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Paki is a derogatory ethnic slur originating from the United Kingdom, directed towards people of Pakistani and by extension South Asian (mainly Indian and Bangladeshi) descent, [1] [2] as well as Muslims or perceived Muslims in general. [3] [4] The references to Paki have been increasingly replaced by the euphemism "the P-Word". [2] [4] [5]
"Paki" is part of the exonym Pakistan. It is derived from the term Pak (پاک) which means "purity" in Persian, Urdu and Pashto. There was no "Pak" or "Paki" ethnic group before the state was created. [5] [6] The name Pakistan (initially as "Pakstan") was coined by the Cambridge University law student and Muslim nationalist from then British India Rahmat Ali, and was published on 28 January 1933 in the pamphlet Now or Never , eventually becoming the name adopted by the new country after the 1947 partition of India and independence from the British Raj. [7] [8]
The use of the term "Paki" in English was first recorded in 1964, during a period of increased South Asian immigration to the United Kingdom. At this time, the term "Paki" was very much in mixed usage; it was often used as a slur. While it might seem likely that it would only be directed towards Pakistanis, it has also been directed at people of other South Asian backgrounds (mainly Indians and Bangladeshis) as well as people from other demographics who physically resemble South Asians. [9]
Starting in the late-1960s, [10] and peaking in the 1970s and 1980s, violent gangs opposed to immigration took part in attacks known as "Paki-bashing", which targeted and assaulted South Asians and businesses owned by them, [11] and occasionally other ethnic minorities. [12] "Paki-bashing" became more common after Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech in 1968; [10] polls at the time showed that Powell's anti-immigrant rhetoric held support amongst the majority of the white populace at the time. [13] [14]
"Paki-bashing" peaked during the 1970s–1980s, with the attackers often being supporters of far-right fascist, racist and anti-immigrant movements, including the white power skinheads, the National Front, and the British National Party. [13] [15] These attacks were usually referred to as either "Paki-bashing" or "skinhead terror", with the attackers usually called "Paki-bashers" or "skinheads". [10] [16] "Paki-bashing" was partly fuelled by the media's anti-immigrant and anti-Pakistani rhetoric at the time, [15] and by systemic failures of state authorities, which included under-reporting racist attacks, the criminal justice system not taking racist violence seriously, constant racial harassment by police, and police involvement in racist violence. [10] Asians were frequently stereotyped as "weak" and "passive" in the 1960s and 1970s, with Pakistanis viewed as "passive objects" and "unwilling to fight back", making them seen as easy targets by "Paki-bashers". [10] The Joint Campaign Against Racism committee reported that there had been more than 20,000 racist attacks on British people of colour, including Britons of South Asian origin, during 1985. [17]
Drawing inspiration from the African-American civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the anti-apartheid movement, young British Asian activists began a number of anti-racist youth movements against "Paki-bashing", including the Bradford Youth Movement in 1977, the Bangladeshi Youth Movement following the murder of Altab Ali in 1978, and the Newham Youth Movement following the murder of Akhtar Ali Baig in 1980. [18]
The earliest groups to resist "Paki-bashing" date back to 1968–1970, with two distinct movements that emerged: the integrationist approach began by the Pakistani Welfare Association and National Federation of Pakistani Associations attempted to establish positive race relations while maintaining law and order, which was contrasted by the autonomous approach began by the Pakistani Progressive Party and the Pakistani Workers' Union which engaged in vigilantism as self-defence against racially motivated violence and police harassment in conjunction with the Black Power movement (often working with the British Black Panthers and Communist Workers League of Britain) while also seeking to replace the "weak" and "passive" stereotypes of Pakistanis and Asians. Divisions arose between the integrationist and autonomous movements by 1970, with integrationist leader Raja Mahmudabad criticising the vigilantism of the latter as "alien to the spirit and practice of Islam" whereas PPP/PWU leader Abdul Hye stated they "have no intention of fighting or killing anyone, but if it comes to us, we will hit back." It was not until the 1980s and 1990s that academics began to take racially motivated violence into serious focus, partly as a result of black and Asian people entering academic life. [10]
In the twenty-first century, some younger British Pakistanis and other British South Asians have attempted to reclaim the word, thus drawing parallels to the LGBT reclamation of the slur "queer" and the African American reclamation of the slur "nigger". [9] [19] Peterborough businessman Abdul Rahim, who produces merchandise reclaiming the word, equates it to more socially accepted terms such as "Aussie" and "Kiwi", saying that it is more similar to them than it is to "nigger", as it denotes a nationality and not a biological race. [19] However, other British Pakistanis see use of the word as unacceptable even among members of their community, due to its historical usage in a negative way. [9]
