美国国家公共电台 NPR An Anti-Immigration Speech Divided Britain 50 Years Ago. It Still Echoes Today

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Fifty years ago today, as the U.S. was reeling from the assassination¹ of Martin Luther King, the British politician Enoch Powell delivered an apocalyptic² warning to his Conservative Party about the dangers of mass immigration. Powell's address came to be known as the Rivers of Blood speech. It was widely denounced as racist³, and it led to Powell's ouster from his party's leadership. Even the Beatles weighed in. An early version of "Get Back" satirized⁴ the speech.

To this day, this speech is considered toxic⁵. Last weekend, BBC Radio 4 was criticized for broadcasting a program featuring an actor's reading of the speech, even though the speech was broken up by critical analysis. As NPR's Joanna Kakissis reports, some in Britain hear echoes of Powell's fiery⁶ rhetoric⁷ in today's debates over national identity.

JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE⁸: The year was 1968. Britain was debating the Race Relations Act, which made it illegal to deny employment, housing or public services based on race or national origin.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The Empire Windrush brings to Britain 500 Jamaicans.

KAKISSIS: The bill is intended to protect former colonial subjects from the Caribbean, India and Pakistan, immigrants who'd been arriving on British shores for the previous 20 years at the government's request.

SATHNAM SANGHERA: The immigrants were called over. You know, there was a labor⁹ shortage. There weren't enough people to run the factories after the war.

KAKISSIS: Sathnam Sanghera writes for The Times of London. His parents were part of the wave of immigrants from India.

SANGHERA: There came the idea that white people would be crushed by the rights that black and Asian people demanded.

KAKISSIS: This fear was especially pronounced where Sanghera grew up - the manufacturing town of Wolverhampton in central England.

SANGHERA: It was seen as the - one of the first cities or towns in Britain to experience mass immigration.

KAKISSIS: And that's where bus driver Tarsem Singh Sandhu made a stand against religious discrimination. A Sikh who wore a turban, Sandhu was told to blend in.

TARSEM SINGH SANDHU: They asked me that you have to go home and shave your beard and take your turban off. And that's the only way you can work.

KAKISSIS: He refused to take off the turban, and his bosses fired him. The Sikh community protested. Those protests angered Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton in Parliament.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: The Right Honourable¹⁰ Enoch Powell.

(APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: The Right Honourable Enoch Powell, MP.

KAKISSIS: On April 20, in the speech that would define him, he attacked the Race Relations Act that outlawed¹¹ discrimination. He said it was whites who felt a sense of alarm about the new immigrants.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ENOCH POWELL: This is why to enact¹² legislation of the kind before Parliament at this moment is to risk fraying¹³ a match onto gunpowder¹⁴.

KAKISSIS: Powell went on to quote a constituent¹⁵, a middle-aged¹⁶ white man who he said told him...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

POWELL: In 15 or 20 years time, the black man will have the whip hand over the white man. I can already hear the chorus of execration¹⁷. How dare I stir up trouble and inflame¹⁸ feelings by repeating such a conversation. My answer is that I do not have the right not to do so.

SIMON HEFFER: His main worry in making that speech in 1968 was about things happening against the will of the British people without them being consulted.

KAKISSIS: That's Simon Heffer, a historian and Enoch Powell's official biographer.

HEFFER: He feared that these different communities who were coming here in quite large numbers and who were not integrating at that stage - they were living in separate communities - would cause great racial tension.

KAKISSIS: As Powell put it...

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

POWELL: It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.

KAKISSIS: A classic scholar, Powell also included a translated verse of Virgil's "Aeneid" about the River Tiber foaming¹⁹ with much blood. It was that line which gave the speech its name.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: (Chanting) Six, eight, we don't want to integrate.

KAKISSIS: The Times of London denounced the speech as evil, but polls showed that many British people supported Powell. Eleanor Smith, whose parents were from Barbados, was a schoolgirl at the time and remembers the atmosphere.

ELEANOR SMITH: And when we got to schools, they were calling us - blackies (ph) go home and, you know, go back to the jungle, those type of things that they thought they could say because it was acceptable in some respects to them.

KAKISSIS: As the years passed, more immigrants arrived. Powell died in 1998. Then, in 2016, immigration dominated Britain's debate over whether to leave the European Union. Journalist Sathnam Sanghera heard echoes of Powell.

SANGHERA: Brexit is just a rerunning of everything that was happening around the speech.

KAKISSIS: Chris Hannan agrees. He wrote a play about Powell and his speech called "What Shadows."

CHRIS HANNAN: One of the points he makes - and this is in 1968 - that the white people of England have begun to feel like a persecuted²⁰ minority. Whether the right to think of themselves as a persecuted minority or not is another matter. They do, and they continue to think of themselves that way.

KAKISSIS: But Wolverhampton, which Powell used to represent, is a place that's gotten comfortable with diversity. His old office is now an African Caribbean community center where 82-year-old Uteldra Veronica Warren - a native of Jamaica - plays dominoes.

UTELDRA VERONICA WARREN: Can you imagine Enoch Powell sitting there and wondering, how did we get in here? And his ghost probably sits there watching us.

