4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2024
⏱️ 29 minutes
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'What is "British Culture?” I was born in the UK and have lived here for 40 years, and yet, as a British Asian person, I am constantly told “we are not integrating”. Not integrating into what culture exactly?'
Bushra Shaikh runs a charity, is a business-owner and is also a writer and commentator. When she posted this question on social media, two million people viewed it, she received thousands of replies, but no clear definition of British Culture. Some respondents mentioned the food, while others defined it by quoting literature or history. But those answers were often just lists; of meals. books, names and dates.
Is "culture" a synonym for race? How can British people of colour integrate, and what does that mean?
Americans put their hands on their hearts, gaze at the stars and stripes and identify with freedom, while the French look to liberty, equality, and fraternity, but is there a British equivalent? Bushra speaks to Historians, cultural commentators, as well as both the UK's newest citizens, and people who can trace their British family roots back hundreds of years, to try to find out what British culture means to them.
Presenter: Bushra Shaikh Producers: Ravi Naik and Sean Johnson Editor: Clare Fordham.
Contributors: Robert Colls, emeritus professor of history at De Montfort University Lionel Shriver, novelist and journalist Pen Vogler, food historian and writer Dr Bernard Trafford, retired headteacher and former member of the citizenship advisory group Anton Dani, Conservative councillor and former mayor of Boston Robert Owen, Vice Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside Professor Alice Foucart, Principal Investigator, Psycholinguistics, Universidad Nebrija, Madrid Dr Tessa Dunlop, historian and broadcaster Keith Richardson, Author
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0:41.0 | Thank you for listening to this edition of Analysis, the podcast that looks at the ideas behind the news. |
0:47.0 | In this episode Bush Rashik asks, |
0:50.0 | What exactly is British culture? |
0:53.0 | Hi, I'm Bushroshake. |
0:57.0 | I've been thinking about how I'd describe myself to you. |
1:03.0 | I'm not an academic, I run a charity called Run Racism out, and I own a fashion business. |
1:09.0 | You may have seen me on The Apprentice back in 2017, and now I'm also a writer and a social and political |
1:16.0 | commentator. |
1:17.0 | Yes, I have one of those modern portfolio careers. |
1:21.9 | As part of all of that, I use social media all the time, which comes with its own |
1:26.4 | challenges, especially when you're a woman of Pakistani heritage. |
1:30.0 | There's one common I get a lot on social media platforms. People mention my lack of Britishness. |
1:37.0 | That's rather surprising to me because I believed I was as British as we come. |
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