In December 2000, the Advertising Standards Authority published research on attitudes of the British public to pejoratives. It ranked Paki as the tenth severest pejorative in the English language, up from seventeenth three years earlier. [20]
Several scholars have compared Islamophobic street violence in the 2000s and 2010s to that of Paki-bashing in the 1970s and 1980s. [15] [3] [21] Robert Lambert notes that a key difference is that, whereas the National Front and BNP targeted all British South Asians (including Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs), the English Defence League (EDL) specifically target British Muslims. Lambert also compares the media's role in fuelling "Paki-bashing" in the late 20th century to its role in fuelling Islamophobic sentiment in the early 21st century. [15] Geddes said that variations of the "Paki" racial slur were occasionally used by members of the EDL. [3]
The term is also used as a slur in Canada against South Asian Canadians. [22] The term migrated to Canada around the 1970s with increased South Asian immigration to Canada. [23] [24] [25] [26] In 2008, a campaign sign for an Indo-Canadian Alberta Liberal Party candidate in Edmonton was defaced when the slur was spray painted on it. [27]
Americans are generally unfamiliar with the term "Paki" as a slur, and U.S. leaders and public figures have occasionally had to apologise for using the term. In January 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush said on India–Pakistan relations that "We are working hard to convince both the Indians and the Pakis that there's a way to deal with their problems without going to war." After a Pakistani American journalist complained, a White House spokesman made a statement that Bush had great respect for Pakistan. [12] This followed an incident four years earlier, when Clinton White House adviser Sandy Berger had to apologise for referencing "Pakis" in public comments. [12]
Spike Milligan, who was white, played the lead role of Kevin O'Grady in the 1969 LWT sitcom Curry and Chips . O'Grady, half-Irish and half-Pakistani, was taunted with the name "Paki-Paddy"; the show intended to mock racism and bigotry. [28] Following complaints, the BBC edited out use of the word in repeats of the 1980s sitcom Only Fools and Horses . [29] Columnists have perceived this as a way of obscuring the historical truth that the use of such words was commonplace at the time. [30] It was also regularly used in EastEnders in the 1980s referring to the owners of a local food shop including the first episode, which in contrast was not edited out in repeats. The word was also used in Rita, Sue and Bob Too – set in Bradford, one of the first cities to have a large Pakistani community.[ citation needed ] In the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody , Freddie Mercury, who was Indian Parsi, was often addressed derogatorily as a "Paki" when he worked as a baggage handler at London Heathrow Airport in 1970. [31]
In 2009, Prince Harry was publicly admonished when he was caught on video (taken years before) calling one of his fellow Army recruits "our little Paki friend." [32]
In 2015, the American film Jurassic World was mocked satirically by British Asian comedian Guz Khan for using "pachys" (pronounced "pakis") as shorthand for the genus Pachycephalosaurus . [33]
During the 2024 UK General Election campaign, a canvasser for the Reform party used the slur against Rishi Sunak, which the prime minister later addressed and condemned. [34]
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereotype Muslims as a geopolitical threat or a source of terrorism. Muslims, with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, are often inaccurately portrayed by Islamophobes as a single homogenous racial group.
Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP) are anti-racist skinheads who oppose white power skinheads, neo-fascists and other political racists, particularly if they identify themselves as skinheads. SHARPs claim to reclaim the original multicultural identity of the original skinheads, hijacked by white power skinheads, who they sometimes deride as "boneheads".
Paki may refer to:
Kaffir, also spelled Cafri, is an exonym and an ethnic slur – the use of it in reference to black people being particularly common in South Africa. In Arabic, the word kāfir ("unbeliever") was originally applied to non-Muslims before becoming predominantly focused on pagan zanj who were increasingly used as slaves. During the Age of Exploration in early modern Europe, variants of the Latin term cafer were adopted in reference to non-Muslim Bantu peoples even when they were monotheistic. It was eventually used, particularly in Afrikaans, for any black person during the Apartheid and Post-Apartheid eras, closely associated with South African racism. While originally not pejorative, it became a pejorative by the mid-20th century and is now considered extremely offensive hate speech. Punishing continuing use of the term was one of the concerns of the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act enacted by the South African parliament in the year 2000 and it is now euphemistically addressed as the K-word in South African English.
