We are all immigrants

March 2024 Forums General discussion We are all immigrants

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  • #85795
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    For those who are anti-black racists

    Cheddar Man, the first modern Briton had “dark to black” skin, blue eyes and dark, curly hair.

    Although previous populations had settled in Britain long before his arrival, they were wiped out before him and he marked the start of continuous habitation on the island.

    Genetically, he belonged to a group of people known as the “Western Hunter-Gatherers”, Mesolithic-era individuals from Spain, Hungary and Luxembourg.

     

    His ancestors migrated to Europe from the Middle East after the Ice Age. Britain has been inhabited ever since and today about 10 per cent of White British people are descended from the group.

    “People define themselves by which country they’re from, and they assume that their ancestors were just like them. And then suddenly new research shows that we used to be a totally different people with a different genetic makeup.

    “People will be surprised, and maybe it will make immigrants feel a bit more involved in the story. And maybe it gets rid of the idea that you have to look a certain way to be from somewhere. We are all immigrants.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/cheddar-man-face-first-modern-briton-revealed-pioneering-research-natural-history-museum-alfons-a8198066.html

    #131846
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    As he is called 'Cheddar Man' shouldn't he be yellow?

    #131847
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Including the animals. The USA government wants to place a wall in the South Border to stop the emigration of workers from others countries, but it  will also stop the emigration of certain types of animals which might emigrate thru that border for their own  survival

    #131848
    Anonymous
    Inactive

     in the Caribbean and Venezuela, they are called Culisas ( or culisos ) In certain places around the world, human beings want to negate their own Anthropological history. It would be like telling to an Argentinean that Tango is a music that came from the black peoples and from Brothelshttps://kwekudee-tripdownmemorylane.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-african-origin-of-tango.html

    #131849
    Ike Pettigrew
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    For those who are anti-black racistsCheddar Man, the first modern Briton had “dark to black” skin, blue eyes and dark, curly hair.Although previous populations had settled in Britain long before his arrival, they were wiped out before him and he marked the start of continuous habitation on the island.Genetically, he belonged to a group of people known as the “Western Hunter-Gatherers”, Mesolithic-era individuals from Spain, Hungary and Luxembourg. His ancestors migrated to Europe from the Middle East after the Ice Age. Britain has been inhabited ever since and today about 10 per cent of White British people are descended from the group.“People define themselves by which country they’re from, and they assume that their ancestors were just like them. And then suddenly new research shows that we used to be a totally different people with a different genetic makeup.“People will be surprised, and maybe it will make immigrants feel a bit more involved in the story. And maybe it gets rid of the idea that you have to look a certain way to be from somewhere. We are all immigrants.”http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/cheddar-man-face-first-modern-briton-revealed-pioneering-research-natural-history-museum-alfons-a8198066.html

    This announcement is just another example of the way that science – at least its public face – can be politicised and used by capitalism and other forces to influence and manipulate public opinion in support of mass immigration and imposed diversity.Actually, the finding dates back many years, and he was previously thought to have had "white" skin.  Now, apparently, he had "dark to black" skin, whatever that's supposed to mean.  What I am unclear about is why Alan Johstone thinks this makes us all immigrants.  First, if you accept the tenets of evolutionary theory (and by the way, I believe evolutionary theory to be fact), then even if primeval Britons were as black as coal that would prove nothing politically.  I surely need not elaborate as to why.  Second, there is an important difference between immigration and settlement.  Britain is not an immigrant society.  Viking settlors, for instance, who formed communities in what is now northern England, weren't checking-in at passport control and applying for visas.  They were not immigrants.  They were in any case white Europeans and closely-related to indigenous Britons.  This is quite different to the imposition of diversity in this country from the late 20th. century onwards, which has happened without the consent of workers.  I would also argue that it has happened without the consent of the migrants themselves and that by supporting mass immigration, Alan Johnstone supports a post-modern iteration of slavery that harms the working class and sows the seeds of class division.  The reason you don't see this is because your Marxian education has left you with a mental fixation on economism and hyper-mechanism.  Culture is a factor in human relations and cannot be ignored.I will offer a repetition of what I said previously.  Imposed systemisation never works.  Capitalism is not a system invented by sub-Saharan Africans and cannot work well for them.  Socialism, likewise, is a European system and can be seen as a condescension to peoples who, in my view, should simply be left alone to develop separately according to their own traits and characteristics.  The point here is that Alan Johnstone and the SPGB support mass immigration and imposed diversity, when it is a liberal capitalist agenda that destroys working class communities and harms the very people whose interests they claim to defend – not just sympathetic people in Third World countries, but people here in Britain who, when asked, state very frankly and forcefully that they don't want it.Why do you think you know what's best for everybody else?

