed, and in its absence a more inclusive discourse could be espoused when situated within a class context. Effectively, this became quite a naïve and misinformed attempt to employ ‘commonality’ regarding the lived experience of racial discrimination. A cognition would later emerge which recognised that such factors are rarely inseparable for people of colour and in many ways are inescapable, particularly within a hostile environment. The premise for this cognition stems from an observational realisation which recognised a distinct difference in the way White and Black people are treated within society. This epiphany indicated that people of colour are rarely afforded the opportunity to become socially mobile, a construct underpinned by the inequitable anchor of institutional racism within society.

The process of identifying with these four individuals in Manchester became a cathartic process in attempting to digest and understand the world that was revolving around me at the time, and perhaps more pertinently, how individuals transpired within that world and how they were able to identify a sense of belonging to a particular movement or set of collective commonalities or circumstances. It also created distance from accepting the reality of living in a racist society, something I was reluctant to acknowledge in attempting to preserve the proverbial utopian bubble. Within this context, the commonalities reside within a narrative which fluctuates between being proud to be all things British and understanding how one begins to make sense of one’s place within British society, and the implications which permeate the landscape of inclusivity, diversification, and ethnic tolerance. This consideration becomes even more significant when considering a country with a strained racial and oppressive past, a country within which there has been an historical intolerance towards multi-ethnicity and racial difference beyond that of the visual normative ‘White’ orthodoxy. The topography for race becomes even more apparent when considerations unpack how systematic racism operated during this period and how it became an oppressive instrument in victimising Black and ethnic minority individuals within Britain. Reflecting upon that first encounter with the police at the age of 14, a physical and mental impact ensued that invariably would spark a metacognition about society and its constructs. In particular, attention became drawn to the festering intolerance for multi-ethnic societies which coincided with an increase in the rise of populist and nationalist rhetoric. Though these affirmations and conceptions were drawn during the 1990s, it is safe to assert in many respects that the narrative of exclusion currently remains the same, albeit in more covert and sophisticated forms. One could perhaps assert that the potency of this exclusion has become more insidious, as racial intolerance towards ethnic difference becomes more prevalent and commonplace. Commonality amongst communities is now found in the resistance to embracing multi-ethnicity within Britain, a resistance which contradicts the notion of inclusivity and disrupts the concept of belonging and community, particularly within a British societal context. Commonality can also be found in the decisiveness or cohesiveness of politics, in which common ground can be gained or contested (Anderson, 1983). Wherever one’s political allegiance may lie, a commonly shared treatise recognises that politics often play a pivotal part in determining the landscape of opportunity within society.

The impact of New Labour on multi-ethnic Britain

The advent of New Labour saw a merging of renewed hope, optimism, and the dawning of rock and roll politics propelled by the Britpop movement. A strategic and carefully mixed concoction of musical influence, political disfranchisement, and renewed generational optimism swept throughout Britain, as many relished the potential ending of nearly two decades of oppressive Conservative rule (Heffernan et al., 2016). For many of Britain’s youth during this period, this dawning represented a seismic shift which promised better opportunities, greater access, and the opportunity for all members of society to become socially and economically mobile. In essence, the then-leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, attempted to deliver the most ambitious of ambitions to an already downtrodden majority of working-class and multi-ethnic Britons: a more equal society (Kenny, 2015). History dictates whether this objective was delivered to Labourites and society more generally; however, during this period there was a collective acknowledgement that the great British public would entertain just about any ‘notion of hope’ in anticipation of greater social mobility (Driver and Martell, 2006; Warmington, 2014). This also came via resistance to a previous Conservative regime that had widened the chasm of inequality and deprivation during its tenure at the helm of British politics. There is an argument to suggest that what makes politics distinctive at differing times throughout history is its interpretation of the current societal consensus, which invariably encompasses a difference of interests, beliefs, and value systems that embody contextually different perspectives, in attempting to help create and sustain commonality in values. The time that preceded the arrival of New Labour required a rethinking of the challenging economic and structural inequality that pervaded within factious Britain, particularly in the North of England. Conservatives will invariably argue that long-term social and economic trends such as industrialisation, secularisation, rationalisation, globalisation, and regionalisation shape the contexts and constraints within which all politicians have to operate, at times resulting in reduced opportunities to become socially mobile (Heffernan, 2001; Hindmoor, 2004). For socialists during the 1990s, the induction of New Labour represented a new vision for a more egalitarian Britain. The Blairite juggernaut was tasked with halting the inexorable force that was the Conservative Government. Identity politics became particularly pertinent as young people at the time began to frame their political orientation towards an ideal that embraced greater equity and opportunity for all, not just for a few (Hindmoor, 2004). At the time, Labour rather opportunistically attempted to provide a form of identity politics which helped to situate political and electoral nomads, with a focus on establishing strong links with the socially deprived and disenfranchised (Hitchens, 2004; Kymlicka, 1996).

Evangelising and presenting politics through the lens of identity allowed people to focus on who they were and where they belonged. Belonging and commonality were entrusted with party ideologies that represented thoughts, feelings, and lived experiences. This understanding for ethnic minorities in many ways assists in anchoring politics to a specific time and space; in other words, which political machine has done the most to elevate the burden of racialised and d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Preface
• List of abbreviations
• A soundtrack to the book
• Introduction: how people reflect on and recount a period of time is really interesting
• 1 Love spreads: the impact of the Cool Britannia years on multi-ethnic Britain
• 2 Don’t look back in anger: bringing institutional racism into public focus during the Cool Britannia years
• 3 Bittersweet symphony: reflecting and drawing conclusions on the Cool Britannia years in multi-ethnic Britain
• References
• Index