Daily Mail (London), April 23, 2009
BNP chairman Nick Griffin is defending a party leaflet which says Black and Asian Britons should be referred to as ‘racial foreigners’
BNP chairman Nick Griffin is defending a party leaflet which says black and Asian Britons should be referred to as ‘racial foreigners’
British National Party chairman Nick Griffin spoke today of a ‘bloodless genocide’ as he defended a party leaflet which says that black Britons and Asian Britons ‘do not exist’.
The BNP leader was referring to the party’s Language And Concepts Discipline Manual, which says the term used should be ‘racial foreigners’.
Mr Griffin said to call such people British was a sort of ‘bloodless genocide’ because it denied indigenous people their own identity.
The leaflet was leaked to an anti-fascist group.
Commenting on the leaflet’s content, Mr Griffin told The Report on Radio 4 that although ‘in civic terms they are British, British also has a meaning as an ethnic description’.
‘These people are ‘black residents’ of the UK etc, and are no more British than an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese,’ he said.
‘Collectively, foreign residents of other races should be referred to as ‘racial foreigners’, a non-pejorative term. . . . The key in such matters is above all to maintain necessary distinctions while avoiding provocation and insult.’
The manual describes the BNP’s ‘ultimate aim’ as the ‘lawful, humane and voluntary repatriation of the resident foreigners of the UK’.
‘We don’t subscribe to the politically correct fiction that just because they happen to be born in Britain, a Pakistani is a Briton. They’re not. They remain of Pakistani stock,’ he added.
‘You can’t say that especially large numbers of people can come from the rest of the world and assume an English identity without denying the English their own identity, and I would say that’s wrong.
‘In a very subtle way, it’s a sort of bloodless genocide.’
The Archbishop of York has branded Mr Griffin’s comments as being ‘beyond belief’.
Dr John Sentamu, who was born in Uganda and is a vocal supporter of making today—St George’s Day—a public holiday to promote English unity, said it was not up to the BNP to define Englishness.
He said: ‘You don’t have to be a member of the BNP to be clearly English, and it is quite a mistake to suggest that everybody who wants to affirm Englishness affirms that narrow thinking.
‘This “bloodless genocide”? I think that is just language which is beyond belief.’
Mr Griffin is standing in the European Parliament elections in June as a candidate for the North West.
The Report will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 today at 8pm.
Original article
(Posted on April 23, 2009)
Comments
A Pakistani that moves to England is no more an Englishman than an Englishman who moves to Hong Kong is Chinese. This is a fact. But, of course, liberals are often shocked, surprised, and angered by the facts.
Dr John Sentamu, who was born in Uganda and is a vocal supporter of making today—St George’s Day—a public holiday to promote English unity, said it was not up to the BNP to define Englishness.
Well it sure as Hell shouldn’t be up to Pakistanis and Ugandans to determine what is, or is not, British. GO BNP.
“The Archbishop of York has branded Mr Griffin’s comments as being ‘beyond belief’.”
No. What’s ‘beyond belief’ is outside the Archbishops door. I’m guessing he’s too scared to admit he’s looked. That could be racist. What is hard to believe is that an organisation in the UK is attempting to begin to do something about it. Who knew that hope was still alive out there?
What about English people of Irish stock?
Are they racial foreigners too?
“‘This “bloodless genocide”? I think that is just language which is beyond belief.’”
The Bishop made the mistake of challenging the comments at face value, speaking to the interests of white folks - in denying whites are victims of a ‘bloodless genocide’. Why not discuss this only in terms of how it effects women and people of color? I’m sure that will be fixed soon.
Mr. Griffin has it right. We are our genes. Brits are a white indigenous people of Europe. They have the white skin mutation to prove that they belong in England. Non-whites do not have the white skin mutation (nor many others as well) showing that they are not English at all. They are African or whatever. Go back to Africa or Pakistan or other lands where you have the right genes for the environment.
The leaflet was leaked to an anti-fascist group.
I thought the whole purpose of leaflets was that they were publicly distributed, so how can they be “leaked”?
I’ve always thought the same thing with race in America. I don’t consider Mexicans, including legal Mexicans, to be any more American than Americans who are living in or immigrated to Mexico legally to be considered Mexican. Same with blacks and other non-whites.
I don’t have a link, but I remember reading in a newspaper about a survery. This survey asked the question whether you considered yourself to be American first or your racial identity first. The overwhelming majority of whites considered themselves to be Americans first. 91% - yes, nintey one percent - of all blacks considered themselves black first. And only 1/3rd of all Hispanics considered themselves American first.
Why should our government refer to blacks as African-Americans when they clearly don’t consider themselves Americans first? Well, actually, it’s somewhat accurate because African is written first in “African-American.”
At least our government makes a distinction between Hispanics and Americans (white people) by calling Hispanics “Hispanic” instead of “American,” unlike in France where they don’t even keep count of their racial minorities and consider and call the North African immigrants just as French as regular Frenchmen.
I recall reading a position paper issued by the highest echelon of the Chinese Communist Army. It said in so many words that the day will inevitably come when the USA/the West and China will collide, like two large men on a narrow walkbridge will. I liked the purely physical metaphor just as I appreciate the simple honest approach of Mr Griffin in describing the British in Hong Kong. Notice the world took no offence when the Chinese took back “their” territory, which was built up by British economic genius. There wasn’t any leftist screaming about the politico-religious incorrectness of an honest approach to ethnicity. That inconsistency is ultimately tied to the theism of the Western world, which degrades the nation state but cannot sustain a subsitute belief system. As a result the West is on life support.
You can be sure that nearly all 1.3 billion Chinese consider Britons living in Hong Kong to be foreigners.
The opening ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics had nary a non-Asian face on display, other than the visiting athletes - and the US media were beside themselves with glee! I suspect such a blatant lack of diversity will not be tolerated at the 2012 Olympics in London.