    #131850
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    I think i should make it clear that i do ACCEPT the free mobility of labour. Just as i fully accept that when i applied for a job, there were others competing for the same position. I didn't oppose the existence of other applicants. And i most certainly did not try to categorise the competition in a way that i could exclude them. I certainly do fully support diversity. I am not in agreement of imposed uniformity and that has been by far the much stronger trend under capitalism.You know only too well, Ike, that the "nation" and "nationalism" are artificial entities created through indoctrination and the State. Diversity such as regional dialects were suppressed by the educational system of the various invented countries. Another aspect of this is the capitalist campaign in the market-place for consumers to be all alike in tastes and personal demand. Diversity is permitted only in the niche corners of the minority market, otherwise it eats into price margins and advertising revenues and whatnot. 

    Quote:
    Why do you think you know what's best for everybody else?

    We do think we understand the class interests of our fellow-workers better than they do themselves – it is called being class-conscious. It doesn't make us in any manner superior or elitist. To bring about this increased consciousness involves understanding socialism,  which means talking about it, sharing ideas about it – in short educating ourselves and our fellow workers about it. We indeed claim to understand how the class society basically works and that is the difference to the majority of our fellow-workers who do not understand capitalism. 

    #131851
    Ike Pettigrew
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    I think i should make it clear that i do ACCEPT the free mobility of labour. Just as i fully accept that when i applied for a job, there were others competing for the same position. I didn't oppose the existence of other applicants. And i most certainly did not try to categorise the competition in a way that i could exclude them.

    But Alan, the free mobility of labour is not sustainable – econmically or environmentally or socially.  It harms people, it harms the physical environment, it harms 'society'.  You know this if you pick up a newspaper.  You know this anyway because a critique of mass immigration and imposed diversity is in entirely in line with Marxism.  Nobody wants it, except a small fanatical minority.  Even the migrants don't want it on the whole.  Do you think they enjoy coming here, impoverished and humiliated, some of them begging for help?

    alanjjohstone wrote:
    I certainly do fully support diversity.

    But you don't.  Sorry to take that sentence slightly out of context (I am trying to argue honestly here), but you really don't support diversity.  You are morally supporting the opposite: the homogeneisation of humanity.  It would be like somebody deciding that we can't have separate dog breeds anymore, and so all dogs have to be mixed and any dogs that can't or won't propagate a new mixed breed must be shamed and called 'breedist'.  It's absurd that you think you are in favour of diversity.In a previous exchange we had, you also inferred that you are cosmopolitan.  But again, you're not, at least not in the proper sense.  If anything, you are anti-cosmopolitan.  You're destroying true diversity and the cosmic facility of humanity, and with it, you are ruining the potential for genuine cultural experiences and also the possible biological benefits of separate development, which could provide us with an evolutionary hedge.  You instead want to mix us all, on a doctrinal (and presumably moral) rationalisation.I have nothing against Jews or Moslems, in fact I find both groups very interesting – especially Jews.  But I'd like to be able to travel across a border, perhaps undergoing physical risks, to experience their culture in their own space and maybe learn their languages (Hebrew and Yiddish) and visit their synagogues and learn about their history.  I can't do that if these alien groups – be they Jews, or other groups like Moslems, Poles, Lithuanians (I'm not picking on Jews in particular) – are already here and living among us cheek-by-jowl.  That's not cosmopolitanism.  That's the opposite.  And the result will just be endless internal strife and conflict until one group or the other emerges as the strongest in a particular country or region.

    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    I am not in agreement of imposed uniformity and that has been by far the much stronger trend under capitalism.You know only too well, Ike, that the "nation" and "nationalism" are artificial entities created through indoctrination and the State. Diversity such as regional dialects were suppressed by the educational system of the various invented countries.

