The so-called “Epicurus paradox” comes up against the problem of the existence of suffering, injustice and evil if supposedly (for many) there exists an all-powerful and benevolent God. What we could call the “British paradox” is that currently the leaders of the three nations that make up Great Britain (and also the mayor of London) are of Asian and African origin, despite elitism, classism and institutionalized racism. that permeate politics and many segments of society.
Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton, descended from Hindus from Punjab, his grandparents having emigrated from what are now India and Pakistan, first to East Africa, and from there to England. The current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom received an elite education at the best colleges and universities, worked in the City, and from there to the Treasury and 10 Downing Street. He has made the fight to combat immigration his banner, and is determined to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as possible. With that criterion, his ancestors would not have been able to set foot in this country.
The parents of SNP leader and Scottish Prime Minister Humza Yousaf also came from Punjab but were Muslims rather than Hindus, and made their lives in the satellite towns of Glasgow. Unlike Sunak, he is a defender of immigration, which he considers a source of wealth, and accepts that his country needs foreign labor to pay pensions, do the jobs that natives reject and raise the birth rate. .
The latest to come to power and complete the hat-trick of non-white Britons at the head of national governments is Vaughan Gething, a Labor politician born in Lusaka, the son of a Welsh veterinarian who emigrated to Zambia in colonial times and married a local woman who had a chicken farm. After returning, he found that there was a lot of racism in his country, and his first job offer was withdrawn when his potential employer saw that his wife and children were black. One of them is now leader of Wales and the first person of that race to head a European Government.
Added to this trio of aces, to complete the poker (or straight flush) of British people who are not white men in the highest spheres of power, is the leader of Sinn Féin and leader of the autonomous government of Northern Ireland (Michell O'Neill, a Catholic woman) and Sadiq Khan, who is running for re-election as mayor of London, whose Muslim parents left India for Pakistan after partition, and from there to England. He is completely teetotal and practicing religion. The former vice president of the Conservative Party, Lee Anderson, was suspended (and has gone to the far-right group Reform) for accusing him of “handing the keys to the city to his Islamist colleagues.”
In 1987, only four of the 650 deputies in the House of Commons were of minority ethnic origin, while in 2019 (the Parliament that is going to be renewed in the next elections) 65 were elected. Only one can be prime minister, But others have also flown very high, such as Kwasi Kwarteng, the previous (and disastrous) Minister of the Economy, of Ghanaian parents, and the former Ministers of the Interior Priti Patel (her Indian grandparents emigrated to Uganda) and Suella Braverman (whose parents come from the Islands). Mauritius and Kenya, and defines herself as “daughter of the empire”).
An even greater paradox than the monopolization of the positions of head of Government in these islands by non-whites (the recently resigned Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar was also of Indian origin) is how those affiliated with the Conservative Party maintain very harsh anti-immigration policies, as if they considered themselves seriously that after their parents and grandparents the doors should have been closed, or that their parents were good immigrants who contributed to the country, and the majority of those who enter now do not. These are the cases of Patel, Braverman, Sunak himself and the Business Minister Kemi Badenoch, of Nigerian origin, a very strong candidate to access the Tory throne after the elections, if, as expected, Labor wins them.
According to the latest census, 82% of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom are white, and 18% have other ethnic origins, mainly from the Asian subcontinent and Afro-Caribbean blacks. But that is not the only reason why its current monopoly of the highest positions is paradoxical. Even more so because numerous reports confirm that discrimination and racism are still very present, and institutionalized in bodies such as the police, which do not treat all citizens equally.
In theory it seems a triumph of laissez faire British multiculturalism, which does not push for integration and acceptance of republican values like the French, or to kiss the Stars and Stripes flag like the Americans, and settles for coexistence. But reality, also in this case, is much more complex and can be interpreted in different ways.
