'English, motherfucker, do you speak it?!'

Although it is not a 'free speech' story, strictly speaking, this news item from the Scotsman indicates that people who immigrate to the UK will no longer be free to learn to speak...English, that is. Or certainly not as freely as before.

The UK government has decided, in yet another authoritarian clampdown on freedom of movement, to shut down 'bogus' language colleges to dissuade immigrants from entering the country. Now, anyone who has ever walked down London's Oxford Street will have noticed a number of first floor offices advertising themselves as reputable language schools. You may even have thought to yourself, 'that might be a bit dodgy'. Or if you're 'a bit dodgy' yourself, you may even have thought them to be a front for any number of illicit activities, starting with prostitution, via forgery and money laundering, and ending with drug-smuggling. But most people don't think like that. I certainly don't.

In any case, the government seems to have found yet another way to plug those mythical 'porous borders' that allow those 'foreign hordes' looking for work to slip through. It is unclear from the report whether the schools are alleged actually to be fronts for other illegal activity (dope, cash, ho's) or whether the colleges are simply fakes that allow foreigners to pretend to be students to allow them to stay and work in the UK. It seems though that the latter is true, in which case the government doesn't even have the 'crime-fighting' justification - it's simply a brute crackdown on immigrants. Further, it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to a couple of dodgy language schools that have popped up. Worse, many of these schools provide a service (at the cost of a few hundred pounds per student) that the state no longer adequately provides - i.e. a place for new immigrants to learn English. If the government were indeed serious about being 'able to offer international students the assurance that they are applying to trustworthy and good quality learning institutions in the UK', in the words of the higher education minister, Bill Rammell, they would fund language schools.

Regardless, Bill Rammell, felt compelled to make the point that, 'the government welcomes the many genuine international students who come to study in the UK each year.' But anyone wanting to learn to speak the language, or worse, only pretend to for something as spurious as earning a living, is NOT WELCOME. To Rammell, 'genuine' international students are probably those that are well-educated, middle-class, and who more likely than not already speak some English.

The irony of this story is that Gordon Brown told The Sun on the very same day: 'We are going to take a far tougher line. I want a message to go out - if you come here you work and learn our language.' That's right, and if you think you can sneak in to this country and work by signing up to learn our language, well buddy, you're seriously mistaken! Er...?

The insistence that immigrants learn English, integrate and take part in civil society is a desperate and populist move. It is a further irony that the ability to converse with fellow citizens, to speak freely - integral to taking part in the political process, being an active citizen as well as a good neighbour, etc - has been so seriously limited by this government in other ways. Now they are even making it difficult to learn English in the first place, or to use that avenue to covertly get in, get a job, get paid, get involved, get educated, get the vote, get a life... Get it?

It's like being stuck between a rock and a... an... er... um... er... what's that word again?

Alex Hochuli