    Of course, but the fact something is partially-invented doesn't discount its validity.  I do think nations (as opposed to nation-states in general) are organic.  Scottish and English people have strong commonalities that an Indian, no matter how British he affects to be, does not share.  I accept that nation-states are the result of agglomeration and suppression of tribes, etc., whether functionally or intentionally, and I accept that the invented traditions of the capitalist nation-state do not usually reflect the full ambit of the traditions within them, but that is not an argument against national feeling or the importance to people of their identity and culture; and, you don't resolve the problem by formally abolishing the relevant identities, which exist whether you like it or not.  

    alanjohnstone wrote:
    Another aspect of this is the capitalist campaign in the market-place for consumers to be all alike in tastes and personal demand. Diversity is permitted only in the niche corners of the minority market, otherwise it eats into price margins and advertising revenues and whatnot. 

    Quote:
    Why do you think you know what's best for everybody else?

    We do think we understand the class interests of our fellow-workers better than they do themselves – it is called being class-conscious. It doesn't make us in any manner superior or elitist. To bring about this increased consciousness involves understanding socialism,  which means talking about it, sharing ideas about it – in short educating ourselves and our fellow workers about it. We indeed claim to understand how the class society basically works and that is the difference to the majority of our fellow-workers who do not understand capitalism. 

    I differ from you also on this point, in that I don't accept I know better than anybody else when it comes to general propositions.  Yes, when it comes to certain specialist areas – astronomy or German or commercial law or Marxist theory or National Socialism or vegetable gardening – I do know much more than the average person, but that doesn't make me special and I'm not going to tell other people what they should think.  Fundamentally, my attitude is that people should be allowed to live as they wish and a system (or anti-system, if you prefer) is needed to ensure this.  I have no further interest in telling other people how to live or what to think.

    #131852
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster
    Quote:
    Scottish and English people have strong commonalities that an Indian, no matter how British he affects to be, does not share.

    By coincidence, i was just listening to an interview of the actor Ian Richardson – Edinburgh born and bred who dropped his accent. He played Nehru in Gandhi and in his research for the part he discovered that Gandhi insisted that Nehru who was educated at Harrow and Cambridge and thus spoke with that English upper-class accent had to adopt an Indian English accent to appeal to his Indian audience.His rival, Jinnah, retained all his English influences.I think we can say that people share their class affinities with the fellow members of the ruling class. As another aside, i once met this very old lady…she was Anglo-Indian. I was hard-pressed to take in the fact that she had never set eyes on England because of her very Mrs Marples appearance.

    Quote:
    I'm not going to tell other people what they should think.  Fundamentally, my attitude is that people should be allowed to live as they wish

    But you are very willing to tell other people where they are allowed and not allowed to live, Ike. And you insist that if they do move they must think and act as the locals do. 

    #131853
    Ike Pettigrew
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
    But you are very willing to tell other people where they are allowed and not allowed to live, Ike. And you insist that if they do move they must think and act as the locals do. 

    Well…..telling people they are 'racist' because they don't want diversity imposed on them is telling people how to live and it's actually also bullying.  I don't believe you can seriously argue that this was done with the explicit consent of the working class or that the migrants themselves are happy to be willing little helpers for middle class white liberals who have modish views and live in Hampstead.I'm also quite amused that you refer to this post-modern slave trade euphemistically as 'free movement of labour' (or a similar formulation was used by you), but it is not the first time I have seen somebody of a leftish persuasion adopt capitalist rationalisations for the unspeakable.And it's not that I am intent on telling others what to do or where to live, etc., it's more that I would like people to live in the environment of their heritage, which I believe is the natural state of affairs.  Obviously there will be outliers – to an extent, I'm an outlier myself – but the norm is 'birds of a feather flock together'.  This is an observable verity.  And let's face it – birds of a feather need space to live in.  You may disagree on a moral basis – you're probably a nicer person than I am – but I'm just dealing with reality here.If you think I am being bossy, very well, but we would have to assume that all these migrants are happy and willing to be our servants and wage-slaves in what is, in truth, a white-privileged caste society.  I don't think they are.  Their motives, as you have conceded, are expedient. 

    #131854
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

     

    Quote:
    'birds of a feather flock together'.

    I've had contact with a number of ex-pat communities over the years…i recognise one reason is to share experiences and knowledge as a means to make local life easier.But there is often the darker side…the mutual confirmation of their superiority over the locals, especially when that false assumption is seriously challenged.

    #131855
    Ike Pettigrew
    Participant
    alanjjohnstone wrote:
     

    Quote:
    'birds of a feather flock together'.

    I've had contact with a number of ex-pat communities over the years…i recognise one reason is to share experiences and knowledge as a means to make local life easier.But there is often the darker side…the mutual confirmation of their superiority over the locals, especially when that false assumption is seriously challenged.

