World: The Phenomenon of Powellism

I REGARD the politician as a prophet in the Hebrew sense—not the man who prophesies the future but that man who speaks out what is in the hearts of his people." The words are those of Enoch Powell, and he is talking about himself. In less than a year Powell, the Conservative M.P. who looks like a tensed-up Terry-Thomas and sprinkles his speeches with allusions to classical history, has emerged as his own kind of politician-prophet. In the process, he has stirred a furor both in Britain and abroad. For what Powell sees—and speaks for—is the alarm, fear and resentment of the white British toward the African and Asian peoples of the Commonwealth who have emigrated to Britain.

Powell's pronouncements—and the British sentiment that they reflect—intruded into last week's London meeting of leaders from the 28 Commonwealth nations, of which 22 have predominantly nonwhite populations. Offended by articles in the British press that portrayed the behavior of Asian immigrants as uncouth and unclean, Pakistani Foreign Minister Arshad Husain rapped Britain for practicing discrimination. Rising in Britain's defense, Prime Minister Harold Wilson pointed to the "fiercely penal" anti-discrimination laws that his Labor Government has sponsored. Beyond that, Wilson could do little except plead: "Do not hold me responsible for the phenomenon known as Enoch Powell."

Pungent Odors. Britain's racial troubles are a hangover from its Imperial past. For generations, British colonizers told their subjects in an empire that in those days of glory stretched around the world that they, too, were British citizens. Taking Britain at its word, a continuing stream of immigrants, mainly Indians and Pakistanis from Asia and Negroes from the West Indies and Africa, in recent years have sought jobs and new homes in Britain. Though they constitute only 2% of the population, their tendency to huddle together has created pockets, often ghettos, of nonwhite residents in London and the industrial Midlands.

Particularly among Britain's lower-class whites, this influx has aroused the full range of reactions that accompany any major wave of immigration anywhere. Cockney housewives grimace at pungent cooking odors wafting from Indian kitchens, and early-to-bed British workingmen complain of being kept awake all night by twanging West Indian music. Since immigrant shopkeepers are willing to keep longer hours, white merchants resent the competition. More seriously, the immigrants vie for low-cost housing, which is scarce in Britain. Unwelcome in many localities, the new minority groups cluster together and overcrowd their neighborhoods, forcing out white families. Since most immigrants are raising families themselves, they overburden the schools, maternity hospitals and welfare clinics in areas where they have congregated.