BBC broadcaster Dotun Adebayo has challenged Norman Tebbit to revoke his infamous “cricket test” aimed at measuring the loyalty of black Brits towards the Mother Country in the wake of a successful multicultural Olympics. I’m a bit bemused by this call, not least because the Chingford Skinhead has long since faded into irrelevance.
Adebayo’s call was picked up by Hugh Muir in the Guardian’s diary column who wrote:
Finally, the Olympic goodwill just couldn’t last. So here we go: a heavyweight clash between Dotun Adebayo, broadcaster and lead columnist at the black newspaper the Voice, and in the deep blue corner, Lord Tebbit. Given the country’s embrace of a clutch of minority heroes who happily combine Britishness with other things, isn’t it time Lord Tebbit withdrew his notorious “cricket test”, asks Adebayo. “It will be his epitaph, the defining moment of his political life, and its stink will follow him to that sunshine home for ex-Conservatives with a dubious race record,” says the columnist. “Lord Tebbit should embrace the Britain we now live in where we don’t always have to prove our loyalty by our support for one lot or another.” Lord Tebbit, as one expects, comes out swinging. “Oh dear! What is the man on about? My remarks, which have become known as ‘the cricket test’, were not about ‘black men’ but about immigrants,” he says. “They were not about ‘loyalty’ but integration.” As for Farah, Ennis and co: “Many of them seemed to be well-integrated and committed to their British homeland. Perhaps Mr Abebayo should ask himself if he is.” Tebbit doesn’t do reverse gear.
The full Voice article by Dotun is reproduced below this blog.
Dotun Adebayo
The topic was briefly debated on his BBC London show last Sunday, where I was invited as a studio guest to talk about the Coalition reshuffle, but in the hurly-burly of the show I didn’t get a chance to react to the Lord Tebbit / cricket test topic. So now’s my chance!
I think I get where my friend Dotun is coming from but take issue with his analysis.
Norman Tebbit is an irrelevance now. It’s been 22 years since that remark. And as any politician will tell you, 22 years is a long time in politics. So when the old Count Dracula has long since been buried politically it doesn’t bode well to dig him up and apply the electrodes. If his type is a dying breed we ought to treat him as such. Let sleeping Pitt Bull’s lie.
The premise of Dotun’s article is that the cricket test is still a live issue today; a stain that reminds us that if we support any other nation than Britain we’ll be shamed and made to feel less of a Brit than our Union Jack waving neighbours. Maybe that was acceptable in the 80s but today flag-waving is altogether more relaxed. People of all backgrounds suddenly became honorary Jamaicans when Usain Bolt was running, and they cheered on South African Oscar Pistorius as if he was one of ‘our boys’.
Yes, there was tremendous support for anyone wearing a Team GB outfit but I’ve witnessed hardly any scowling at British-born citizens supporting other countries. Many in the black community celebrated wins by everyone from British boxer Nicola Adams to the USA’s Gabby Douglas and female relay team.
The likes of Irish boxer Joe Nevin and American swimmer Michael Phelps appeared to enjoy support from across the board. The up-swell of British patriotism was more mature than the stiff nationalism of Lord Tebbit and his ilk. Britain was too comfortable in itself to get het-up about who their neighbours were supporting.
This nation has largely embraced diversity as far as who we support at the Olympics and patriotism has become more fluid and not at odds with changing allegiance from one competition to the next. Because of that, the old cricket test is much less of a “stain” on Britain than Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, which remains a much more of a totem of the hard right and neo-Nazi sympathisers.
Another reason why I disagree with Dotun is that his article hails from a mindset that frets about what the likes of Lord Tebbit and others think about the black community. We’ve come too far and know too much to be knored by self-consciousness and guilt over this cricket test. I don’t give a flying picket what Tebbit thinks. I’d much rather firm-up the foundations below my feet by learning more about history, historical culture and achievements than totter across a tightrope of not offending the already-prejudiced.
