Britons Are Not All Immigrants. Why do People Keep Repeating This Rubbish?
In a recent ‘counter-protest’ against the ‘riots’ there was a man wearing a t-shirt which said, “We Are All Immigrants.”
I am going to be generous and call this a “paradox” and not a “lie”. This is because I’m a sceptic. If I were solemn, stern and severe, then I would have to say that it is a lie. We are not all immigrants.
But with language we have to be sceptical, not pedantic or solemn: and being sceptical involves being humorous, admitting a bit of mixed signals and crossed frequencies and unintended consequences and also – the grand political possibility that we may assert that something is the case when it is not the case (in one sense) although it magically becomes the case (in another sense) just because we have asserted it.
“We Are All Immigrants” is true and not true.
It is not true because we are not all immigrants. On the contrary, as Andrew Collingwood has shown in these pages, following Benjamin Schwarz, three-quarters of us – if we are descended from anyone living in the United Kingdom before, say, 1950 – have roots going back six thousand years and almost all of us have roots going back as far as the Angles and Saxons. No one knows exactly how many Vikings or Normans settled here, probably more of the former than the latter, but it is estimated that the only major ingresses of population between 1100 and 1950 were the Huguenots in the 16th Century and the Jews in the 19th and 20th Centuries, fleeing oppression. In short, historians and historical geneticists agree that Britain had until recently probably the most stable population on earth, not only for reasons to do with limited immigration but also to do with the remarkable continuity of laws and institutions that historians like Hume and Stubbs and Maitland liked to write about and considered constitutive of whatever good order we happen to enjoy.
But it is true because it is not a statement of fact but a statement of right. It exists, in the mind of the t-shirt wearing bien-pensants, as a statement of attitude, belief, aspiration. There has always been plenty of black in the Union Jack, as well as brown, yellow, green, and other assorted rainbow colours.
De facto, then, nay, we are not all immigrants, never were, bloody rubbish.
De iure, then, yea, we are all immigrants, not least because we want to show the world that we respect other cultures, are ‘open’, inclusive, diverse, etc.
Note that the first is a fact, and the second is a hope. The problem is not with the hope itself, but with the fact that the fact is obscured and even obliterated by the hope. The t-shirt-wearing ‘nice’ people believe, somehow, in their tiny factual minds, that the hope that “We Are All Immigrants” is, in fact, a fact.
What is this all about?
It is about the dread word, “solidarity”…
…as it gets mixed up with another word, “liberalism”.
Solidarity is a good old collectivist word. It means the status of “standing solid” with others. Surely a good thing. But it has been given a twist by liberalism.
Liberalism is a good old individualist word, oddly enough. It means the consciousness held by someone “standing somewhat apart from others” but it also means, “nonetheless standing in an attitude of generosity to others”.
What we have nowadays is a mixture of collectivism and individualism in this liberal solidarity. It involves a particularly generous form of standing solid with others. It means siding with the lower, the lesser, the excluded, the exploited, the subjugated. Siding with the murdered, the raped and the hated. With the poor, the lepers, the lame. The immigrants, the refugees, the decolonised. Oh, and, a bit more awkwardly, the women.
And this, in our time, has given us phenomena such as “Je suis Charlie”, #MeToo and now “We Are All Immigrants”.
The logic is: “I, a privileged member of a privileged society, acknowledge my privileges (simplified into a singular ‘privilege’), and ostentatiously and symbolically sacrifice this privilege by making political genuflections to certain (er, privileged) causes which always involve putting myself into the position of the less privileged – thus, happily, though ironically, raising my status.”
“Je suis Charlie” was relatively specific, since it concerned a single event.
#MeToo was a bit odd as it stretched from specific sympathy for those with Hollywood stories of being sexually exploited by others, to a general sympathy for everyone who might ever be exploited in this way. But notice the shape of the slogans. Not “Poor old Charlie” but Je suis Charlie. I sympathise with Charlie so much that I become Charlie. Solidarity becomes identification. Not “#HerToo” and not “#YouToo”, but “#MeToo”. #MeToo says: “Not only you are exploited: it is we women, we everyone, as well.”
And “We Are All Immigrants” generalises the point even further. Not merely is it I, Je, Me, but the collective We. Now we are no longer involved in individual identification: it is no longer a matter of willing, or hoping, or wanting. Nay, it is a matter of destiny. The t-shirt which says “We Are All Immigrants” says in full: “Sorry, you cannot argue with this. Whether you like it or not, Mr. Far-Right, and Mr. Mediocre White Male, you are like the Jamaicans who have come since the 1950s, the Poles who have come since the 2000s, the Bulgarians who have come since the 2010s, and the Syrians and Somalians who have come since the 2020s: you are a bleedin’ immigrant. And as for you, Mr. Nodogsnoblacksnoirish, you should refuse to let yourself into your own pub.”
