Racial Discrimination during the Teenage Years of Margaret Thatcher
Introduction
During the 1940s, racial discrimination was widespread along with the world in troubles and wars. It was during this time that the longest continuously serving British Prime Minister of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was at her teenage years. With the purpose of connecting Margaret Thatcher with the racial discrimination in Britain during the 1940s, this paper aims at portraying what was Thatcher’s life during the time and what had she done about it. This makes this particular literature review an interest of this paper. It can never be denied that during Thatcher’s early life, she had already created an impact and had twisted difference in her own way. Though during those times she wasn’t on her greatest influential power, not like what she had achieved during her reign as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher was an inevitable figure in most of the activities even in her teenage years.
It should also be noted that the issue of racial discrimination wasn’t given enough attention during 1940s not until the 1960s that it became a major public issue in British politics. However, the cases of racial discrimination during the 1940s have been the foundation of many political reforms that the British government has made in the next couple of decades.
Literature Review
During the 1940s, the United Kingdom saw an apparent problem of racism. Most specifically, the ones who were greatly affected were the blacks who had settled in the United Kingdom since the British participation of the slave trade in the 16th century. The word ‘immigrant’ is often wrongly used to refer only to black people when in fact white people form the majority of immigrants (1991).
In particular, the Oswald Mosley’s Fascists had caused the poor blacks to suffer from racism. The Mosleyites blamed black immigrants for the growing poverty of working-class whites. Additionally, they spread anti-black propaganda, and advocated the repatriation of blacks to the West Indies. Even though these blacks had seen an improvement in Great Britain’s racial policies, it can still never be denied that British had tolerated and even accommodated American segregation and racism within the military at some point during the World War II. In making matters worse, there was an informal color bar that existed during the time in Great Britain. One cannot even take a room and was refused to have one for the simple reason that he was black.
The discriminated blacks were also utilized as workers in factories, soldiers and sailors during the World War II and accounted to the majority of the numbers. Even after the Second World War, the United Kingdom’s new Commonwealth was massively dominated by the non-white populations or the colored. These people were separated from the white Anglo-Saxon origin through their cultural and linguistic particularities that represent a source of pride in a separate identity.
During those times, Margaret Thatcher was studying her degree and has eventually achieved leadership positions in the University where she was studying. She was still on her way to popularity
Margaret Thatcher and the Issue of Racial Discrimination
It was one of the situations of Great Britain that made Margaret Thatcher endeavor for a position in politics so as to take a hold of crucial government decisions like the matters of racial discrimination. It is true that during the onset of racial discrimination in the United Kingdom there was nothing that Margaret Thatcher could do than watch. However, her experiences and what she saw had gratified her to take a stand about the issue.
In the twentieth century, and particularly after 1945, Britain had undermined the freedom of the individual and expanded the power of the state; at the same time, Britain had sunk in international influence. Thatcher’s agenda was to restore the traditional British values of personal freedom and self-reliance, to recall the philosophical basis of earlier success, and so to change the direction in which British society appeared to be headed.
Margaret Thatcher’s close touch of the issue of racial discrimination came when she became the leader of the Tory government that passed and introduced the 1962 bill. At the time, immigration and race were still the factors that divide Britain and the bill was formulated to cure the controversial issue. Following the bill were several acts that aimed at integrating people and the making of the Race Relations legislation that is against racial discrimination. The acts were successively made from 1965, 1968, and 1976 with each act widening the scope of the previous one.
Margaret Thatcher was on the Conservative Party that passed the Commonwealth Immigrants Act aimed at regulating immigration from the New Commonwealth where most blacks live in. During the rivalry of the Communist Party and Conservatives, the latter have been found to be the foremost source of racist sentiment and were also the hindrance to both white and black workers in the struggle for socialist Britain ( 1971).
However, the rise of Margaret Thatcher created a political shift and indicated the British labor movement a period of decline and confrontation. Margaret Thatcher made a racist remark in her interview while she was a leader of the Conservative Party that ‘the moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened ( 1978). Thatcher’s period of influence adopted the racist policies and language of the National Front. Her narrow-minded standpoint against immigration have drawn off many votes from the members of the National Front yet won and send off the National Front to political insignificance. The situation became worse when Thatcher sat down as Prime Minister that shoved off the atmosphere in which racist and fascist ideas can gain support and black people be blamed for the evil results of Tory policies.
Conclusion
Nowadays and even during her time, Margaret Thatcher receives a lot of undesirable comments on her stand on racial discrimination. Her position on racial discrimination proved to be effective in majority of Britain’s development since the opposition, anti-racists movement has lost its ground in trying to fight for their cause. It had, in some ways, benefited the United Kingdom and have gained the greater part of people seeing that Margaret Thatcher retained her position in such a long time.
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