So whatever Lord Tebbit’s epitaph is, let it be Dotun! Any apology or retraction from the former Conservative party chairman would be meaningless and, in any case, it looks like we’re not going to get in anyway!
The fight for race equality is hard enough as it is without facing anxiety and doubt during our down-time watching sport! So let’s cheer on whoever we damned-well want to with no fear of the dreaded cricket test rising out of the grave!
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
Dotun Adebayo’s Voice column:
TIME FOR TEBBIT TO BURY THE HATCHET AND THE ACID TEST
Given the success of the black British athletes at the London Olympics and the current Paralympics, surely it is time for that old duffer of the Conservative Party, Norman Tebbit, to revoke his infamous ‘acid test’ and the suggestion from it that black Brits are plastic Brits.
You know the ‘test’ well. Lord Tebbit declared in April 1990 that the ultimate proof of a black man’s loyalty/disloyalty/citizenship to this country was whether they supported England in a cricket match against the West Indies.
Now I know what you’re going to say, the West Indies are so rubbish at cricket these days that that’s not even an issue any more. And, of course you’d be right. YOU may still support the West Indies, but your children and your children’s children and your children’s children’s friends and their neighbours all think that you’ve lost the plot and gone senile in putting yourself through all that disappointment at your age and with your weak heart. THEY wouldn’t support the West Indies if you paid for an annual week in a little cottage in Negril for them.
As true as that may be, Lord Tebbit’s litmus test remains as a blue or red stain on this country’s Union flag suggesting, as it does, that there AIN’T NO BLACK IN THE UNION JACK. The damage it has done is incalculable Suffice to say that the question mark that it posed over the authenticity of legitimacy of black Briton played into the hands of the likes of the BNP and their band of leery men. In this day and age, there is no place for such a ‘citizenship test’. Events have overtaken it.
To invoke it now would be to an insult to all those great British athletes who have put the black firmly in the Union Jack, but not just the athletes but also the ordinary people of this country who are as British if not more so than a lot of Brits. In fact, he should be trying his acid test on the likes of tennis star Andy Murray and the whole Scottish nation, many of whom stuill want any team but England to win the World Cup.
Until Lord Tebbitt revokes his acid test for black Brits, a stain remains on his legacy. It will be his epitaph, the defining moment of his political life and its stink will follow him to that sunshine home for ex-Conservatives with a dubious race record and where Enoch Powell’s of course the landlord. I truly don’t believe that Lord Tebbit is a racist or a xenophobe, but ask the old time domino players in Brixton or the Tottenham All Stars domino team in the N17s what they think of him.
Lord Tebbit should revoke his acid test, and acknowledge that time has now made it redundant. He should embrace the Britain we now live in where we don’t always have to prove our loyalty by our support for one lot or another. And the very idea of a politician, and a senior one at that, demanding such a thing would be outrageous – “SUPPORT BRITAIN OR ELSE”.
Lord Tebbitt should correct the impression, circulated by his acid test, that there is a question mark on black British loyalty. Mo Farrah, Jessica Ennis, Nicola Adams and Andrew Joshua proved that to be an absurd impression. Lord Tebbit, now is your chance to do the right thing. This is your opportunity to wipe that stain clean. I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.
Its regrettable where Lord Tebbit and his infamous ‘cricket test’ has faded into insignificance, that there are still those of the Right in 21st century Britain who more than happy to take his place…..
In this month’s Standpoint (http://standpointmag.co.uk/counterpoints-september-12-whose-olympic-gold-peter-whittle-london-2012-mo-farah-jessica-ennis-patriotism?page=0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0%2C0), Peter Whittle labels ‘left-liberal commentariat’ as hypocritical and opportunist over calls for a “new” type of post-imperial patriotism as result of this Summer’s Olympics.
Whittle disregards ‘glowing confirmation of the wonders of multiculturalism’ to claim that their success vindicated years of mass immigration.
He offers the popularity of anthem and flag among all our competitors and the hundreds of thousands of spectators, regardless of ethnicity and background, was a shining example of the need and desire for one overarching culture, one set of values and symbols that everybody could sign up to.
