A Nation of Immigrants

David Conway's short book produced by Civitas, made a small splash when it was published a few weeks ago. What is said in it is hardly contentious, despite what some of those who govern us might say. Essentially it is a brief historical overview on migration to Britain over the ages, in the light of the discovery that all four of those responsible for the London bombings were born and brought up in the UK. Starting with the post Ice Age arrival of a few thousand hunter-gatherers it rapidly brings us up to date with a discussion of recent mass migration from the subcontinent and the Eastern European countries of the EU. His basic thesis is that indeed we are not a nation of immigrants as many in the multicultural industry would have it, but a clearly defined, and until recently pretty homogenous lot.

As he points out, for Britain to be in reality a nation of immigrants the statement would have to be either philosophically empty (of course before the Ice Age there was nobody here at all therefore in that sense it is true) or disingenuous, as since just before the Norman invasion we have been pretty much ethnically stable. Yes, he will admit that we have been culturally more effected by ripples of immigration (Norman French, Jewish, Hugenot etc), but hardly touched ethnically.

The evidence he cites for his thesis largely comes from the new science of 'genetic archaeology' which has discovered through paternal DNA that a significant majority of those who live in the UK today are descended directly from the Ice Age hunters who first came here it seems from the Iberian peninsula. The figures are 88% of the Irish, 81% of the Welsh, 79% of the Cornish, 70% of the Scots and 68% of the remainder of England (over 2/3rds). (figures from 'The Origins of the British' by Stephen Oppenheimer). So despite invasions of Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norse and whoever the ethnic makeup of the UK has hardly been altered.
One of the side effects of this research is to massively undermine ideas of Celtic difference. It suggests that there is precious little such thing, if anything any difference predates and Celtic retreat from Anglo Saxons by 5,000 years.

Of course there is political import in these findings. The current wave of mass immigration created in part by our membership of the EU and our government's application of rules of access to all those from the former eastern block is and will continue to upset this stability. If when we think of Britain as a place which has been "for a long time, been both stable as well as liberal and tolerant, comparatively speaking", then this is in part because that nation was comprised of a people who were, by and large, homogenous. "Then, its ability to retain that character could well be under a far more severe threat from current levels of immigration than is made out by those who maintain that substantial immigration has always been a constant feature of Britain's demographic history from time immemorial".
In the conclusion he quotes Sir Arthur Bryant,

"The legal and spiritual association of men of different creeds, callings and classes in a nation, though often taken for granted, is a more wonderful miracle of cumulative human effort and wisdom than even the greatest achievement of science. For it enables millions who have never set eyes on one another to act together in peace and mutual trust. There can be no truer service than to preserve such a union, and prevent those millions from dissolving into antagonistic and destructive groups".

Conway's essential fear is that if we as a nation continue with our current policies vis-a-vis immigration then we will cease to be a nation at all in any meaningful fashion, merely a geographical entity. Those who value the country should and must recognise this and set public policy accordingly.

Pride in the English Language

There is a great book titled "The Story of English" that will surely bring great pride to anyone who is a native speaker or primary user of the English language.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-English-Third-Revised/dp/0142002313/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-9361106-6122835?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181013283&sr=8-1

 In this book  published by PBS prior to it's virtual take-over by anti-conservatives) it is revealed how English is the well-deserved heir to French and other languages as the closest thing to a rightful Global Language not because of any socio-economic hegemonic considerations, but simply because it is an almost-miraculously flexible, stable and maleable format for written and verbal communications.

 

Likewise, this book gives a great overview of English history which also reveals the dynamics of how nations have formed and how populations have blended into each other naturally over the course of history.

3,000 generations

No, we see this even with slow-maturing species. In any case, are you arguing that 3,000 generations is of no importance? Significant evolutionary change has been observed over as little as 10 generations. This issue was recently addressed by two American anthropologists:

"Even if 40 or 50 thousand years were too short a time for the evolutionary development of a truly new and highly complex mental adaptation, which is by no means certain, it is certainly long enough for some groups to lose such an adaptation, for some groups to develop a highly exaggerated version of an adaptation, or for changes in the triggers or timing of that adaptation to evolve. That is what we see in domesticated dogs, for example, who have entirely lost certain key behavioral adaptations of wolves such as paternal investment. Other wolf behaviors have been exaggerated or distorted. A border collie's herding is recognizably derived from wolf behaviors, as is a terrier's aggressiveness, but this hardly means that collies, wolves, and terriers are all the same. Paternal investment may be particularly fragile and easily lost in mammals, because parental investment via internal gestation and lactation is engineered into females but not males. "

Harpending, H. and G. Cochran. 2002. "In our genes", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99(1):10-12.

one generation.

