I remember Margaret Thatcher. I remember her well. Growing up in England in the 1980s, she dominated the chats among my friends. We were living through a massive social war, thanks to Maggie Thatcher.
As university students, we were filled with ideas on how to change the world. Maggie Thatcher was our enemy. She mocked us. She blocked us. She attempted to smash us.
My friends and I were angry her. We knew we were the last generation to go to university for free. We were poor black kids. We were the first in our families to go beyond secondary school. Free university made the dream of a better life in the “mother country” a possibility.
That was why our parents left the Caribbean to labor in the factories and hospitals, and in transport jobs in England. Now, Maggie was threatening that dream.
Television broadcasted scenes of striking miners in bloody scuffles with the police. Or the miners fighting scabs – other miners who had crossed the picket lines. Maggie refused to negotiate with the unions. She gave them a choice – bend to her iron will or starve.
Most of my friends were content to just discuss the strikes. A few went off to support the miners. They came back to campus with scratches and bruises from police truncheons. They were hailed as heroes. Most of us found we preferred planning battle tactics from a comfy chair in a cozy student lounge. We liked inflicting only verbal scars.
Racism fattened under Maggie Thatcher. It became open season for attacks on blacks and South Asians. The working-class skinheads and the neo-Nazi National Front political party were popular.
Many young black men were knifed in the streets or outside pubs and bars. Black and Asian families were roasted when their homes were fire-bombed at night. Police could never find the killers.
The police harassed black youth for “suspicious” activities such as walking by a shop, entering a bus, or chatting to a friend. Riots erupted across England when the black community declared they’d had enough. Each year the riots spread, until it seemed all of England was burning.
There were riots in Brixton, Toxteth and Broadwater Farm just to name a few. The annual carnival in Notting Hill was overshadowed by the annual riots on the same streets during the evenings.
Linton Kwesi Johnson and Benjamin Zephaniah were the black heroes on campus. Their poetry and spoken word events captured the mood of black Britain. I loved their poetry, it was simply beautiful.
At university, we debated the need for the working class to stick together to defeat Maggie. The strikes and the race riots were caused by her. I fully supported this view.
Most of the other black students did not. Many had friends or family members who died or were mauled by the police or skinheads. It is hard to build solidarity, when you know are not wanted in England.
Growing up in rural and small-town England, I realized my ‘black experience’ was very different from most of the other African-Caribbean students. I grew up poor, surrounded by cows and fields of barley, cabbage and oats. They grew up poor in the inner-city, where dodging the skinheads with their fists and knives was a weekly part of life.
I was supposed to meet Maggie Thatcher at the Conservative Party political conference in Brighton. It was my first big job as a reporter for the student newspaper. Maggie never showed up. She was delayed by a bomb explosion. The IRA had set it off in an attempt to end British colonial rule in Ireland.
The conference went on. I was the only ethnic face in the place. I froze when speaker after speaker blamed all of Britain’s problems on the ethnics, immigrants and the blacks. I just never expected to hear such naked racism said to my face.
A few of the professional journalists tried to shield me from the tirades. They told me not to take it personally. It was too late by the next day; the same reporters had praised the speakers for their honesty and bravery. The conference killed my interest in politics and journalism for the next three decades.
I did not like Maggie Thatcher. I do not have fond memories of her. But, I do admire her a tiny bit. As a woman, she had dared to challenge the old boy network in British politics. And she won.
She showed us that female leaders could be as bloodthirsty as males. She declared war on Argentina (The Falkland War) and on Iceland (The Cod War). The blood lust was revolutionary. A woman in pearls, with a dainty handbag, had encouraged her troops to smash the enemy. Maggie Thatcher had smashed a whole set of gender stereotypes.
Maggie Thatcher convinced a generation of black British people that they would never find success in England. So we left. We came to Canada and the U.S., where the welcome was more warm and friendly.
© Jacqueline L. Scott
Jacqueline L. Scott is a writer in Toronto, Canada. She writes on travel, race and culture.
love the bluntness of this article as it captures the feelings and emotions of the writer….
Ironic, she came to US and Canada, I wonder why she never left the US or Canada: both had conservative leaders at the time. Reagan, Bush and Cret……. I do not find her credible.
Wilton thats probably because you don't come from the UK and understand the prevailing atmosphere of those times in this country, As a matter of fact as a white englishman iI recognise so much in this article that was – and is familiar – and I'm glad the author was able to find a good future elsewhere. Personally having been born a native I am glad my life in England has been what it has been – despite Thatchers malignant influence – because as an artist i have been able to sidestep many of the issues, but I can assure you millions of people black and white have been nowhere near as fortunate.
'millions of people black and white have been nowhere near as fortunate.'
hear hear
The third and final Cod War finished in 1976. Thatcher and the Tories came to power in 1979. That is shoddy journalism.
Read the article again, or better still search it for the term Cold War and then search again for the term Cod War.
This experience doesn't surprise me one bit unfortunately! Let's not glory in anything she did!
I've just read an article about a sgt in the police who has resigned because he tweeted negative comments about thatcher. I can recall most police loved Maggie at the time because of the overtime earned from the miners strike. I personally know 2, 1 purchased an MG and another a time share.
My opinion, fwiw, Maggie will go down in history as a strong leader of the British people, just as Stalin was a strong leader of the Russian people.
PS never trust the media, as a victim myself I can state the media will never let the truth get in the way of a headline.
Love you Pat, because you stand by your beliefs and convictions, unlike many fence sitting politically correct indecisive politicians that fill parliament today.
Thanks Duncan. Yes, ironically, at 18 I wasted my very first vote on Margaret Thatcher beccause she promised to increase policing and quoted St Francis of Assissi on the steps of no 10……..what can i say…never trust a smiling Tory!
Ronald Reagan in a skirt. That's why they were such good mates.
I lived in the UK in the 70's while going to graduate school. It was utopia under Labour. The striking nurses left hundreds to die in their beds in hospital. The miners strikes kept the high sulfur coal from being burned that was killing the atmosphere and started the "global warming from human greed" movement. Everyone shared in the poverty and incomes kept declining while Labour stoked class warfare while "the rich" paid 90% of their income to support "free" education for dunces who should have never been admitted to schools, including mine. And Maggie got rid of that heaven and expanded the middle class far beyond anything the island had ever known. Shame on her.
wot a load of rubbish i was a skinhead in the 80,s and i had black and asian friends skinhead was about music the specials had black and white members and there were skinheads the press lied all the time about skinheads to make them look bad proberly told by the goverment to do so to stir up trouble