With the Norman Conquest in 1066, the demographic composition of the British people came to be pretty much what it would remain for another 900 years, with the exception of some Flemings in the 16th century and some French Huguenots a century later. The people groups existing in the UK and Ireland at the time of the first non-European immigrants in 1948 can rightfully claim to be British; those coming later truly cannot.
There’s a lot more to nationality than one’s passport.
If Pakistanis born in Britain are “Britons” in every sense of the word, then it would logically follow that Britons born in Pakistan are Pakistanis in every sense of the word. If this is the case, then, if the Pakistan-born Briton were to emigrate to U.K., he should be eligible for all the preferential treatment afforded other Pakistanis. The same would be true of Britons born in Africa. They should then be considered Africans when it comes to quotas and other preferences. I wonder if Dr John Sentamu would agree with such a policy. But of course not; this would be expecting a liberal to understand logical deduction. Something they are incapable of.
But let us take this a step further. Let’s say I’m of European stock but was born in America. Does this make me as “American” as a “Native American”? If so, then I should be eligible for all the benefits Native Americans enjoy. Are white South Africans as “African” as their black compatriots? If so, then they certainly should qualify for all racial set-asides that are given to other Africans when they migrate to U.K. or America. I wonder how many leftists would agree to that.
Go BNP!!! I live in the U.S., I am a U.S. Citizen, however I still send money (not much) to the BNP. I wish them the very best.
I hope Mr. Griffin keeps using the word genocide because that’s exactly what it is.
As a comedian once said,
‘If a dog is born in a stable, you don’t call it a horse’
Migrants from other continents, but mainly Asia, can’t even be bothered to learn the English language. So why call them English?
It’s just common sense.
Popeye said: “What about English people of Irish stock? Are they racial foreigners too?”
Speaking as a person of Irish descent I have to say yes. Clearly the Irish are neither English nor British.
The two groups are closely related (ancient Britons and ancient Irish) and there’s been a bit of mixing of the two groups (think the Ascendancy in and around Dublin for one example), but they are not exactly the same people.
Obviously, though, the two groups are much more closely related than the British are to Jamaicans or Pakistanis — or even to Polish people for that matter.
The sovereignty of any nation lies in its right to define who can be a citizen, and what the ground rules are. A nation loses sovereignty when invaders start calling the shots.
I have not visited any European country in the past few years that was not suffering the damage caused by various contemporary invaders.
What about English people of Irish stock?
Are they racial foreigners too?
Posted by Popeye at 6:22 PM on April 23
Popeye…..What Irishman would have it any other way?
Finally a man who speaks the truth. Nick Griffin is one of the few shining lights in a country that lacks real British patriots. The groveling fashion of these other men who ridicule him and support multicultural lunacy is what is really beyond belief. These imbeciles are giving up their country, their heritage, their traditions, their very racial identity for the ‘sake’ of going along with the flow. It takes a courageous man like Nick Griffin to speak the truth. It’s cowards like the Archbishop of York who are really the ones who are “beyond belief”.
Finally a man who speaks the truth. Nick Griffin is one of the few shining lights in a country that is sorely in need of real patriots. The groveling fashion of these other men who ridicule him and support multicultural lunacy is what is really beyond belief. These imbeciles are giving up their country, their heritage, their traditions, their very racial identity for the ‘sake’ of going along with the flow. It takes a courageous man like Nick Griffin to speak the truth. It’s cowards like the Archbishop of York who are really the ones who are “beyond belief”.
I’d like to say that Mr Griffin should be knighted, but
“Notice the world took no offence when the Chinese took back “their” territory, which was built up by British economic genius. There wasn’t any leftist screaming about the politico-religious incorrectness of an honest approach to ethnicity.”
Kung Fu actor Jackie Chan was in the news the other day, saying, maybe China has too much freedom. Chinese people left and right were saying it was an insult to China and in fact a racist idea. Meanwhile back in the States, saying something against white folks is considered the pinnacle of enlightenment, and anyone who would dare go Against the idea is the one who’s racist.
He is wrong about one thing: this genocide isn’t bloodless.
The comments of the black african Bishop merely reinforce Mr Griffins point of view and clearly demonstrates the racist genocidal nature of people like him.
How is it that an african feels that he can freely define Britishness or Englishness whilst at the same time deny a white Briton, Mr Griffin, the right to define his OWN ethnicity?
Readers in America can see from this article the insane and racist nature of non white migrants towards the indiginous people who have welcomed them into their country.
Mr Griffin is quite right in wanting them repatriated.
Popeye: “What about English people of Irish stock? Are they racial foreigners too?”
There are NO English people of Irish stock; this is a contradiction in terms. There are only people of Irish stock who have settled in England (and have always constituted an alien wedge, essentially hostile to the host nation).
And yes, they ARE racial foreigners.
The same holds true for America. Replace the current Native Born White American population with millions of chinese curerntly living in china and America will cease to exist. This seems to be the game plan of Bill Gates.
If the town,city and state you live feels like a foriegn country, it is-because of the passage of the 1965 immgration refrom act-a foriegn country. This should be good enough of a reason to shut LEGAL IMMIGRATION down to 0. And this should be good enough of a reason for mass deportation.
The highly likely consequence of not shutting LEGAL IMMIGRATION down to 0 and not deporting th fifth column element from china,mexico,india,pakistan,korea and the muslim world:America will be broken up into several race based nation staes. For Native Born White Americans this will be bad enough. But it will be even worse than this. The chinese,hindu,mexican,korean,iranian and pakistani areas will have very close ties to the mother countries. Or, to put it another way,Native Born White Ameicans will wake up one day and find that china’s borders will have moved at least a hundred miles deep into America. Secessionist have no problem with this outcome of territorial concession. This outcome will happen with 100 percent certainty.
America is not an idea nation.America is-like every other nation-about a paticular geneline deeply rooted in the soil of a particular place over generations:BLOOD,LAND AND HISTORY.Ron Paul unadulturated free market Republicanism is incompatible with this view of America. America is not reducible to a collection of free market interactions. Anyone who believes this is insane.
“What about English people of Irish stock?