Our slogan henceforth could be:
#Je-suis-Everyone (except those who reject this sentiment).
The tragedy of all this – the fact that I write about it in comic manner does not mean I want to suggest that it all just Wodehousian persiflage – is that what we are seeing running through our society at the moment is a great battle, or culture war, if you prefer, between the extremist grandads and the centrist dads:
- The extremist grandads are the people who – mostly out of prejudice (but sometimes out of conscious reflection) – observe that “We Are Not All Immigrants”: these are the people who base everything on this fact, and then perhaps add to this fact a hope that immigrants can be kept out, or limited somehow (for the sake of nation, tradition, culture, etc.); and
- The centrist dads are the people who are ostentatiously ‘nice’ and who therefore care not for facts, and live entirely in the hope that we can “imagine-all-the-people” lying down with lambs and lions and jackals in genial UN- and WEF- and WHO- and IPCC- and IOC-type harmony, living in a world free of Piketty-type inequalities, Fauci-type viruses and Packham-type meltdowns. These are the ones who say: “We Are All Immigrants.”
Needless to say, it is the latter who are either, if we are harsh, lying, or, if we are less harsh, stuck in a paradox. Either way, what they are saying cannot be simply true.
Dr. James Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Turkey.
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See also David Starkey’s video from yesterday: The British are second class citizens in their own country regarding the mob that gathered round the Clumsy Swan pub in B’ham, ruptured the liver of a man who tried to address the crowd and threatened the Sky News reporter. He quotes Superintendent Emlyn Richards verbatim as saying he went to the community leaders to ask them what kind of policing would be appropriate. Starkey goes on to quote a liaison officer, who says the English Defence League have gone now, you can leave your weapons back at the mosque and everything will be alright. The historian ‘tests’ the reasonableness and fairness of this approach by – rather brilliantly – imagining if the shoe were on the other foot. Would such an officer have said to an EDL gathering, “Look, those Muslims have gone now. You can deposit your baseball bats in the vestry of the Church of St George where the rector is sympathetic and everything will be alright.” Universal human rights set up by Churchill et al have been perverted into minority human rights, Starkey argues. Ditto equality legislation, protecting and privileging select groups, and the criminalisation of speech (‘hate… Read more »
I think the thing I have struggled to understand is the switch from general respect for the majority, to seeing the minorities as being constantly under threat by them. In general, I find the English to be benign, welcoming and respectful of others. Integration with our way of life starts at the school gates, and used to continue in the local pubs where mixed relationships and brown babies were a thing, long before the middle classes stopped sneering at outsiders. Now the middle classes seem to have decided that their failed policies on multi-culturalism are actually the fault of the people who have had least say in what has been done. I find the destruction of everything good about our nation most perplexing, as if everyone should be embarrassed beyond measure that we invented modernity through the Industrial Revolution. These are the same people who go on holiday and search for authentic local traditions and food and communal throat singing, and declare how wonderful it all is and what a tragedy it would be if it was lost. If you go back to the time of Empire, Indians didn’t become British, they weren’t forced to use another language, like in… Read more »
The easiest way to sort this out is to ask people where their ancestors were 1000 years ago.
Almost all the white people on the planet were right here in Europe, the ancestral homeland of Ethnic Europeans, before their great voyages of exploration.
Except those kidnapped for the White Slave Trade, which began as early as Roman times, when Hebrew Slavetraders followed the Roman armies into Gaul and Northern Europe, offering ready cash to the Roman soldiers for “war captives” to take back to Rome to be enslaved. Blond and redhaired captives fetched the highest prices, because their long hair was shaved off to make wigs for wealthy, dark-haired Romans. This slave trade was continued by the Radhanites in the sixth century, who dragged kidnapped blond Slavic children even as far as China along the Silk Road, because children were easier to feed and transport than adult slaves. The mile-towers along the Great Wall of China were constructed as safe resting places for these traders, to store the Imperial gold, and slaves.
As you know, that’s where the word “slave” comes from: “Slav”.
None of that history is ever taught in schools, of course…
“The easiest way to sort this out is to ask people where their ancestors were 1000 years ago.
Almost all the white people on the planet were right here in Europe, the ancestral homeland of Ethnic Europeans, before their great voyages of exploration.”
Excellent point. You could probably go back tens of thousands of years actually. You could argue that “we’re all immigrants” is true for most places because (if the “out of Africa” theory is to be believed) humans started somewhere in Africa, but I think that’s just being obtuse.
The “Out of Africa” theory, like “Global Warming” and “Australians hanging upside down on a global sphere”, will one day be debunked.
Australians like hanging upside down on a global sphere.
Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it.
Some researchers say that the Great Wall of China was not actually built as a defensive wall, but rather as an elevated military road, for the rapid movement of troops, and the protection of traders transporting slaves and gold.
As Donald Trump explained to America why building walls work he noted how the Chinese built the Great Wall of China and ‘look at that, no Mexicans’.
20 million or more White slaves taken by Muslims over 1400 years.
Black Muslims in Spain enslaved and killed millions.
1.5 million White slaves in the Barbary coast over 250 years including many Britons.
Muslims using Lundy island in the mouth of the Severn as slave trading base.
Vikings sold hundreds of thousands of White Britons into slavery to Muslims. That lucrative trade was one reason for their invasions. Dublin was a white slave port.
etc etc.
As you said, none of this is taught in history lessons. Nor the Celtic-Roman-Briton-Anglo-Saxon trading of White slaves. We are talking millions over the centuries. No need to bend a knee.
Yes, like the entire Irish village of Baltimore in West Cork, dragged off into the Muslim world as slaves in 1631.
But it’s important to note that slavery among Anglo-Saxons and other northern European tribes was normally a punishment for crime, in those times when there were no prisons, and the only alternatives were either heavy fines paid to the victims, execution, exile, or temporary enslavement if the criminal could not pay the fine.
“The easiest way to sort this out is to ask people where their ancestors were 1000 years ago.”
First nation Europeans were in Europe at least 30,000 years ago. There has been considerable movement around Europe (including Eastern Europe) of Europeans (not Africans, or Asians or anyone else). We have largely figured out how to get on and where the borders are. First Nation Americans have been in the Americas for half the time compared to Europeans in Europe and yet it is acceptable to consider the movement around the Americas of all the various tribes as normal and does not imply that they are immigrants.
As far as the British Isles, anyone Scottish, Irish or Welsh has been here at least 3,000 years and anyone Saxon, 1,500 years.
Modern Humans left Africa around 80,000 years ago and we haven’t sent Christmas Cards in a while.
(Apologies – you know all this)
All good points, but as a Christian, I do not believe in the “Out of Africa” theory. For me, it rates right up there with “Global Warming”, “White Privilege”, and “Taking the Knee”.
“persiflage”
That, right there, is a proper Scrabble word…
Too many letters, so only if you can add it onto another word.
The point about ‘becoming’ rather than empathising… I blame the Romans. It all started with “I am Spartacus”.
After all, what did the Romans ever do for us?
It would help if people knew what culture is – it’s not hair braids and diet, it’s “…the remarkable continuity of laws and institutions…” – our language, values, morals, manners, conventions.
All cultures are not equal and to be respected. All conflicts, wars are rooted in cultural differences which is why ‘multiculturalism’ fragments society, causes… what we are now seeing. Some think this is the plan to justify increased control over our freedom. They have a point given the behaviour of Labour Government and its Fascocialist behaviour
It is nothing to do with race or racism.
“We Are All Immigrants.”
An idea is something you have; an ideology is something that has you.
I can’t claim authorship nor remember to whom it should be attributed.
It does seem to sum up nicely the midden into which we all now sinking.
The ‘An idea is something…’ quote comes from Morris Berman the American historian, philosopher and author.
If we were all immigrants, we would all have community leaders. Ergo…
If you wanted to go back far enough you could argue none of us are immigrants because the land mass was in one piece: only man-made borders define divides and they are as meaningless as the invention of time. However, as the Bible mentions, the world was sundered and God caused us all to speak different languages. Whether you believe in a God or not the facts are essentially true. So then one can argue that borders were Your God’s plan and are, therefore, sacred. However, the really important things in any persons life, no matter religion or colour, are safety and harmony. It is a key point the Politicians and assorted nutcase groups never seem to understand. Pronouncing Inequality where it does not exist simply causes genuine inequality in another group. Look at recent events: they were not “riots” they were protests against the inequality. They were protests against white people being denigrated by the State. They were protests about the fact that atrocities against children are generally perpetrated by immigrants. They were protests that just down the road from Southport, in Manchester, children were slaughtered by someone the Government allowed to be here in the name of “Equality”… Read more »
Incidentally, carrying a bladed weapon is a 6 month mandatory jail sentence at minimum. No Muslims were arrested for carrying knives or machetes in that riot. Were the clearly seen Muslims who hospitalised that guy at the Pub even arrested?
Thank you for that crucial information. I hope King Charles will point that out sternly to the “community leaders” he’s reportedly visiting today, after his visit to the survivors of the Mass Stabbing at Southport and the families of the three little girls killed.
Do the Turks think of themselves as a nation of immigrants? If not, why not? The Turkic peoples first arrived there in the 11th century. That’s five centuries after the Germanic tribes first started to land in numbers in the British Isles.