Whittle believes that the uninhibited way in which this happened was an outright rejection of multiculturalism which, if taken to its logical conclusion, would result in every different group demanding (and no doubt being granted) its own forms of separate representation.
With people like Whittle around, there will always be a need for those of us who embrace multiculturalism to be self-conscious.
“the popularity of anthem ”
Has that dirge become popular? I thought it wasn’t played at soccer matches anymore.
Lester
I think you make a fair analysis. I personally couldn’t give a toss about Tebbit. He is an anachronism and will, like you say, be buried deep in the landfill site of history. But I gave him the opportunity to at least retract his statement before that inevitable day when we will all meet our maker. He has given it the metaphorical two fingers so we all know where we stand. Now that he has stated his position, I hope we have our obituaries ready for him as I don’t think his cronies in the national press are going to give those of us who survive him a chance to be REAL. Only Hugh Muir, one of the bravest national journalists out there was even inclined to entertain the challenge.
Appreciate you raising the issue Dotun. Hugh is indeed a truly excellent journalist but more than that his principles are in the right place!
There seems to be a tendency to misunderstand Tebbit’s ‘cricket test’. If taken too literally, the test seems a bit absurd (I wouldn’t support Button or Hamilton in Formula 1, nor did I support Damon Hill or Nigel Mansell), but the wider context is very important. Tebbit, a deeply more principled man than 99% of British Mps, always said that the Tebbit Test asked if those who come here are willing to look forward to the society they have joined, or back into the society from which they have come. Some (most) of course look forward, others look back.
By Tebbit’s own standards, people like Mo Farah are as British as he is, and he would admit as much. This is what Norman Tebbit said in his blog about the Olympics:
“First of all that given a sense of shared purpose and a fair crack of the whip, regardless of gender, race, religion, class or all those other barriers we errect against each other, the inhabitants of these islands can come together and excel. We were world class.”
Nonetheless, the ‘cricket test’ is about more than sport. The question that Tebbit is really asking – and this does not just apply solely to those from Jamaica or Somalia, but everywhere from Malaysia to Holland to my mother’s country of Iran is:
‘Do people who come here prefer the laws, social standards, educational standards, history, customs, language on offer to all that of their former country’
Some of these aforementioned attributes are more important than others. They might prefer many of the customs (diet, religion, music etc) of the society from which they’ve come, which is of course understandable. BUT, if they don’t like the laws, other customs, schooling or the language, one is then forced to ask, why is it that they’ve come here? I suspect many Labour voters and MPs quietly ask this question too, but are afraid of the often obtuse accusation of racism that often springs up. Some might not think that this is a concern, but many do (including Trevor Phillips of the CRE), and I think Mr Adebayo completely misrepresents Tebbit’s position, although I give him credit for conceding that Tebbit isn’t a racist.
How does Doton continue to exist. Well said Lester
My parents went through their racist stage when they stopped reading the guardian and started reading the right wing press and they are 70 and 80 year olds Irish and Indian. When I was in my mothers womb Enoch Powell was delivering his speech …. Predicted 1 million mixed race misfits. Racism is so complicated 3rd generation Poles hate Poles who are here now. Just because a person is of a minority group doesn’t mean they have the awareness or authority to speak on behalf of minority experience as a collective. Individual experience of “paki, nigger, gay bashing….” will always be an individual experience. A friend who was the only Asian in a school in Blackburn in the 70′s who had no problems to mine where it was a multi cultural area in South London and the indigenous white population felt threatened and paki bashed us.
People being allowed to be openly racist in the past helped everyone against it understand their fears and predjudice and tackle it via humour, discussion or legislation. Unfortunately recently the spineless drive of the left to not steer debate has allowed the stealth of the far right to creep into micro pub debates on race. The Dotons and Victoria Derbyshires of this world allow or should i say reduce BBC 5 live to Talk Sport/Kilroy style debate
But would agree Doton with your boycott of Boris’s ill conceived scheme