Are they racial foreigners too?”
Posted by Popeye at 6:22 PM on April 23
Yes, as The Terror, The Troubles, and the consistent rabble rousing and support of the terrorist IRA by Irish “Americans” proves. Go ask a bloody Irishman if he’s the same race as the English or not and see if the answer isn’t a kick in the crotch for your trouble.
It should be remembered that John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, was part of the Macpherson investigation into the alleged racial murder of Stephen Lawrence. This report branded the entire Metropolitan Police as “institutionally racist” and made recommendations which were totally unsupportable - for example: a crime should be regarded as racist if any person (read: any black person) says it is.
“What about English people of Irish stock? Are they racial foreigners too?”
They are ethnic foreigners. They are British nationality-wise (only if that is their citizenship), but ethnically Irish.
Race = white
Unfortunately, many Americans don’t know the difference between an ethnicity (ethnic group(s) you belong to/bloodline) and a nationality (nation of birth/culture/citizenship). If I have to explain race, get the heck off this site.
Anonymous at 9:02
You should be much more worried about the pakis,hinudus and carribeans within your Native Land than the Irish who have been there for several centuries. In Ireland, the there is a substantial population of Irish who intermingled genetically with the English several centuries ago.
The IRA has very little support in the South of Ireland. Th IRA also has very little support in the North.
While the different European tribes were slaughtering each other during WW1 and WW2, the asians,hispancs,carribrans and africans were waiting in the wings to make their grand entrance into Europe and America..on a scale that may very bring about OUR demise.
If the Northern Irish Catholics and Northern Irish protestants don’t join togerher and fight the non-white invasion of Northern Ireland they will both become an ever dwindling racial minoruity within the borders of Northern Ireland. This is not an argument for Britain opening the borders to Polish and Bulgarian immigration.
By the way,one of the most notorious Irish American supporters of the IRA is congressman Peter King. Peter King is a Republican congressman from the Norteast. He also has one of the worst voting records on LEGAL IMMIGRATION over the years. He has consistently received on F over the years from numbersusa.com He is a traitor…like most Repuiblican politicians.
“There are NO English people of Irish stock; this is a contradiction in terms. There are only people of Irish stock who have settled in England (and have always constituted an alien wedge, essentially hostile to the host nation).
And yes, they ARE racial foreigners.”
In regard to the above post, the same holds true for the reverse: The English who have settled in Northern Ireland are not Irish. Moreover, there is probably not an Irishman alive who would consider them Irish, even after 600 centuries of living in Ireland (even though the two ethnic groups are related)! Yet these same Irish are falling over themselves in joy at the immigration of Africans into Ireland.
“And yes, they ARE racial foreigners.”
Really?
The Bronte sisters, The Duke of Wellington, Lewis Carroll, Alfred Hitchcock, Wayne Rooney, Edmund Burke, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Barbara Windsor, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, The Beatles, Elizabeth Hurley and BNP founder John Tyndal, are all racial foreigners who are/were hostile to England?
Fascinating…
“Moreover, there is probably not an Irishman alive who would consider them Irish, even after 600 centuries of living in Ireland”
Actually Northern Unionists don’t consider themselves Irish,yet they had no problem identifying themselves as Irish before partition.
“Yet these same Irish are falling over themselves in joy at the immigration of Africans into Ireland.”
Not all of them - Ireland was one of the first countries to change their immigration policy of a child being born in Ireland automatically being given citizenship,as that loophole was being abused to a ridiculous degree by Nigerians.
Check out Irish journalist Kevin Meyer’s work on the subject of African immigration to Ireland. He echoes the sentiments of a lot of people in the country.
White people, whether they are English, Irish, Germans, French, Scandinavian or Americans of European descent had better stop these stupid little tirades against each other, the enemy (islam) is inside the gates and getting stronger while we bicker about idiocies. Incidentally it was the Duke of Wellington who first said, when asked if he was an Irishman; “If a dog is born in a stable you don’t call it a horse”. As a famous American once said; “We had better hang together or we will all hang separately”.
Really?
The Bronte sisters, The Duke of Wellington, Lewis Carroll, Alfred Hitchcock, Wayne Rooney, Edmund Burke, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Barbara Windsor, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, The Beatles, Elizabeth Hurley and BNP founder John Tyndal, are all racial foreigners who are/were hostile to England?
Fascinating…
Posted by Popeye at 12:14 PM on April 24
As an American supporter of the BNP — and a Protestant, with no known Irish blood in me — I’m surprised and a little disappointed at the reaction here to Popeye’s original question as to whether Irish in England can be English.
Although I can’t speak on behalf of the BNP, I remember a discussion from their website a couple months ago on this very question — and the answer was that the Party DID consider the Irish both white and welcome. I believe that the BNP make no distinction between English and Irish, Protestant or Catholic, as long as the people in question are white, speak English, and are in agreement with BNP principles.
Which is, as far as I’m concerned, the way it OUGHT to be. There’s been far too much blood spilled on both sides over the centuries — and for what? What we need now is white solidarity against the rising tide of 3rd World blacks and browns. NO MORE BROTHERS’ WARS!
“The average IQ on that little island is almost a solid standard deviation lower than the English average.”
That’s totally false. If that were true, perhaps you could explain why Ireland has a higher per capita GDP than England does.
The BNP’s official position is the English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh people are so closely related as to be essentially one people. Nick Griffin is English, Welsh and Irish. The founder of the BNP, John Tyndall, was part Irish too.
From the Irish Independent newspaper - 23rd June, 2007
BNP leader Nick Griffin plans to go to ireland in the summer along with his family. Mr.Griffin is “looking forward to geting back to his roots”.
It goes on to say
“This summer he will take his wife and four children on holiday to Ballygriffin the village in west cork where his ancestors came from”
Griffin is also quoted as saying…
“We have many members of irish descent who go back and forth on holiday. they say it is turning into a non irish third world country and thar there is a misplaxed sentimentality in thier country towards immigrants.”
