Military migrants : fighting for your country / Vron Ware.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ware, Vron.

Series:

Migration, diasporas and citizenship

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Soldiers.

War and society.

Immigrants--Cultural assimilation.

Armed Forces.

Minorities.

Great Britain--Armed Forces--Minorities.

Great Britain.

Immigrants--Cultural assimilation--Great Britain.

Immigrants.

War and society--Great Britain.

Soldiers--Great Britain.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 325 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

Summary:

The modern British soldier is routinely portrayed as a hero, while military service is represented as a form of sacrifice that requires recognition from society as a whole. The migrant, on the other hand, remains a focus of resentment, more likely to be seen as a scrounger who drains public resources without giving anything in return!

In 1998 the British Army stepped up recruitment from Commonwealth countries, a strategy that simultaneously addressed a labour shortage and the new legal obligations to diversify its workforce. This led to the creation of a new category of migrant soldiers who found themselves lauded as 'heroes' but stigmatised as 'immigrants' and 'foreigners'.

This book explores the phenomenon of Britain's multinational army, a topic that has passed virtually unnoticed in public debates about immigration, citizenship, multi-culturalism, national identity and war. In doing so, it poses searching questions about the relationship between the armed services and the society they are charged to defend. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Introduction: For Queen and Commonwealth 1

'Broken Britain' 3

Silence 6

Echoes of empire 8

Running in the blood 11

Commonwealth of Nations 13

True Brits 14

Deserving citizens 16

The golden thread 20

Fighting races 23

Tides of history 25

Part I Recruitment

2 The Race to Recruit 29

The topping on the ice cream 31

1998 and all that 33

Diana, tanks and foreign travel 35

Your country needs YOU 37

Rights of the individual 39

'Cultural subversion' 41

Fitness for soldiering 43

The expediency of tradition 46

In the pipeline 49

All in the numbers 51

Unexpected surge 53

Breaking the ice 55

3 The Promised Land 59

Living by the gun 63

Short-term visas 68

Word of mouth 70

Free advertising 71

Learning a trade 73

Questions of choice 75

Tribal training 76

That's what it's all about 78

Elite forces 80

Loaded questions 84

Armed to the teeth 85

Diluting Britishness 87

Part II Culture

4 Culture Shock 93

People you can call your own 98

A bit of a rough country 102

Bonds and cohesion 105

Gone soft 109

Martial values 110

Learning loyalty 112

Mosques, markets and suicide bombers 115

5 Keeping the Faith 119

Education and brawn 121

Dumb and dumber 125

Training not to be British 127

Cultures within cultures 128

Culture as exchange 130

A good monk 134

Pomp and pageantry 137

Backward Christian soldier 139

Muslims on the front line 142

A royal scandal 144

Part III Racism

6 Crossing the Line 149

The way they live 151

Pulling their socks up 153

Fellow human beings 155

Signing off 156

Better you leave the army 158

Flipping the chart 162

It's how they think 164

Yap, yap, yap 165

Moving the goalposts 168

7 The Force of the Law 172

Not ordinary employment 176

Continuous attitudes 178

Just the way it is 182

Box ticking 186

Neutral ignorance 190

All about culture 194

A level playing field 195

Part IV Migration

8 Like Coming to Mars 203

The green machine 205

Social networks 208

Third-line citizens 211

A different career in mind 213

Model communities 215

Sorrow and happiness 216

From another country 218

Round the roundabout 221

Forwards and backs 226

9 Caught in the Crossfire 229

Patriotic principles 230

Foreign travel 234

Nowhere to go 238

The red passport 240

A private expense 241

Family reunion 243

Reactive maintenance 247

Unintended consequences 250

Brown envelopes 252

10 Conclusion: Militarised Multiculture 256

Clasped hands 257

Down the line 259

Multicultural drift 261

The cardboard box 263

The home front 264

Mercenaries and media wars 268

National values 272

Human rights 274

Nothing British 276

National interest? 279

The crimson thread 282.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781137010025

1137010029

OCLC:

792880374