    Perhaps, but is that superiority or is it just tribalism?  I have lived in Galicia (an autonomous Celtic area of north-western Spain), among other foreign places, and I didn't see myself as superior, even though it was quickly obvious to me that things happen there that would never happen in Britain.  In fact, I was quite deferential towards the local people and ways, as I recognised that I was a guest in their country and region and should have no rights.  I know what you refer to, but maybe this feeling of 'superiority' is actually just apartness.  No doubt similar feelings are reciprocated by the native locals.  Probably most Pakistani Moslems in Britain think they are superior to white Britons in certain ways connected to culture – and I would actually agree with them! – but this I regard as just tribalism asserting itself.  A bit like a supporter of Leeds United will forever swear that his club is superior to Manchester United, irrespective of facts.Anyway, I have enjoyed these exchanges, but I will have to depart for now.  I have work to be getting on with.  Must earn a living for the ruling class and profits are down.  More surplus value needed.

    #131856
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    The ancient population of Britain was almost completely replaced by newcomers about 4,500 years ago, a study shows. The genetic data, from hundreds of ancient British genomes, reveals that the Beakers were a distinct population from the Neolithic British. After their arrival on the island, Beaker genes appear to swamp those of the native farmers.The findings mean modern Britons trace just a small fraction of their ancestry to the people who built Stonehenge. The newcomers, known as Beaker people, replaced 90% of the British gene pool in a few hundred years. 6,000 years ago Neolithic farmers, who traced their origins to Anatolia (modern Turkey) built giant stone (or "megalithic") structures such as Stonehenge in Wiltshire, huge Earth mounds and sophisticated settlements such as Skara Brae in the Orkneys. But about 4,450 years ago, a new way of life spread to Britain from Europe. People began burying their dead with stylised bell-shaped pots, copper daggers, arrowheads, stone wrist guards and distinctive perforated buttons. Beaker traditions probably started "as a kind of fashion" in Iberia after 5,000 years ago. From here, the culture spread very fast by word of mouth to Central Europe. After it was adopted by people in Central Europe, it exploded in every direction – but through the movement of people. The newcomers brought ancestry from nomadic groups originating on the Pontic Steppe, a grassland region extending from Ukraine to Kazakhstan. These nomads moved west during the Neolithic, mixing heavily with established populations in Europe. The Beaker migration marks the first time this eastern genetic signature appears in Britain.Prof Parker Pearson commented: "They're the people who bring Britain out of the Stone Age. Up until then, the people of Britain had cut themselves off from the continent – 'Neolithic Brexit'. This is the moment when Britain re-joins the continent after 1,000 years of isolation – most of the rest of Europe was well out of the Stone Age by this point."Prof Reich told BBC News: "Archaeologists ever since the Second World War have been very sceptical about proposals of large-scale movements of people in prehistory. But what the genetics are showing – with the clearest example now in Britain at Beaker times – is that these large-scale migrations occurred, even after the spread of agriculture."Whatever did happen, Prof Parker Pearson is doubtful about the possibility of a violent invasion. The Beakers, he said, were "moving in very small groups or individually". He explained: "This is no great horde, jumping in boats en masse… it's a very long, slow process of migration." Furthermore, the incidence of interpersonal violence appears to be higher in Neolithic Britain (7%) than it was in the Beaker period (1%) http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43115485 

    #131857
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    Ike Petycrew doesn't want anything to do with people from other cultures or races but he is not a racist, nor is he an ignorant bigot. It is clear from his posts that he believes himself to be superior to them.  There is no place for such views in a movement based on class that seeks the emancipation of that class without distinction of race or sex.

    #131858
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Unlike the mass media and the State, we cannot drive such views and opinions underground where they woul continue to fester and infect. If racists/nationalists/bigots come on this forum, we treat them with the same attitude as we show all our critics, challenge their beliefs with reasoned arguments and civility. After all, others will visit the form and judge us by our standards of debate.The only time forum bans are enforced is when racist or sexist slurs become personal. I had 25 long hard years of working alongside people with Ike Pettigrew's ideas. They aren't unique as he thinks. I saw these people change positively over that time from their increased experience and better knowledge. Those remaining prejudiced are now much fewer in number and less vocal. The expected sympathetic support is no longer there for them any longer. 

    #131859
    Anonymous
    Inactive

    We are all  immigrants and we are all Africans too

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