Posted by Anonymous at 9:02 AM on April 24
It is “Scottish” when referring to the people of Scotland. Scotch is just for drinking. I’m not joking and it is a common mistake.
And by the way, this Irish-descended woman doesn’t believe for a second that the English are more intelligent. Perhaps prior to the past 50 years they were better educated, but their intelligence is questionnable when you look at the damage they’ve done to themselves and the rest of the white race. And, a lot of people whom the world views as English are sometimes more Irish or have quite a bit of Irish (i.e., Vivian Leigh, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Timothy Dalton, Elizabeth Hurley, Peter O’Toole, and Alfred Hitchcock to name a few).
English, Irish, Scots: They’re All One, Genes Suggest
http://tinyurl.com/25f7kn
Popeye said: “What about English people of Irish stock? Are they racial foreigners too?”citizenship (except in the North of Ireland). However, they were all considered “British” citizens until Irish independence in 1921. (The King of England still remained the Irish head of state, as with Canada, etc, until 1937! And Eire didn’t leave the British Commonwealth until 1948. Even in the 70s, when I was there, British currency and even postage stamps were still valid and accepted in Ireland.) When my Irish ancestors came here, to the USA, they were British citizens, born in Ireland, and they were recorded as “British” on the US census. Just as today a Welshman would be a British citizen, born in Wales.
I do agree that Irish “ethnicity” is not the same thing as English. They are two different nationalities. But neither are Welsh or Scots the same ethnicity as English, yet they are all considered “British”.
Even so, while they are all different (though related) ETHNIC groups, they are - none of them - RACIAL foreigners to one another, as they are all of the same race.
Citizenship, nationality, ethnicity, and race are all separate things. There’s an amazing amount of confusion about this simple issue. I wish we could just drop it! It’s irrelevant to the much larger issues facing us today. Hooray for Jupiter, Popeye, and Get-back-Jack. They’ve got it right! And special credit to roger-in-florida.
And for Anonymous at 9:02 AM, who has such low esteem of Irish intelligence, let me point out that a great many - if not even MOST - of the major writers in the English language, after Shakespeare and Milton, have been of Irish birth! Indeed, a great many famous “English” notables today, are actually of Irish origin. (Nothing I have said here is meant in any way to discredit the English.)
Since WE are focusing on the Irish at the present moment, I just want to point out a great cintribution one Irish immigrant made to America. WE can thank this particular Irish immigrant- after several years of hard work-for the passage of the Chinese Exclusion which protected White Americans in the 19th century from competition from chinese scab labor and well inito the twentieth century. Unfortnately, the passage of the 1965 Immigration Refrom Act effectively ended the Chinese Exclusion Act. And as a consequence, thousands of Native Born White American Enginers, were replced in the engineering filed with chinese scab labor.
After many centuries of acrimony, the Irish finally got their own nation. If the Irish in England aren’t loyal or just not happy; then go home. Same goes for English or Scots in Ireland. Now here’s an interesting question. Which one of the above countries (with Wales) will be the first to lose it’s white majority? I think it’s neck and neck, but my money is on OLe’ Blighty.
“…if you had actually lived in the UK for any considerable amount of time you’d know the difference between English, Scotch and Irish simply on sight almost 90% of the time.”
This is true, I live in Boston MA; and have observed many of the huge number of pure-blooded Irishmen here. They are, for the most part, a physically and mentally distinct people from Anglos. Those who have studied the history of those Isles will know why. Nonetheless it’s a quibble; there are more important things to worry about. Irish, Italians, Germans, Anglos and Slavs must come together in this country to prevent its destruction.
Posted by Jupiter at 12:48 PM on April 25
The Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed by the 1943 Magnuson Act.
Making distinctions between Irish and English, et al. when the UK is being overrun by blacks is absurd and is like picking the fly specks out of the pepper.
Don’t let us be divided in our common group genotype. We are the white indigenous peoples of Europe. We have the mutations common to all of our people with some very minor differences.
The gene flow between Ireland and England and the rest of Europe is ages old. My father’s family came from Ireland (Cork,back to at least the 1600’s as far as we can tell), but the family name is more commonly found in England and before that France.
Our guess is they originated in France or Germany, ended up in England, then over to Ireland, and then back to England in the 1800’s. I’ll bet we’re not the only ones like this.
English, Irish, Scots: They’re All One, Genes Suggest
I respect all of them, especially since they are unlikely to be black, Paki or muslim. THOSE are the enemies of civilization and all peoples of the Emerald Isles.
Before the Anglo-Saxon invasions, the Britons were Celts, as were the Gauls before invasion by the Franks. In both cases, Teutonic invaders came to rule over Celtic peoples. And, in both cases, those parts of the land furthest from the invaders remained Celtic in language and blood. I can hardly imagine that the Angles and Saxons were less willing to mate with the locals in Britain than the Franks were in Gaul. Given the ascendancy of the invaders’ language in Britain, I would guess that a larger proportion of the English people are descended from Anglo-Saxons than French people are descended from Franks, but still, it seems ridiculous to imagine that most English don’t have a good proportion of Celtic genes in them.
“What about English people of Irish stock?
Are they racial foreigners too?”
Good point. What about South Africans of European stock? Are we to accept that they be classified as “racial foreigners”?
The expression where I grew up was: “If a cat came into your house and had a litter in your oven, you wouldn’t call them cookies.”
It is true that there are genetic and physical differences among all the European “tribes,” such as the Irish, Welsh, Scots, Danes, Bavarians, Serbs, etc. However, these very slight differences pale in comparison with those between Europeans and Africans. The Europeans are all so similar in characteristics that they can live together peacefully and productively. Europeans and Africans are so different that it is impossible for them to live together.
Africans, Arabs, and Native Americans need to be set free in their OWN homelands under their OWN leaders, where they can create societies as they see fit, unencumbered by the constraining mores of Europeans. Likewise, Europeans need to be free of the endless burdens and perpetual conflicts caused by having these very different groups attempting to live among us.
