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| Subject: Hm | |
Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 17:30:13 12/04/04 Sat In reply to: Ian (Australia) 's message, ""new world" identities are not ethnic - USA, Australia and Brazil are the same on this point" on 01:30:12 12/03/04 Fri I don't really believe that British identity is ethnic, either. The WASP contingent in the UK is not significantly greater than in the USA: I understand that in America it's down to about 55%, but in Britain it can't be more than 70%. We have been a haven for immigrants for much longer than the USA, although of course not to the same degree. After all, my family are not ethnically Anglo-Saxon or even Celtic, but in the 150 years for which we've been in Britain and parts of its Empire, we have had no problem being British. Nor is this just because we were 'white' immigrants, since people of other races have made their homes here and been accepted without any fuss except from the occasional nutter to whom no-one really listened except for other occasional nutters. In short, I think that one of the common features of the Anglosphere is its immigrant character. I'll grant that between 1100 and 1950 immigration in Britain was minimal, and all the ingredients in the melting pot had about 1000 years to miscegenate and homogenise; but this must be set against two things: firstly, the fusion of Celtic, Germanic, Latinate, Nordic and other peoples has made people who are 'racially' British about the most mongrel lot that the planet has ever seen; and, secondly, this must be set against a constant tricke of immigration by Flemish textile weavers, Jewish merchants and artisans, various protestant refugees from Catholic Europe (most notably the French Huguenots), who came in sufficiently small numbers for them to be be unable to form ghettoised counter-cultures, which meant that they had to integrate into the existing society. In this context, the difference between British and 'New World' ethnicity is not a difference in nature but in extent. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Fair point | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:02:45 12/04/04 Sat Perhaps this is a reason for Britain not feeling itself to be part of Europe? Tribal identities certainly persist on the continent. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |