FEW days ago, the global space and the social media were colonised by the ferment of Brexit and what it portends for the free world. Analysts ranging from the crude to the sublime have been throwing all sorts of ideas: myopic, non-myopic, liberal, illiberal, refined, repugnant, rational and irrational on the double wahala ahead for United Kingdom and its troubling Achilles heels called Brexit. The handwriting on the world stage is darkened by the terror of Brexit and how it could reconfigure the entire God’s own universe and the eventual banalisation of political, social, economic and cultural discourse especially for we Brits.
Brexit or “yadanu” to couch it in Yoruba street language is impulsive. It is a kind of hand propelled grenade lobbed to disinter thousand years of proud English history and give insouciant victory to the Yaboo elements in British society who are afraid of being swarmed by foreigners, especially those from the Mediterranean and African continents. These racist cowards are the people who lined behind Nick Farage to cause a seismic shift in the multicultural foundation of otherwise a proud nation that had perfected the art of living shoulder to shoulder with people from other nations.
Suddenly, we woke up one Thursday 23 June and realised that our universe has lost a bride, a jewel, a proud and valiant nation to a Manichean dualism of fear and glory. The aftershocks of the referendum has left United Kingdom bemoaning its action and the loss of its Prime Minister, David Cameron. The new times pose a different challenge for the British people especially those from outside the EU. Already, Theresa May, a frontrunner for the soon-to-be-vacant position of Prime Minister has promised to reduce immigration to the country in order to recapture the lost ground to anti-immigration group.
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Inclusion, cohesion, one nation under God and multiculturalism have become bywords laden with romance with the brown and dark skin people of the world. United Kingdom has always live with the lumber of can-go-it-alone, self-confidence and self-justification for aloofness in a continent of many nations. And Brexit has just provided the necessary justifications to stoke the embers of fear, bias, racial disharmony among the generally accepting Brits. Old racial attitude will now return to respectability in the form of inequality, oppression and loathing of foreigners. Britain has entered a politically surreal times and the future impact of Brexit on my citizenship has cast a pall of foreboding and despair on my naturalisation as a British citizen.
As a black British, the commonest good I have enjoyed is the freedom to roam the savannah of Europe from Calais to the outer fringe of Switzerland with family and friends on holiday rendezvous, shopping spree and curiosity to be familiar with my inherited continent. What has sustain this delight is the value attached to travel and holidays by my host which is sadly lacking in my culture in Nigeria. In Nigeria, we hardly leave our turf. A man may be born in Lagos and never been to Calabar either on visit or as a tourist. But my European exposure changed that for the better. I am at home in France, Belgium, Netherland and Germany with my free entry British passport. Now that Brexit is here and other European countries are sounding bullish against the arrogance of we Brits to dare sever link with our cousins, what then is the repercussion for black British?
Are we going to slide from being seen as second class citizens of Europe to further down the greasy pole of race and identity hierarchy? Would the tension, intolerance and anti-black attitude that had blackened the European heart more vehement or not? Are we still going to be welcome as black European in the wake of Brexit? Few of us with jobs in Europe are now living with the fear of Brexit as a harbinger of unforeseen disaster and the death of cross border pollination of ideas, experience, learning and social enrichment.
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As a black British, would the exit of British encourage the old exaggerated clichés about black crime, poverty and attitude, the same demeaning stereotypes and the same justification for unequal access to the justice system? Would Brexit accommodate black Brits and arrest antagonistic debate of our presence in European soil? Already, there are insinuations that jobs would emasculate for British citizens because of our exit from Europe. Would the political, social, economic and cultural impact of Brexit be far more damaging among blacks than white?
My British citizenship has over the years given me a kind of solidarity, liberty and equality especially among liberal and foreigner-cuddling white British people who have come to accept my black face with love and respect. Am I now threatened with Brexit and its unintended racial revisionism? Would my passionate commitment to free movement across Europe now be curtailed due to Brexit? Would I queue for visa to visit a friend in Bonn, Paris and Brussels? Is there any way to determine black voting pattern in the referendum? Did we actually voted to ‘yadanu’ from Europe or voted to stay? If we voted to stay, why should we be the helpless ‘citizens’ that will suffer in terms of loss of jobs, opportunity, racial disharmony and social tension?
Is my British citizenship still worth it after Brexit? Is Brexit the destroyer of an inclusive Europe that had been a magnet of friendship, hope, joy, peace and prosperity for its people? What next as a black British after my adopted nation has opted to go it alone in a world that had been soldered for long by globalisation?
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Tajutijani@yahoo.com