“And for Anonymous at 9:02 AM, who has such low esteem of Irish intelligence, let me point out that a great many - if not even MOST - of the major writers in the English language, after Shakespeare and Milton, have been of Irish birth! Indeed, a great many famous “English” notables today, are actually of Irish origin.”
Yes, and a great many - if not even MOST of the major American musicians after John Phillips Souza have been of African descent. Does that make them white…or even “American?”
“Africans, Arabs, and Native Americans need to be set free in their OWN homelands under their OWN leaders, where they can create societies as they see fit, unencumbered by the constraining mores of Europeans.”
I can see that for the Africans and the Arabs, but for the Native Americans it’s going to be a little more difficult, unless of course you plan on moving back to Europe. They are not called Native AMERICANS for nothing.
I totally agree with annonymous at 9:57 above, although I would have liked to see Ted Kennedy and some of the Irish Kennedy offspring, such as Joe Kennedy SR., Robert Kennedy JR. and Caroline, etc. still in Ireland and not here! Many Irish are far too liberal and pander to the nonwhites of the world. I have known a few of them.
This great, great hero was named Dennis Kearney. He was head of the California Working Men’s Party. Kearney st in San Francisco is named after him. He still should be a hero celeberated on labor day.
Now, just as he predicted, California is over run with cheap Chinese sweatshop and restaurant workers and their corrupt, criminal Chinese employers who evade every business law and regulation in the books from environmental protection to paying sales taxes or even renewing their business licenses.
And when they get caught with a back room full of indentured servants working 18 hours per day or housing 40 people in a 1,000 sq foot townhouse they scream racism.
Oh and by the way, it is part of “Chinese culture” for a Chinese restaurant owner to turn his garage into a chicken slaughterhouse to kill and cut up the chickens and other meat served in his restaurant.
Soy sauce, ginger, pepper and garlic hide the taste of rotten meat.
“What about English people of Irish stock?
Are they racial foreigners too?”
“Yes, and a great many - if not even MOST of the major American musicians after John Phillips Souza have been of African descent. Does that make them white…or even “American?””
Totally moot point. The Irish and English are of the same European racial stock. Africans are not of any European stock.
“but for the Native Americans it’s going to be a little more difficult, unless of course you plan on moving back to Europe. They are not called Native AMERICANS for nothing.”
Well….the Kennewick Man may think differently.
“Yes, and a great many - if not even MOST of the major American musicians after John Phillips Souza have been of African descent. Does that make them white…or even “American?””
————————————
Well, now! Such a poor analogy! That all hinges on what you consider to be major “music”. Apparently, you set a low standard.
If highly promoted pop music? Perhaps. And even that being only in quite recent decades, for the most part (with allowance for a few exceptions like Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington). Before about the 60s/70s, American pop music was basically white. And before WW2, it was virtually ALL white (with exceptions).
But aside from a few (also heavily promoted) major musical figures like Leontyne Price, Jessye Norman or Andre Watts, how many truly FIRST RANK black musicians have there been? (Yes, we could go back to Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson, but their fame was frankly more political/ideological than musical.) And please name the great symphonies or operas written by blacks.
(Sorry no, Scott Joplin and Stevie Wonder just won’t do!)
“but for the Native Americans it’s going to be a little more difficult, unless of course you plan on moving back to Europe. They are not called Native AMERICANS
Called that BY WHOM? And for how long?
Actually, it wasn’t a comedian who first said that “a dog born in a stable is not a horse”; it was the Duke of Wellington (one of Popeye’s supposed Irish), an Englishman born in Ireland.
There are numerous examples of other “Irishman” who are ethnically English: Dean Swift, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, to name no more. (Not to mention the Anglo-Norman “Irish” aristocracy, and Oscar Wilde and Bob Geldof - of Dutch and Flemish stock respectively.) It is also important to draw a distinction (as few Americans seem to) between southern Irish Roman Catholics and those of Ulster Protestant stock (e.g. the remote ancestor of the predominantly English Barbara Windsor).
It is also worth pointing out that very few people of Irish stock born in England would self-identify themselves as English. I have friends of Irish ancestry, born and brought up in England, who speak with English accents, yet would nevertheless be scandalised at the suggestion that they are English rather than Irish.
Schoolteacher is flagrantly wrong in assuming that there must be a large Celtic component among the English population. If this were so we would expect the English language to contain a large number of Celtic words, or even to be an Anglo-Celtic creole; actually, Celtic words are remarkable in the English language by virtue of their extreme scarcity. You only have to cross the border between England and Wales (where I lived for four years) to be aware of an entirely different atmosphere. The whole character of England would be entirely different if it were historically even a partly Celtic society.
The Irish, with their generally darker hair, their broader skulls, their lower cheekbones and their shorter stature on average, are in fact very easily physically distinguished from the Anglo-Saxons, as are Welsh and Scots Celts. If this is not evidence of racial difference, I do not know what is.
“Actually, it wasn’t a comedian who first said that “a dog born in a stable is not a horse”; it was the Duke of Wellington (one of Popeye’s supposed Irish), an Englishman born in Ireland.”
Although often repeated, there is no evidence whatsoever that the Duke ever said this.
Another quote that he famously didn’t say was : “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton”.
As for Wellington’s lack of Irishness :
His family’s seat was Dangan Castle, near Trim in County Meath. He married into one of Ireland’s most noteable families, the Longfords, and served in Irish parliment in 1790.
Wellington’s grandfather, 1st Baron Mornington, was called Richard Colley, but assumed the name of Wesley after inheriting the estates from a relative.
“those of Ulster Protestant stock (e.g. the remote ancestor of the predominantly English Barbara Windsor).”
Windor’s ancenstor’s came from Cork. Quite a bit away from Ulster
http://www.bbc.co.uk/whodoyouthinkyouare/past-stories/barbara-windsor.shtml
Are you ever going to get around to explaining to us how The Bronte sisters, The Duke of Wellington, Lewis Carroll, Alfred Hitchcock, Wayne Rooney, Edmund Burke, Anthony Hopkins, Jeremy Irons, Barbara Windsor, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, The Beatles, Elizabeth Hurley and BNP founder John Tyndal, are all racial foreigners who are/were hostile to England?