Yes, Well, in principle even one generation can be enough. And crocodiles are still pretty much the same as they were in the time of the dinosaurs. But you’re right of course. We should be careful with arguments regarding genes... In both Directions!

Yes, we should be careful

Yes, we should be careful with our arguments. But who is advocating radical demographic change? You or me?

It is very likely that human populations differ with respect to many mental and behavioural traits. To be sure, these differences are statistical in nature. Most are so subtle that they would matter only when large numbers of people come into the picture. But, then again, isn't that just the kind of immigration you're condoning?

If I'm right, the problems raised by mass non-European immigration will not simply be limited to those of adaptation and assimilation. In fact, the most serious problems will arise once these immigrants have assimilated and lost the cultural constraints that had co-evolved with their genetic make-up.

Take polygamy. In sub-Saharan Africa, polygamy is institutionalized. The responsibilities of the father and his co-wives are clearly defined. In the African diaspora, polygamy still exists but without any of these cultural constraints. Black women generally raise their children alone without any father figure and without any assistance from co-wives.

Take male violence. Testosterone levels are higher in young black males than in young white males. This is not some racist fantasy (see Ross et al. 1992). Nor is it a racist fantasy to believe that testosterone lowers the threshold for expression of violent behaviour. Traditional African societies controlled this potential for violence by training young men for warfare under the supervision of older men. This usually involved some separation from the rest of the population, often complete separation. In the African diaspora, adult supervision of youths is at best perfunctory and largely absent.

Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps you're right. Unfortunately, I see little in what you say to convince me otherwise … and it's not because I don't want to be convinced otherwise. I used to belong to an antiracist organization and even sat on their board of directors, so there is probably little that you know that I don't already know.

Please enlighten me. Please reassure me.

Ross, R.K., L. Bernstein, R.A. Lobo, H. Shimizu, F.Z. Stanczyk, M.C. Pike, and B.E. Henderson. 1992. 5-apha-reductase activity and risk of prostate cancer among Japanese and US white and black males. Lancet 339:887-889.

real science

Maple: Take polygamy. In sub-Saharan Africa, polygamy is institutionalized. The responsibilities of the father and his co-wives are clearly defined. In the African diaspora, polygamy still exists but without any of these cultural constraints. Black women generally raise their children alone without any father figure and without any assistance from co-wives.
Me:
That's a lot of crap. No way you've got any trustworthy statistical data that links polygamy nor responsibilities to genes. to have a clue about that, one should investigate sub-Saharan people raised at a very young age (trough adaptation) in a western culture. If these people still show a higher grade of polygamy, then you've got a proof. But I'm sure you don't have that proof.
Cultural transmitted "memes" change at a high speed. No problem for integration.

Maple: Take male violence. Testosterone levels are higher in young black males than in young white males. This is not some racist fantasy (see Ross et al. 1992). Nor is it a racist fantasy to believe that testosterone lowers the threshold for expression of violent behavior. Traditional African societies controlled this potential for violence by training young men for warfare under the supervision of older men. This usually involved some separation from the rest of the population, often complete separation. In the African Diaspora, adult supervision of youths is at best perfunctory and largely absent.

Me:
That testosterone is higher on average for black men, may be right. But were is this average situated in the distribution curve of white men testosterone? And how do white "high testosterone" men behave? I'm sure that social class is a much higher predictive statistical variable. I fact it's so high, al the rest becomes more or less irrelevant.

Please read daniel denett and Richard dawkins, about real scientific proof.

Maple: I used to belong to an antiracist organization and even sat on their board of directors, so there is probably little that you know that I don't already know.

