Martin Amis says white skin still seen as key attribute of being English

Novelist says in BBC4 documentary that austerity has weakened the ideology of British multiculturalism.

The novelist Martin Amis has suggested that having white skin is still widely perceived as a core part of being English and says austerity has sent multiculturalism into decline.

In a documentary due to be broadcast this weekend on BBC4, Martin Amis’s England, the writer suggests identity in is constructed differently in England from that in the US.

“The great thing about America is that it’s an immigrant society and a Pakistani in Boston can say ‘I’m an American’ and all he’s doing is stating the obvious,” Amis says in the programme.

“But a Pakistani in Preston who says ‘I’m an Englishman’ – that statement would raise eyebrows, for the reason that there’s meant to be another layer of being English. There are other qualifications, other than being a citizen of the country, and it has to do with white skin and the habits of what is regarded to be civilised society, and recognisable, bourgeois society.”

According to Amis, the author of Lionel Asbo, State of England, a satirical novel in which a debt collector from inner London wins the lottery, much of contemporary England is characterised by “great tolerance”. But in the “rough areas”, Amis continues, “It’s just as bad as it ever was”.

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