It’s really quite simple, Popeye. None of them (with an exception noted below) is of purely Irish ancestry, and some are not at all. A salient example would be Ringo Starr - English to the core! - and both the Duke of Wellington and the Longfords - Anglo-Norman aristocrats, not bog-Irish peasants. Whichever part of Ireland Barbara Windsor’s Irish ancestors came from, most of her ancestry is English. (Incidentally, only Paul McCartney, of the remaining Beatles, was of wholly Irish parentage, and his father was a Protestant.)
It is a common mistake, by the way, to assume that all of those settled in Southern Ireland are Catholics. Dublin, for example, was a predominantly Protestant city well into the 20th century, while Patrick Bronte was a clergyman in the Church of Ireland, an Anglican church with close ties to England.
Edmund Burke was a also Protestant, and therefore culturally closer to England than most Irish. Lewis Carroll apparently had some Irish ancestry, but was predominantly English, indeed a Church of England clergyman, born in Cheshire, educated at Rugby and employed at Oxford! Alfred Hitchcock’s family were Roman Catholic, and I believe predominantly of Irish extraction, and yet his surname is Anglo-Saxon. The late John Tyndall’s family did move from England to Ireland (although he was born in England), and yet he is a distant kinsman of William Tyndale, translator of the Bible into English! Antony Hopkins is a Welshman! He would laugh out loud at any suggestion that he is an Englishman. Alan Rickman’s mother is Welsh, and yet her maiden-name was English, while his father is apparently of Irish Catholic ancestry, yet his surname is also English! David Bowie does have some Irish ancestry on his mother’s side, but is completely English on his father’s. Jeremy Irons is only partly Irish on his mother’s side. Liz Hurley’s surname is certainly Irish, but her father was an officer in the British army, and she was born in Basingstoke into an unimpeachably Anglican background! Wayne Rooney’s name is an amalgam of his father’s surname (Wayne: Anglo-Saxon) and his mother’s surname (Rooney: Irish).
The fact is, these people, although they might appear numerous when gathered together in this fashion, are highly exceptional. The general pattern is for Irish Catholics in England to marry among their own kind, and to define themselves against Anglo-Saxon and Protestant culture, to which they remain largely hostile. They are, therefore, electively alien.
There are numerous examples of other “Irishman” who are ethnically English: Dean Swift, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, to name no more. — Johnny E.
I think that they, themselves, should be the final deciders on this matter of who they were. Beckett lived in Paris but considered himself Irish. G.B.Shaw lived almost his whole adult life in England, but when Ireland became independent (an event with which he was not entirely pleased), he was forced to chose citizenship in one country or the other. He chose to be Irish. (His red hair alone should have said something.)
I once heard the late Alistair Cooke being interviewed. For years he had been the quintessential voice of Britain on American TV, introducing and explaining works from the BBC. (Remember Masterpiece Theatre?) The interviewer made some casual remark about Cooke being English. Cooke stopped him and corrected him, saying that, in fact, he was actually Irish. Even his biography lists him as British, but I heard him say himself that he was Irish. And he went out of his way to make a point of it, when he could have let it pass.
Two others who are well known to Americans and are inextricably intertwined between England and Ireland, come to mind: Lady Antonia Fraser and Angela Lansbury.
Personally, I don’t care for this quibbling and don’t see that it makes a great difference, or that it serves any purpose. But I also don’t like one side (either one) putting down the other.
“Edmund Burke was a also Protestant, and therefore culturally closer to England than most Irish.”
I think Theobald Wolfe Tone and and the myraid of other protestant Irish nationalists would disagree with that. Religion does not equal culture.
The people Dublin,Waterford and Wexford have huge ammounts of Scandinavian blood in them from the Viking settlemnts there. No one in their right mind would argue that they are not really Irish.
“Alfred Hitchcock’s family were Roman Catholic, and I believe predominantly of Irish extraction, and yet his surname is Anglo-Saxon.”
Trevor Phillips and Ainsley Harriot’s surnames are Anglo-Saxon. See how silly that point is?
“The general pattern is for Irish Catholics in England to marry among their own kind, and to define themselves against Anglo-Saxon and Protestant culture, to which they remain largely hostile. They are, therefore, electively alien.”
That is saddening to read. But I retain some doubts. I have known some Irish people who have lived in England, and who expressed great fondness for England and the English. Nothing at all like what you have written here! Sorry, but I have a strong suspicion that YOU are the one who is hostile. In fact, you have made that very clear.
It’s entirely possible that I am wrong about the proportion of Celtic gents in the English. I’ve read nothing on the matter, it only make sense that the Germanic Anglo-Saxon invaders in Britain mated with the Celtic locals just as the other Germanic Frankish invaders mated with the Celtic locals in France. But if I’m wrong, what did happen to all the Celtic Britons? Were they all massacred?
Popeye: “Trevor Phillips and Ainsley Harriott’s surnames are Anglo-Saxon. See how silly that point is?”
Not really, since both are black, and would probably have acquired their present surnames in an entirely different way to the white Hitchcock (although it is not inconceivable in theory, I admit, that Phillips and Harriot might each have had a white ancestor, however unlikely in practice).
I also take your point that there were Protestants who were also Irish nationalists, Charles Stewart Parnell being the most obvious example.
My real point is this (take heed, ghw): While there may be a minority of Protestants, often of Anglo-Saxon ancestry, who choose to self-define themselves as Irish, the opposite is rarely the case. In other words, most Irish Catholics who settle in England not only steadfastly refuse to self-define themselves as English, but preserve both their Irish identity and Catholic religions as badges of honour and rallying points in a society to which they remains fundamentally hostile.