Me:
Please don’t use such arguments, it’s extremly irritating.

Who should bear the burden of proof?

Higher testosterone levels are associated with lower thresholds for expression of polygamy in animals, including our closest primate relatives. Other studies link testosterone levels to violent behaviour, even after controlling for race or ethnicity. Finally, there are longitudinal studies that show how administration of testosterone produces changes to libido, aggressiveness, muscle mass, self-concept, and desire for social dominance.

Ross et al. found that testosterone levels were 11% higher in young blacks than in young whites. Yes, the two groups overlapped. On the other hand, the "effective" overlap might be smaller. Other studies suggest racial differences in the binding capacity of androgen receptors to testosterone (see Pettaway 1999 below). This is not really surprising. Any natural selection for increased testosterone would probably have also increased receptivity to testosterone.

Still unconvinced? Fine. But please don't place the burden of proof on me. I'm not the one who is advocating radical demographic change.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Racial differences in the androgen/androgen receptor pathway in prostate cancer.

Pettaway CA
Department of Urology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center,
Houston 77030, USA.
J Natl Med Assoc, 91(12):653-60 1999 Dec

Abstract
Black men were found to be exposed to higher circulating testosterone levels from birth to about age 35 years. Such differences were not consistently noted among older men. Significant differences also were found for dihydrotestosterone metabolites among black, white, and Asian men. Unique racial genetic polymorphisms were noted for the gene for 5 alpha-reductase type 2 among black and Asian men. Novel androgen receptor mutations recently have been described among Japanese, but not white, men with latent prostate cancer. Finally, androgen receptor gene polymorphisms leading to shorter or longer glutamine and glycine residues in the receptor protein are correlated with racial variation in the incidence and severity of prostate cancer. This same polymorphism also could explain racial variation in serum prostate-specific antigen levels.

Collectively, these data strongly suggest racial differences within the androgen/androgen receptor pathway not only exist but could be one cause of clinically observed differences in the biology of prostate cancer among racial groups

Don't misinterpret the genetic evidence

"the differences between individuals are a hundred times bigger and more important, than the differences caused by "ethnical identifiable genes."

This is an inference from Lewontin's finding, i.e., genetic variability within human populations exceeds genetic variability between human populations. So we're all one big happy species, right?

Well, not necessarily. If we compare many anatomically distinct species, we get the same finding, especially if they are relatively young (like our own). If we look at populations below the species level, we find even fuzzier genetic data. Different dog breeds cannot be distinguished by most genetic markers.

So what gives? Genes vary considerably in their adaptive value, with most being of little or no value, i.e. "junk genes." When two populations diverge under the influence of divergent selection pressures, these pressures are acting on a very small subset of the entire genome. So sampling of the entire genome will not reliably tell the two apart. Yes, once you get reproductive isolation, the two populations will start to drift apart over the entire genome, as random mutations gradually produce different patterns of change among genes of low adaptive value. But that takes a long time, and humans are a young species.

"all the non-African peoples of the world are descended from one group which migrated from African only 85,000 years ago, and that one of the most striking things about homo sapiens is how closely related we all are genetically. In other words, all this genetic race stuff is bollocks. Hope this is now clear and we can all get on to discussing something more productive."

Genetically speaking, a lot can happen in 85,000 years. That's over 3,000 generations. Many mammalian and bird species have arisen since the last ice age -- only 10,000 years ago. If you're looking for arguments to support a pre-defined ideological position, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.

 

 

 

That's over 3,000

That's over 3,000 generations. Many mammalian and bird species have arisen since the last ice age -- only 10,000 years ago. If you're looking for arguments to support a pre-defined ideological position, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.
Yes but for those birds and mammels 10.000 years are 10.000 generations....

Immigration vs. Islamization

My interest in immigration primarily deals with Islamization.  I think it is a grave error on the part of those who are concerned about it to conflate it with immigration in general, because it broadens the issue and therefore makes progress difficult and slow. Anyway, I find it hard to believe that even large numbers of non-European people, living in a Western European nation, will not over a few generations acquire the lifestyle and manners, and eventually the values, of the host nation.  The change to the host nation will be much smaller than the change to the immigrants, and the more diverse the immigrant population is, the smaller the change will be, as there will be no one immigrant group that can predominate.  By dint of its status as a sacralized political faction, Islam prevents this process from occurring, and represents a much more serious threat than non-specific "cultural" differences.