KAKISSIS: And he might be surprised that his constituency is now represented in Parliament by Eleanor Smith. That's the daughter of immigrants from Barbados we heard from earlier, the one taunted²¹ at school after Powell's speech.

SMITH: I'm very proud the way that Wolverhampton has moved on. And Wolverhampton has moved on to such a point where it's now become a city of sanctuary²², where people - they're welcoming asylum²³ seekers, migrant workers and people like that. I mean, that speaks for itself, does it not?

KAKISSIS: Tonight, Eleanor Smith is supposed to speak at an event in the same hotel in Birmingham where Enoch Powell warned of a race war, but her speech will celebrate Britain's diversity. It's called Rivers of Love. Joanna Kakissis, NPR News, Wolverhampton, England.

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1 assassination   

n.暗杀；暗杀事件

参考例句：

• The assassination of the president brought matters to a head.总统遭暗杀使事态到了严重关头。
• Lincoln's assassination in 1865 shocked the whole nation.1865年，林肯遇刺事件震惊全美国。

2 apocalyptic   

adj.预示灾祸的，启示的

参考例句：

• The air is chill and stagnant,the language apocalyptic.空气寒冷而污浊，语言则是《启示录》式的。
• Parts of the ocean there look just absolutely apocalyptic.海洋的很多区域看上去完全像是世界末日。

3 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

4 satirized   

v.讽刺，讥讽( satirize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• How could he stand being satirized by you like this? 你这么讽刺他，他怎么能搁得住。 来自互联网
• The essay bitterly satirized some unhealthy tendencies in society. 这篇杂文辛辣地讽刺了社会上的一些不良现象。 来自互联网

5 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

6 fiery   

adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的

参考例句：

• She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
• His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。

7 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

8 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

9 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

10 honourable   

adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的

参考例句：

• I don't think I am worthy of such an honourable title.这样的光荣称号，我可担当不起。
• I hope to find an honourable way of settling difficulties.我希望设法找到一个体面的办法以摆脱困境。

11 outlawed   

宣布…为不合法（outlaw的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• Most states have outlawed the use of marijuana. 大多数州都宣布使用大麻为非法行为。
• I hope the sale of tobacco will be outlawed someday. 我希望有朝一日烟草制品会禁止销售。

12 enact   

vt.制定(法律)；上演，扮演

参考例句：

• The U.S. Congress has exclusive authority to enact federal legislation.美国国会是唯一有权颁布联邦法律的。
• For example,a country can enact laws and economic policies to attract foreign investment fairly quickly.例如一个国家可以很快颁布吸引外资的法令和经济政策。

13 fraying   

v.（使布、绳等）磨损，磨破( fray的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The cuffs of his shirt were fraying. 他衬衣的袖口磨破了。
• Support for the leader was fraying at the edges. 对这位领导人的支持已经开始瓦解。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 gunpowder   

n.火药

参考例句：

• Gunpowder was introduced into Europe during the first half of the 14th century.在14世纪上半叶，火药传入欧洲。
• This statement has a strong smell of gunpowder.这是一篇充满火药味的声明。

15 constituent   

n.选民；成分，组分；adj.组成的，构成的

参考例句：

• Sugar is the main constituent of candy.食糖是糖果的主要成分。
• Fibre is a natural constituent of a healthy diet.纤维是健康饮食的天然组成部分。

16 middle-aged   

adj.中年的

参考例句：

• I noticed two middle-aged passengers.我注意到两个中年乘客。
• The new skin balm was welcome by middle-aged women.这种新护肤香膏受到了中年妇女的欢迎。

17 execration   

n.诅咒，念咒，憎恶

参考例句：

• The sense of wrongs, the injustices, the oppression, extortion, and pillage of twenty years suddenly and found voice in a raucous howl of execration. 二十年来所深受的损害、压迫、勒索、掠夺和不公平的对待，一下子达到了最高峰，在一阵粗声粗气的谩骂叫嚣里发泄出来。 来自辞典例句

18 inflame   

v.使燃烧；使极度激动；使发炎

参考例句：

• Our lack of response seemed to inflame the colonel.由于我们没有反应,好象惹恼了那个上校。
• Chemical agents manufactured by our immune system inflame our cells and tissues,causing our nose to run and our throat to swell.我们的免疫系统产生的化学物质导致我们的细胞和组织发炎，导致我们流鼻水和我们的喉咙膨胀。

19 foaming   

adj.布满泡沫的；发泡

参考例句：

• He looked like a madman, foaming at the mouth. 他口吐白沫，看上去像个疯子。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is foaming at the mouth about the committee's decision. 他正为委员会的决定大发其火。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 persecuted   

（尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人

参考例句：

• Throughout history, people have been persecuted for their religious beliefs. 人们因宗教信仰而受迫害的情况贯穿了整个历史。
• Members of these sects are ruthlessly persecuted and suppressed. 这些教派的成员遭到了残酷的迫害和镇压。

21 taunted   

嘲讽( taunt的过去式和过去分词 )； 嘲弄； 辱骂； 奚落

参考例句：

• The other kids continually taunted him about his size. 其他孩子不断地耻笑他的个头儿。
• Some of the girls taunted her about her weight. 有些女孩子笑她胖。

22 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

23 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。