Differences are not negative

Differences between people — the way that they live, where they have come from, their choice of faith or lack of it, the language that they speak, even the colour of their skin — are often perceived negatively in our society.

And even when genuinely multicultural and multiracial events, such as the London Olympics, are outstandingly successful, we tend to erase the positive features from our memories so that their effects on the political and social choices that we make are lost.

Somehow we fall for anti-stranger rhetoric which focuses on the negative aspects of ‘the other’ and blames the ills of society from unemployment to crime, overcrowding in schools to lack of affordable housing, on a perceived ‘rising tide’ of immigration.

As if, for example, there would be full employment in a recession if new people stopped coming into the country or that houses would be available if British people only were allowed to buy them!

I am a passionate advocate of difference. My grandparents came to this country as economic migrants from Eastern Europe.

Without hope of decent employment in their country of origin they came with nothing except their faith and their capacity for work.

They spoke Yiddish, not English, and had no formal qualifications. My grandmothers couldn’t even read and write.

But they were among the most enterprising and courageous of their generation; they had upped sticks and come here to look for something better.

Not that it was easy at the turn of the 20th century.

I was told by a friend whose family lived for generations in the East End of London where my grandparents had ended up, that the Jewish community was known by the locals for its odd, unpleasant smells, loud, strange language and outlandish food.

They weren’t liked and were real strangers in a strange land.

But they had aspirations: they kept the law, they worked hard and wanted to stand on their own feet and they ensured that their children went to school and were educated so that they had better life chances.

If they’d known what it meant, they would have said they wanted their children to be upwardly mobile!

They didn’t throw the baby out with the bath water; they retained their faith, they cooked their food according to their tradition and passed on what they could to their children.

Jumping forward two generations, I’m still influenced by some of that: my faith, the cooking and the values that underpinned their lives — the focus on family and community.

But they don’t preclude the strong influences of my British upbringing and it doesn’t make me any less British. I am, after all, second generation, born and educated here, married and having brought up my own family.

It does, however, make me fascinated by difference: the differences in other people’s lives and background that contribute achievement, interest and colour to our modern world. In my lifetime we’ve become better educated about ‘the other’: our children attend compulsory RE lessons learning about other faiths and cultures; we meet people from other countries in our everyday lives and we often take our holidays abroad.

I want us to celebrate our differences and translate that into our social and political decision making.

Be realistic about what it would mean to the sophisticated and complex systems that underpin British society today from the NHS to scientific research and our international success in sports and athletics, if we stopped welcoming immigrants.

Loving your neighbour is relatively easy; loving the stranger within your gates can be challenging, but is ultimately infinitely rewarding and good for both self and society.