February 25, 2005
Did Michael fall out of his family tree?
Published in the Jewish Chronicle, February 25 2005
On the Internet only pornography is more popular. Consult the letters page of the JC and you’ll see someone at it almost every week. It’s become such a cult that major national institutions can barely cope with the demand.
I am speaking of course of the pastime of our time — the search for family history. What was once a minority pursuit, has become a national obsession. Visit the Family Records Centre in Islington or the National Archives in Kew and you’ll find hordes of people digging deep into their own roots. Most of them will tell you the same thing: that no matter how ultimately rewarding, it is difficult, time-consuming work.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have good friends to help your search. Take Michael Howard, for example. He probably felt the urge to sketch out his family tree long ago, but when did he ever get the time? Life in Cabinet was demanding enough, but as leader of the opposition he barely gets a moment to himself. No doubt, he believed genealogy was one delight that would have to wait until his retirement.
Happily, a clutch of investigative journalists have come along to save Michael the effort. They have poked around in the records, including those at Kew, and found the key Howard family papers. Documents which might have taken weeks to find have been handed to him on a plate. We should all be so lucky!
Except — and this can happen with uncovering the past — he did not seem that pleased with the results. First he had to admit that his “grandfather might have entered Britain unlawfully.” That was discomfiting for a politician who has made a crackdown on illegal immigration a centrepiece of his political programme.
Then last weekend, the Sunday Mirror made its own contribution to the Howard family tree project. It found papers which related not to his grandfather but his father, showing that the then Bernat Hecht had once been turned back from Britain as an illegal immigrant, too. More embarrassment, as the Conservative leader was confronted with the fact that if he were prime minister a man like his own father would be barred from these shores. In the words of the Sunday Mirror, “The truth is, his own father was the kind of person Mr Howard claims is bleeding us dry and should be turned back at our borders. Shame on you, Mr Howard.”
It’s all pretty uncomfortable, not least the papers’ suggestion that the Tory leader is failing to be open about his family history, holding back the truth. Yet one can see his problem. His own story does indeed stand at odds with his get-tough message for today. But he can hardly change that message: polls show asylum and immigration is one of the few areas where the Conservatives strike a popular chord. Most Britons like the Tory promise to stem the flow of newcomers into the country.
For all that, something tells me that that same British public would also warm to Mr Howard’s story, told frankly and directly. The Sunday Mirror described the young Hecht’s voyage to Britain as “heroic”: he travelled “by boat, packing only determination and a dream of a better life,” it wrote, clearly expecting the sympathy of its readers.
When Mr Howard gave his first conference speech as party leader last autumn, speaking candidly of his grandmother’s death in Auschwitz and his gratitude to Britain for giving his family a safe haven, he won widespread plaudits. Many consider it the best speech of his career. Indeed, of all the immigrant stories one can tell, the attempt of Jews to escape Hitler’s Europe in the 1930s is the one most likely to win the understanding of the British people.
Even immigrant tales which do not have that same, urgent context, tend to elicit sympathy when told in the human language of families rather than statistics. I have seen that already in the initial reaction to my new book, Jacob’s Gift, which tells the story of three members of my own family — all of whom were immigrants or the children of immigrants. People, even those with no history of movement of their own, have tended to respond with admiration for those who undertook such a great upheaval. They know that people do not immigrate easily or for fun. They usually do it when they are desperate to improve their lives.
Witness, too, the phenomenal success of the BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are, which followed celebrities as they probed their own roots. Several of those included migrant journeys, and each one carried the same implication: that the once-despised refugee had actually brought something positive to Britain, if only in the form of their successful or talented descendant.
No one embodies that case more powerfully than Michael Howard himself. Seventy years ago his father was one of those condemned as a sponger, parasite or alien: now his son is the nation’s alternative prime minister. Could there be a stronger argument for the dynamic, creative benefits immigration brings?
The trouble is, Michael Howard cannot bring himself to say that. To do so would be to embark on a long-term project to change attitudes. He is in the short term business of chasing votes for an election that is just weeks away. It is a pity though. If he told his own story, and drew its obvious lesson, he could change the politics of immigration forever. And that would be Michael’s gift.
Posted on February 25, 2005 06:55 PM