In this respect they resemble jihadi Muslims forming hostile enclaves against the host society to which they have immigrated far more than they resemble soft-headed Anglo-Saxon Protestants who choose to buy into the sentimental notion that they too are Irish. (Anyone who doubts the essentially hostile intentions of the Irish Catholics towards the English host-nation should read the relevant passages of the first volume of Anthony Burgess’s autobiography, “Little Wilson and Big God”.)
To Schoolteacher
It’s a common mistake to assume that the Anglo-Saxon invaders of Britain must have had to intermarry with Celtic women. But the Anglo-Saxons were, like most Germanic tribes, settlers as well as invaders, who brought their women and children with them. Most Britons (i.e. Celts) were driven into what is now Wales, into Cornwall, and across the sea to Brittany. The rest were enslaved (“Welsh” derives from the Anglo-Saxon “wealh”, meaning “slave” or “bondsman”).
Can you imagine the impact on the development of the English language if Anglo-Saxon men had had to intermarry with Celtic women? Since women are mainly responsible for the upbringing of children, what we now know as Welsh would have been the language of hearth and home. This would have meant that even if the English language retained a privileged status as the language of authority (rather as Norman French did later on) it would have assumed a demotic form absolutely permeated by Welsh words - i.e. an Anglo-Celtic creole.
And yet this is precisely what did not happen. I repeat, Celtic words (Gaelic as well as Brythonic) are remarkable in the English language by virtue of their extreme scarcity.
On the subject of “a scarcity of English words in English” it is well to bear in mind the words that are most commonly used in everyday speech, not merely those that inhabit the mausoleum of the English dictionary, or form part of scientific, medical, legal or other technical jargon (mainly Latin, Greek or Norman French). These are overwhelmingly Anglo-Saxon and Norse. It is easily possible to form a sentence consisting only of Anglo-Saxon words, for example: Last summer we went on holiday for four weeks, and when we came back the grass in our garden had grown nearly six feet high!
Since the Anglo-Saxon system of verb conjugation and noun accidence is implicit even in words of non-English origin, it is quite impossible to form an English sentence without English words or verbal endings, and attempts to do so are invariably stilted and unidiomatic, for example: Persistent infidelity vitiates harmonious matrimony. (Even here, there’s no escaping that Anglo-Saxon third-person-singular verbal ending “s” in “vitiate”!)
Scoolteacher:”Successful invaders tend to stamp out the losers language” Actually they don,t.The Romans very successfully invaded Britain in AD43,occupied it for 400 years,yet never replaced the native Celtic language,Cymraic/Welsh with Latin.The invading English were able to do it in less than half the time.Interestingly They were technically less advanced than the people they conquered and there is no evidence to suggest they were better at fighting.The modern Welsh have a name for the English,SAIS(Saxon),but no name for England,which they refer to as Lloeger,or lost land.Furthermore,the vast majority of French /Latin loan words in the English dictionary entered the language at the time of the enlightenment,rather than in the wake of the Norman conquest.
The Anglo-Saxons may have brought their families along and enslaved the Celts, but slaves have children too. And I’m not about to believe that Anglo-Saxon warriors, married or not, did not mate with Celtic women. Unless the invaders purposefully exterminated the the natives, those Celtic genes are in the English people today.
Pedagogue is probably right that a great many French and Latin loan words entered English during and after the European Enlightenment. But I checked the dedication of my King James Bible, and in the first sentence of the fourth paragraph, the top of the second page, I find the words “infinite, argument, religious, affection, forcible, declare, vehement, perpetuated, accomplishing, publishing, humility, present, and majesty.” Most of them are, according to my dictionary, Middle English, taken from Old French. The French speaking Norman invaders had their effect on English long before French speaking intellectuals did.
“The Anglo-Saxons may have brought their families along and enslaved the Celts, but slaves have children too. And I’m not about to believe that Anglo-Saxon warriors, married or not, did not mate with Celtic women. Unless the invaders purposefully exterminated the the natives, those Celtic genes are in the English people today.” — Posted by Schoolteacher
A very old set of history books, used, that I once bought in Lisbon (probably the former property of some English expat) went quite deeply into this subject, moreso than anything that I’ve seen of more recent printing. Unfortunately, I no longer have the volumes.
As I remember, the point was made that the Germanic tribes did not have slaves and were proud of the fact that, unlike the Romans, they did all their own work. To them, work was not a shame but a virtue. Thus, the Anglo-Saxons did not take captives because they had no use for slaves. And thus, having no slaves or captives, they would have been much less likely to have occasion to mate with the natives. The natives, instead of being allowed to live on, were driven back, out of the conquered territory.
Instead, the Saxons pushed the native Britons back into Wales and Cornwall and across the Channel into (what became) Brittany. As this history presented it, there was very little mixing. Perhaps it took place in later centuries (as in Cornwall or Wales, and later in England), when feelings died down a bit. But especially not at the time of hostilities. The Celts had no reason to love the Saxons then, nor vice versa.
Obviously, many Welsh (and then Irish) people later moved into England. It should be noted that some names such as Jones and Williams, which are extremely common in English, are in fact quintessantially Welsh.
Schoolteacher, you are missing the point. I said that the Anglo-Saxons enslaved the comparatively few Celts who remained in England. Where a minority is small, cultural and linguistic assimilation are possible; where a minority is large, as we are seeing at present on the back of mass Third-World immigration to First-World countries, they are increasingly difficult and ultimately impossible.
It’s absolute drivel to say that you can’t say much using only (or mainly) Anglo-Saxon and Norse words in English; as I have already stated, most of the words we use most of the time ARE Anglo-Saxon and Norse, and we succeed in saying a great deal. As an educated person, however, I have no reason to restrict myself to these words, and on the whole I am pleased that the English language has been enriched by so many loan-words (although I also deplore the over-Latinised style of much modern formal prose).