This is my "American Jewish" perspective:  I don't really care if the culture changes, as long as certain core values stay the same.  They happen to be embodied in the Constitution.  Large groups of immigrants from any country will generally improve relations and trade ties between the United States and the source country.  It will over time also give that nation, through familial ties, a sentimental attachment to the United States, which reinforces our sagging hegemony.  I like having people of varying backgrounds as a part of my community, particularly their restaurants.
 

Evidence

Do you have evidence of your assertion Quijybo or are you just taking a wild guess?

Het is beter om de waarheid te verklaren en worden verworpen dan het in te houden om worden goedgekeurd.

Evidence...no, just pathos and life experience

No, I have no evidence. My perspective is based on what I perceive to be rapid assimilation of numerous immigrant groups in the United States, which I observe all around me. Much is being made of the Latino population of the US not assimilating, but I think this is in great part due to the massive numbers of immigrants who present themselves as not assimilating in the first generation and sometimes the second. Third generation Latinos seem very American to me and I do not believe many of them feel a stronger sense of loyalty to their ancestral homeland, and in any case many of those homelands' cultural values are tolerably close to those of the US (Christian, tolerant of religious and ethnic minorities, some semblance of womens' rights, intact literary tradition, etc). The same goes for other immigrants to a great degree. Arab Christians are almost totally assimilated. East Asians are intermarrying at such a rate as to render them as an ethnic group to be of questionable meaning. Indians assimilate in a few years, it seems. African immigrants do vastly better than the native born descendants of slaves.

genetics #2

@ Doney

Obviously, on this subject you continue to carry your anti-racist "badge of honor" with (British) honour.  Indeed, we are all genetically closely related, and a baby does not know much more than its "Mummy" and (hopefully, but less likely today than yesterday) its "Daddy".   

But, perhaps what you are overlooking is that culturally we can be very different, which can and will have dramatic impact on the individual's wellbeing and freedom over time.  That baby's genetic makeup may be unimportant, but the cultural 'signals' that it increasingly will be receiving from its environment can be very different under different circumstances.   It should be self-evident that the same forces that are behind an 'open borders' mentality are also mightily influencing the education system and thus (with a short lag) the media environment.  Hence, the particular cultural environment that has created the distinctive features of 'British culture' can easily over time disappear.   If you have a low opinion of those features, you may not mind.  But you would be wrong. And if you have a high opinion of those features (like 'siegetower' does) you will surely (and wisely) mind. 

Your presumed examples intended to refute British "tolerance and openness" cannot be taken seriously.  As if conflict is not a universal phenomenon!  The relevant question is not whether there has been much conflict in British history, but rather how have these conflicts shaped that particular culture, and how has it been able to deal with them.  To be able to evaluate that you must be willing to make honest empirical observations around the world to see how other cultures have dealt with similar conflicts in their societies.  And there is the rub.....Naive western multi-culturalists appear to be blind to the realities of other cultures around the world.  That blindness is rooted in ideology.  There is no other explanation for their willingness to destroy their own (hard-won) cultures. 

In short, it does not matter how a baby 'looks', but it matters very much what it will be taught by its cultural 'environment'.   And a culture of 'relativism' (i.e. of 'all cultures are equal') surely is not going to preserve that baby's individual freedom.  If you doubt this, then take an honest (and informed) look around the world.

P.S.  British history is not likely going to come to "an abrupt end" (although we should not discount nuclear arsenals in Pakistan and Iran).  Like all civilisations before, it will take at least a couple of generations to a 'slow end'.

Culture

Very elusive animal, this culture beast. You think you've got it cornered, and it slips the trap and disappears again into the jungle. I'm sure naive western multiculturalists are blind to all sorts of things, but then again I'm not sure how many of them there are in 2007. A lot fewer than in 2001 I would guess.

