Debris, Ayahs, and Welsh White women convert
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** What kind of emotional commentary is made on the legacy of empire in Charged and/or ADF’s songs?**
Debris by Asian Dub Foundation is an angry confrontation to British people. While white Brits are often upset about immigration for whatever reason, often there is anti-immigration rhetoric that immigrants are taking white people’s jobs, it is they who are benefiting from a modern UK whose great-grandparents or ancestors exploited and destroyed South Asia to build up the UK. “The gold that you stole, the pillage and plunder, is it any wonder that we’re here.” There is a frustration in ADF’s song that the anti-immigration anger from white people is misplaced anger, it should be the immigrant who should be angry for having no choice but to immigrate after colonization. While the upbeat ska musical style gives the song a hopeful tone, the lyrics are underscored with frustration and confusion. “I never had the feeling to either destroy and conquer. I sift through the debris you left in your wake.” There are many interpretations of what this metaphorical debris can mean, two I infer are: in a post colonial society, there is a mess of less opportunity for South Asians in both their homelands and in the systematically racist West. The debris can also be the lost heritage and culture one faces from immigration and colonization; lost histories from colonization like from the Ayahs and South Asian servants in the UK whose stories we can only piece together from newspaper clippings from British families who posted their job offerings or trying to find another domestic job for their Ayah or servant, or second generation immigrants like me who face melancholia from lost culture and identity.
** To what extent were they human, and to what extent "chattel"?**
Colonial England trusted Ayahs and Indian servants enough to hire them to raise their children, to help them navigate Indian society if they hired them in India, and during the rough voyages to care for the family, but they still did not see them as equals worthy of their concern. Since so many of them broke their promises to them for a safe voyage back to India or repatriation, they did not even view Ayahs and Indian servants as their “chattel” or property because they abandoned them. These employers were often White British women. As women, they did not see Ayahs as equal women. The white women who broke their promise for repatriation did not concern themselves that Ayahs were left to fend for themselves in a new country, with where they would sleep and work, and with how they would eat. I can’t imagine how difficult it was for Ayahs to leave their family and loved ones behind to help provide for them, only to be exploited and abandoned a continent away from everyone they know. Instead of taking issue in the treatment of the abandoned South Asian women, British officials also did not claim as “chattel” that they were responsible for. They were solely concerned with them begging in their cities, the British reputation when British families broke these contracts with Ayahs, and the growing number of South Asians in Britain. The Emigration Act of 1846 stated, “England is not a place to which emigration (for the purpose of labouring for hire) from British India is lawful” (page 23). This Act represents Britain’s perception of Indians; they saw Indians as temporary labour instead of equals worthy to be in British society. This act foreshadows future legislation that would be passed in twentieth century UK that would economically benefit the country with cheap labour from commonwealth citizens while restricting their rights and ability to become equal citizens which were outlined in Sivandan’s Race, Class, and the State, the reading from a few weeks ago. The conditions of the lodging—that abandoned Indian servants had to live in while paying 16 shillings a week for rent (which I assume would have been a lot back then)—also reminds me of landlords exploiting migrant workers in twentieth century Britain by overcharging them and inadvertently creating economically struggling slums in British cities in Sivandan’s reading.
** What sorts of women were entering into networks of racialised men in the UK and why? How did they benefit or stand to lose from partnerships with racialised men?**
White Welsh women who were often from lower-social class were marrying Yemeni seafarers in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They would integrate into the Islamic community in Cardiff, converting to Islam and taking new Muslim names. Although Cardiff had a varied level of tolerance for its Muslim community (there were the race riots of 1919 when racists targeted Muslim seafarers, and there was the construction of Cardiff city hall that included a Muslim crescent and star in its city hall emblem recognizing the cultural additions of the Cardiff Muslim community), I imagine marrying a Muslim man often meant accepting ostracizing yourself from your family and community, but perhaps less so for women of lower economic status. After the seafaring industry declined, these white women converts bridged immigrant communities into Welsh society by helping them get access to social and housing resources.