I would not question that many French words entered the English language (at least in its more elevated registers) as a result of the Norman Conquest. It was classical Latin words, rather than French, which started to enter the English language in great quantities during the Renaissance (and nothing whatsoever to do with the earlier Roman occupation of Britain, although educated Anglo-Saxons, such as Alfred the Great, were fluent in Latin). It is also a mistake to regard French as a purely Latin language (although its grammar, and most of its vocabulary do derive from Latin); many Celtic and Germanic words exist in French with no cognates in other Latin languages. This indicates that the languages of the conquered peoples in France had a greater impact on the French language than that of the Celts did on the English language.
It is actually untrue that nobody in Ireland speaks Irish Gaelic. I have heard monoglot Irish-speaking children in the west of Ireland, who would not have begun to speak English until they went to school. In such places (i.e. the Dingle peninsula) Irish also remains the preferred medium of communication between adults. Furthermore, Irish is part of the curriculum of every Irish schoolchild, even in such metropolitan centres as Dublin and Cork; nobody can grow to adulthood in Ireland without some familiarity with Irish. Most importantly, the dominance of English in Ireland is entirely to do with the present status of the language in the world - it is simply too valuable an international commodity to surrender. Two or three hundred years ago English was far less widely spoken in Ireland than it is now, despite the political dominance of Britain. Its present pre-eminence is because of the global development of technologies of travel and mass communication that were completely unavailable to earlier conquerors of subject peoples, such as the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons or the Normans.
Johnny English:
Perhaps you can answer, while we’re on the subject of the French language: How did it arise? The reason I ask is that French just seemed to pop out from the middle of nowhere in the late middle ages. In the 1300s, Flemish was the dominant language in Paris.
To Question Diversity
To be quite honest with you I have no precise idea how modern, standardised, Paris-centred French arose out of the various dialects of demotic Latin (and other, non-Latin languages) spoken in what is now modern France.
Did it just “pop out of nowhere”? This seems improbable (it probably only seems to have done so because of our distance in time and space from the events, not to mention our English-speaking cultural orientation). I do know that classical Latin had an official status in at least some parts of France among the administrative elites until it was replaced by (some form of) French, and I also know that the Frankish kings established Paris as their capital.
I think you are mistaken in saying that Flemish was the dominant language in Paris in the 14th century, although I am prepared to believe it likely that some kind of Frankish would have been widely spoken, along with proto-French/demotic Latin, but this is just a semi-educated guess.
That said, I don’t think that the case of Latin/French in France is in any way parallel to that of Anglo-Saxon/English in Britain (at the time under discussion), partly because the Romans were at a far higher level of civilisation and technology than the Anglo-Saxons. Also, at that time the prestige of the Latin language would have been much higher than that of Anglo-Saxon, since it already enshrined a rich and complex literature, and a comprehensive set of legal and administrative principles that the early English had yet to evolve. Lesser linguistic groups (viewed numerically and in terms of cultural status) will gladly buy into such richness of resources, much as modern-day Scandinavians, for example, widely use English as an auxiliary language.
In brief, as Mr Micawber might say, I don’t know! Maybe there is some AmRen reader out there with the necessary knowledge of the history of the French nation and language who might be reading this and therefore be in a position to enlighten us. It’s an interesting question, and has definitely set me thinking!
If Irish Gaelic remains a living language rather than something that all Irish kids are required to learn in school, I am glad of it, it’s much more important to me than the preservation of an aboriginal language in Australia. I had heard that it was more of a hobby than a real means to communicate, but Johnny English has been there and I have not, so I defer to him.
The Franks did not run the Celts out of Gaul, they happily became their masters, so the aversion to slaveholding did not apply to all the Germanic tribes. But, if the Anglo-Saxons expelled the Celts of Britain rather than enslaving them, it’s news to me, but I’ll accept it. Perhaps the Franks simply saw how the Romans had a good deal and adopted their vices, while the invaders of Britain kept their old ways.
“the Anglo-Saxons enslaved the comparatively few Celts who remained in England.
As I understand it, and said before, the Anglo-Saxons did not have slaves. I wouldn’t know anything about it, but that’s what I have read.
“It is also a mistake to regard French as a purely Latin language (although its grammar, and most of its vocabulary do derive from Latin); many Celtic and Germanic words exist in French with no cognates in other Latin languages. This indicates that the languages of the conquered peoples in France had a greater impact on the French language than that of the Celts did on the English language.”
I agree. It is obvious that the conquering Franks (in Gaul) were numerically fewer and constituted a ruling class (more analogous to the later Normans in England). They did not displace the Romanized Gauls as the A-S did the (less)-Romanized natives in Britain. The A-S pushed out the natives and re-populated the country with their own, thus making it “England”. The Franks did not do this in “France”, nor the Visigoths in Spain. The latter two kept the locals as workers (serfs), copying or maintaining the Roman social pattern that they had inherited with these territories. The A-S, to say it again, did not have slaves or serfs, nor a Roman pattern, and thus no need for captives.
“Irish is part of the curriculum of every Irish schoolchild, even in such metropolitan centres as Dublin and Cork; nobody can grow to adulthood in Ireland without some familiarity with Irish. “
This is a modern development, as I understand it. Since independence, the language is consciously being taught and re-imposed on the country, most of which had forgotten it. — except for some remote parts such as the Dingle Peninsula that you mentioned. The whole country might have gone back to speaking Gaelic - it being artifically restored - but, as you say, English is far too valuable today as a world language. Having command of it is in fact a major asset to the Irish, while Gaelic (like Icelandic) is of use nowhere but at home.
“In the 1300s, Flemish was the dominant language in Paris.”
Are you sure about that? I have never heard such a thing, and very much I doubt it. Paris is far from Flanders. You may be thinking of Brussels or Ghent. … (Perhaps it was dominant among FLEMISH MERCHANTS in Paris, who would have been influential at that time, but not in the common population.)
I don’t doubt that Hanseatic merchants and Genoese bankers in London were speaking German and Italian (among themselves), but not the entire population of London!
“The [Franks and Visigoths] kept the locals as workers (serfs), copying or maintaining the Roman social pattern that they had acquired with these territories. The AS, to say it again, did not have slaves or serfs, nor a Roman pattern, and thus no need for captives.”