As it happens I do think that Britain, well England anyway, is a fairly tolerant and open society, which is why so many immigrants have been assimilated in the last 50 years with relatively few problems. Of course the last two or three governments have got a bit careless with the idea of borders, but I reckon we can put that down to being members of the EU, where no one seems to have much concept of taking responsibility for such matters. And our security services had definitely fallen asleep on the job before 9/11 woke them up abruptly.

By and large though we all muddle along fairly well together, with a certain amount of mumbling and grumbling. I've just come back from our local town centre, and must have seen family groups originating from 20 or so nations (although the majority are "native English" - you can easily tell: the natives are shabbily dressed!). Quite a few of the families were visibly multicultural (!!), and presumably a lot more were invisibly so. Then there are teams of Africans in the car parks cleaning cars furiously, and every week more and more Chinese serving in the shops and supermarkets. I don't know whether you would call this "naive multiculturalism", but it sure beats washing your own car, and it all seems to work fairly well.

Regarding culture, most people are too busy working, shopping, resting, and bumming around with their friends and family to bother with such highfalutin notions.

Now if someone can explain to me which elements of this are "British culture" I could cheerfully start explaining it to my grandson, instead of boring him to death with tales of imperial derring-do, black holes of Calcutta, Tolpuddle martyrs (when you drive through Tolpuddle it doesn't strike you as a martyring sort of place), Magna Carta and all that valuable cultural stuff that doesn't seem to bear down too heavily on our daily lives. Thank goodness.

Turing test

As a little addendum, I listen to a lot of radio here in the UK, especially Radios 4, 5 and LBC (London Broadcasting 97.3). There is an interesting sort of Turing test you can take when listening to the radio. Turing's idea of course was that you would know that computing was taking a giant leap forward when you could have a conversation with a computer and not know you were talking to one.

The same little game can be played when listening to the radio. Can you tell just from listening to someone talking what their "ethnic origin" is? I.e., I suppose, where their parents came from. In terms of the opinions people have and the way they express them, in many, many cases it is absolutely impossible to distinguish second generation immigrants from "natives". On telly of course there are lots of visual clues, but take them away and the game gets a whole heap more difficult. Interesting, eh?

In Response

Elaib Harvey: "The evidence he cites for his thesis largely comes from the new science of 'genetic archaeology' which has discovered through paternal DNA that a significant majority of those who live in the UK today are descended directly from the Ice Age hunters who first came here it seems from the Iberian peninsula. The figures are 88% of the Irish, 81% of the Welsh, 79% of the Cornish, 70% of the Scots and 68% of the remainder of England (over 2/3rds). (figures from 'The Origins of the British' by Stephen Oppenheimer). So despite invasions of Romans, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Norse and whoever the ethnic makeup of the UK has hardly been altered. One of the side effects of this research is to massively undermine ideas of Celtic difference. It suggests that there is precious little such thing, if anything any difference predates and Celtic retreat from Anglo Saxons by 5,000 years."

 

Agreed. I used to argue with those that claimed the British Isles were inhabited by "immigrants," by pointing to the continuity of Celtic groups such as the Scots, Welsh and Irish and of the Anglo-Saxons, who were Germanic. Indeed, the Danes inhabited the same peninsula from which the Angles, Saxons and Jutes departed for England. Furthermore, the Normans were Danish and Norwegian vikings provided a territory on Frankish soil. Moreover, if the Normans were "mixed" with the indigenous population of Normandy, then this would have occurred mainly with Franks, not Gallo-Romans. Though this theory of Germanic continuity for England has been challenged, it does not alter the thrust of my argument. Firstly, according to racial anthropology, the Celts were a diverse group and the term "Celt" may in fact be misleading. The basic anthropological types associated with England, Scotland and Wales existed their before and after Germanic invasions and settlement: lanky blonds in England, stocky brunettes in Wales and fair red-heads in Scotland. Secondly, the Germanic tribes that expanded into present-day Germany encountered Celts just as their Anglo-Saxon compatriots did, so the presence of Celtic DNA indicators does not distance the English from the Dutch, Flemings or Germans in a significant way given the fact that Celtic tribes inhabited these regions prior to Germanic expansion.