Excellent point! And that’s seven centuries after the whole of Turkey was converted to Christianity, as shown by this great map video:
The Spread of Christianity: Part 1 (30-1000) – YouTube
Why do people continue to believe this? The reason can be seen in the expression on the face of the man wearing the sunglasses. Self-righteousness! What a rush!!!
The four pillars of traditional, cohesive and free societies: the family, the nation, property rights and religion (not in the sense that we all belong to the same church but that we all agree to a set of common values).
In order to enslave people, all four must be destroyed.
Large scale immigration and the accompanying propaganda (“there is nothing to see here, we’re all immigrants”) is a key weapon in this process.
Spot on.
😉
In general I agree with you but for ‘nation’ perhaps ‘national identity’ or ‘nationhood’ are more accurate than ‘nation’.
For a slightly more detailed expanded version of your account see my comment below.
Regarding nationhood, any nation can consist of divided factions which is what the UK is becoming – or in fact being turned into with what might be intent on the part of persons unknown.
The Union Flag is being derided as a symbol of divisiveness when it is a symbol of nationhood and unity in a United Kingdom.
It is a feature of the foolishness and/or shortsightedness or corruption of Whitehall and our political masters in failing to maintain a cohesive fair single nation and the destruction of and unfair distribution of jobs and wealth that the Kingdom has been factionalised upon nationalist lines in Ireland, Wales and Scotland with some even suggesting self-rule in Yorkshire.
Yes, the destruction is deliberate. How else will the Globalists create a One World Government.
It’s the Nations most likely to resist, starting with the UK, who are being destroyed by mass immigration by alien cultures/religions.
Britons Are Not All Immigrants. Why do People Keep Repeating This Rubbish? Dr Alexander please get with the programme. You don’t know why? And you are a Professor of political ‘science‘. And in Turkey of all countries which has an interesting political history and many internal and external threats. Here is a lesson in political ‘science‘ for you. This is about destabilisation of the UK. It is one part of a multifaceted approach. A problem is it is not clear whether those behind it include key players in government. That the security services seem to be sitting back and letting it happen suggests this might be part of an unpublished agenda to change the political system in the UK for an authoritarian one by provoking outrage in the population leading to violent opposition and then suppression of that violent opposition and then widespread repression of political opponents. If lockdowns were bad, Covid lockdowns proved the British are dead easy to suppress and meekly will do what they are told. The last time there was a civil war was four centuries or so ago under Cromwell and then the King and his mates still got back in power. Democracy did not… Read more »
A fine post. 👍
Thanks Hux. A point worth adding regarding the Left and Far Left loonies is they protest about Palestine and all kinds of things which have no relation to problems the working class face in the UK today. They studiously avoid protesting about social and economic problems facing Britons today. As Sun Tzu notes, you know your enemy by what he does and of course by what he doesn’t. And more especially what his true motives are. If there are any other issues anyone here can think of which the Left and Far Left should have been protesting about and were not, please add them to the following examples to get you thinking. None of them have placards or ‘T’ shirt slogans or chants calling for housing for homeless military veterans. None of them protest about the lack of housing for our 80,000 homeless young people. None of them protest about the lack of housing for our children in general. None of them protest about the opportunity economic and job inequalities in the UK particularly between the South-East, Wales, the North, Scotland and Northern Ireland. None of them ever protested about the last Tory administrations borrowing and spending an average annual… Read more »
Brilliant article, as ever.
I’ve never upped sticks and moved to another country to live. I was born in this country. I am therefore not an immigrant.
My parents never upped sticks and moved to another country to live. They too were born in this country.
My grandparents…..etc. So I am not even a 3rd generation immigrant.
My grandparents’ origins (by their surnames and also some family research) were Scotland, Ireland, Wales and … England, where they all resided all THEIR lives.
My ancestors will have lived in these islands for thousands of years.
So the claim that recent arrivals (including 2nd generation immigrants) are “as British as you and me” is transparently false. And so is the claim that we are all immigrants.
It’s just patronising, mendacious bollocks.
Needed saying. 👍
I’m Far White.
Not a typo.
Explained here.
Are you?
Absolutely. Apart from the parts which have freckles (thanks Nanna).
Heh, Heh.
A friend wrote almost the same thing in a PM to me today “Haha. Id be that but for my freckles!“
I’d love to go on a protest with a banner saying “Far Whites against Far Left Racists”.
This article needs sending far and wide, notably to a ‘Dr David Bull’, very aptly named new chairman of Reform and inverter of the Farage campaigns from the Kent coast. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book Dawa is also required reading and not quite nice for the MSM. In her lectionary ‘Dhimmitude’ is the key concept explaining our status now.