White power skinheads, also known as racist skinheads and neo-Nazi skinheads, are members of a neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic offshoot of the skinhead subculture. Many of them are affiliated with white nationalist organizations and some of them are members of prison gangs. The movement emerged in the United Kingdom between the late 1960s and the late 1970s, before spreading across Eurasia and North America in the 1980–1990s.
British Asians are British people of Asian descent. They constitute a significant and growing minority of the people living in the United Kingdom, with a population of 5.76 million people or 8.6% of the population identifying as Asian or Asian British in the 2021 United Kingdom census. This represented an increase from a 6.9% share of the UK population in 2011, and a 4.4% share in 2001.
Anti-Indian sentiment or anti-Indianism, also called Indophobia, refers to prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination which is directed at Indian people for any variety of reasons. It may be rooted in a person's negative perception of India, Indian culture, or Indian history, among other factors. According to Kenyan-American academic Ali Mazrui, Indophobia is "a tendency to react negatively towards people of Indian extraction, against aspects of Indian culture and normative habits." As such, it is the opposite of Indomania, which refers to a pronounced affinity for Indians and their culture, history, and country. Anti-Indian sentiment is frequently a manifestation of racism, particularly in cases in which Indians are targeted alongside other South Asians or simply alongside any other people of colour. Regardless of their motivation, Indophobic individuals often invoke stereotypes of Indians to justify their feelings or attitudes towards them.
Oi! is a subgenre of punk rock that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s. The music and its associated subculture had the goal of bringing together punks, skinheads, and other disaffected working-class youth. The movement was partly a response to the perception that many participants in the early punk rock scene were, in the words of The Business guitarist Steve Kent, "trendy university people using long words, trying to be artistic... and losing touch."
The English Defence League (EDL) was a far-right, Islamophobic organisation active in England from 2009 until the mid-late 2010s. A social movement and pressure group that employed street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presented itself as a single-issue movement opposed to Islamism and Islamic extremism, although its rhetoric and actions targeted Islam and Muslims more widely.
Anti-Pakistan sentiment, also known as Pakophobia or Pakistanophobia, refers to hatred, fear, hostility or irrational fixation toward Pakistan, Pakistanis and Pakistani culture. The opposite is pro-Pakistan sentiment.
Malaun is an offensive religious slur directed to Hindus in Bangladesh. The word is derived from the Arabic "ملعون", meaning "accursed" or "deprived of God's Mercy".
Racism in the United Kingdom has a long history and includes structural discrimination and hostile attitudes against various ethnic minorities. The extent and the targets have varied over time. It has resulted in cases of discrimination, riots and racially motivated murders.
Islamophobia in Australia is distrust and hostility towards Muslims, Islam, and those perceived as following the religion. This social aversion and bias is often facilitated and perpetuated in the media through the stereotyping of Muslims as violent and uncivilised. Various Australian politicians and political commentators have capitalised on these negative stereotypes and this has contributed to the marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion of the Muslim community.
Islamophobia in the United Kingdom refers to a set of discourses, behaviours and structures which express feelings of hatred, anxiety, fear, hostility and rejection towards Islam or Muslims in the United Kingdom. Islamophobia can manifest itself in a wide range of ways; including, discrimination in the workforce, negative coverage in the media, and violence against Muslims.
British Pakistanis are Britons or residents of the United Kingdom whose ancestral roots lie in Pakistan. This includes people born in the UK who are of Pakistani descent, Pakistani-born people who have migrated to the UK and those of Pakistani origin from overseas who migrated to the UK.
A Muslim immigration ban is a ban, either absolute or from specific nations, on the immigration of Muslims to a specific nation.
The Ideology of the English Defence League comprises the beliefs of the English Defence League, a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom.
The United Black Youth League (UBYL) was an English militant anti-fascist, anti-imperialist and anti-racist self-defense organisation from Bradford, West Yorkshire, primarily made up of South Asian and West Indian-descended young people. It was founded in 1981 as a splinter group of the Asian Youth Movement, later that year twelve of its members, referred to as the Bradford Twelve by media outlets, were "charged following allegations that they had manufactured explosives in anticipation of a large scale attack by fascist groups", being acquitted in June 1982 when the court decided they had acted in self-defence. A variety of journalists and scholars described the case as the "trial of the decade".
slang (offensive and chiefly derogatory). Originally and chiefly British. A person of Pakistani (also more generally, South Asian) birth or descent, esp. one living in Britain.