 

The Lonely Planet series of travel books attempted to describe Berlin as a historic multicultural city of immigrants given the fact that thousands of Huegenots sought refuge their during their persecution in France. However, multiculturalists cannot ignore that "immigration" aside, Europe has never experienced the massive influx of non-European groups that it is facing at present. Given that Celtic and Germanic tribes belonged to various Northern European or "Nordish" sub-races, one cannot compare vikings and Jamaicans. Period. Europe was never historically multi-racial.

Ethnicity

I disagree Peter with you on a few points. I don't believe the article seeks to establish that the British ethnicity is superior because of the sake of its' ethnicity.

I think what the article articulates is that people with an in-built love of their ethnicity, and a bond between their genetic makeup and the land/climate/soil/plants of their native country that has shaped them for millenia, are in danger of being washed away from their land and history.

We see that through the importation of tens of thousands of people from cultures who very strongly affirm the strengths of their race and confidence in the vitality of their culture.

At the same time British cultures, through Multiculturalism, are being denigrated, downgraded, hidden, told they aren't important - we need to satisfy the needs of newcomers.

And that spells 'goodbye' to the culture of Britain as a whole that developed tolerance and openness. It developed that way on its' own, not constantly exchanging cultural makeup and ideas with others who are not tolerant or forgiving, or know the love and peace of Jesus.

_____

Defend Christendom. Defend Jewry. Oppose socialism in Europe.

Genetics: why it's all about balls

siegetower: "I think what the article articulates is that people with an in-built love of their ethnicity, and a bond between their genetic makeup and the land/climate/soil/plants of their native country that has shaped them for millenia, are in danger of being washed away from their land and history."

Eh? Come again. So a baby born at 23 Acacia Avenue, Coketown-on-Sea of white, Celtic parents pops out with an in-built love of its ethnicity, whereas one born down the road at Number 32 of one white and one Indian parent doesn't possess this in-building - in fact it's not sure if it CAN love its Mummy and its Daddy all at the same time.

The first baby has a bond with the privet hedges, daffodils and rose bushes to be found in the garden of Number 23, whereas the one born at 32 finds itself torn between aforementioned plants and some unaccountable hankering for Indian flora. Pull the other one. It's got bells on it.

And this tolerance and openness. Is this the tolerance and openness which has set Protestants against Catholics, workers against bosses, barons against monarchs, republicans against royalists - those ones?

The article refers to the work of Stephen Oppenheimer, an acknowledged expert in the field of "genetic archaeology". Oppenheimer proposes, among other things, that from the evidence available, all the non-African peoples of the world are descended from one group which migrated from African only 85,000 years ago, and that one of the most striking things about homo sapiens is how closely related we all are genetically. In other words, all this genetic race stuff is bollocks. Hope this is now clear and we can all get on to discussing something more productive.

For instance, why does the presence of a few thousand Islamist nutters in central England convince some people that British history is about to come to an abrupt end?

"If when we think of Britain

"If when we think of Britain as a place which has been "for a long time, been both stable as well as liberal and tolerant, comparatively speaking", then this is in part because that nation was comprised of a people who were, by and large, homogenous."

Hmm, So non-homogenous people like the USA start with a handicap, isn't it?
Personally I think its all crap.

1) I don’t know what exactly is understood under “long-time”. But the history of Britain is full of internal wars, bloodshed and misery. Not more then anywhere else, of course, but never the less.

2) But even if for the sake of the argument, we accept Britain as being longtime a bit more “stable, liberal and tolerant” as somewhere else, there still is no evidence what so ever that this is because of “homogeneousness”.

3) The ethnical (DNA-driven) homogeneousness of a people is absolutely irrelevant, because the differences between individuals are a hundred times bigger and more important, then the differences caused by “ethnical identifiable genes.” The inter-British differences in morality, intelligence, believes, social class or physical fitness make the word “homogenous” sound either ridiculous or at the best meaningless.

4) If there would be a “legal and spiritual association” like Sir Arthur Bryant (A Nazi sympathizer by the way) pretends, then this has certainly nothing to do with the long homogenous history of Britain, because the difference in legal and spiritual habits between today and no more the hundred years ago are tremendous. This proves that societies adapt and change in a high tempo, leaving ethnical considerations behind as meaningless.