THE MYTHOF RACIAL PURITY

Racism has nothing to do with the degree of advancement of a country. It mainly has to do with the formation of national states and the people who were trapped in them and continue to be trapped through “national education”.

The race issue and the roots of racism has to be brought to the attention of young and educated individuals.

Racism cannot be born without a nation, an “imagined” national identity and country borders.

Nationalism is the father or racism and racism is the father of hatred whether that hatred is based on physical features, religious differences, customs and traditions and ethnic myths.

Children born in Greece are subjected to the compulsory education provided by the state of Greece. At school they learn that they are the glorious descendant of... Alexander the Great and at the same time, they are Christian Orthodox. Another child born a few kilometers eastwards learns that he is a glorious Turkish citizen and a Muslim as well. A child in England is trained to respect and love the queen etc.

Pink Floyd in Another Brick in the Wall denounce the "burning" of the child's brain during the education he receives from his nation-state which poisons his mind with ideas against nature such as religion and national identity. (In nature there are no borders, visas etc). These unnatural elements implanted in the childrenʼs brains by those who posses authority, will reside in their minds permanently allowing all sorts of manipulations to take place. The band portrays schools as a meat factory where all kids look the same and behave like robots. The kids enter the factoryʼs mincing machine and slowly become ground beef.

Nazis and FascistsIt may come as a surprise to many people but Mussolini was quoted saying to Emil Ludwig: “There is no pure race. The laughable fact is that none of the champions of German racial purity was German: Gobineau was French, Chamberlain English, Woltmann Jewish.”

Nevertheless, Mussolini proved much worse than Macchiavelli after having chosen to follow the footsteps of Gobineau, Chamberlain and Woltmann. In 1938, he and his Fascist party introduced the “race purity” laws in Italy. Hitlerʼs “self-education” led him to believe in the Aryan myth. In his speech to representatives from the medical associations in Germany, he stated, on 6 April 1933: “In the world of the intellect, the greatest advances have never been made by elements outside of the race, but rather by Aryan and German brains.” In his book Mein Kampf, a total abomination for any intellectual, Hitler states that the emancipation of blacks is an act against nature (pp.478-479, 316, 322) as he believes that it is a criminal lunacy “to teach a half-monkey to believe that he can make it as a lawyer” and he continues: “All that we admire on this earth —science and art, technology and invention— all of it, is the exclusive creation of a few peoples and perhaps, initially, of a single people. Upon those peoples depends the existence of civilization as a whole. If they perish, all that is fine upon this earth will be buried with them... Denied the possibility of using men of inferior race, the Aryans would never have been able to take their first steps towards their subsequent civilization, just as, without the aid of some animals which man has successfully domesticated, it would have been impossible to perfect the technology which today allows us gradually to dispense with those very same animals...”

Ernest Krieck, a noted Nazi theorist, wrote a book where he attempts to subject science to National Socialist politics (p.17). He states: “The age of ʽpure reasonʼ, of ʽscience for the sake of scienceʼ, of ʽdisinterested scienceʼ, is over. Any science that has an active contribution to make towards a broad objective becomes political, and thus, like politics, has its principles and its accomplishments alike, imbued with racism, nationalism and National Socialism.”

Fascism and Nazism have always been hostile to intellectualism. On 11 May 1933, Goebbels announced that “Intellectualism has had its day”.

On 25 March 1933, Goering who was then the Minister of the Interior in Nazi Germany announced to the foreign press representatives: “Plainly, anti-Semitism is part of the official program of the National Socialist Party and the manner in which the latter has molded its storm troops makes it plain that today every member of the storm troops looks at Professor Einstein with a feeling of racial superiority.”

One of the most noted Nazi scientists, the race professor H. Günther once announced: “Only regeneration of the Nordic blood, to which the Indo-Germanic peoples are indebted for their historical greatness, can ward off defeat. Rebirth is impossible until the Nordics become many and strong again. Onwards, to Nordification!”

Even the temple of Delos did not escape from the plans of the National Socialists. Architect Hermann Wille, while at a meeting of the Society for the Study of Germanic Pre-History, argued that the temple of Delos supposedly demonstrated the Germanic influence and some Germanic temples supposedly date back to the Bronze Age.

To Nazis, Jesus Christ was born of a blue-eyed, blond-haired mother by a German soldier who had enlisted in the Roman army. However, these fake and fabricated Pan Germanic myths didnʼt stop there. The Prussian minister of Public Education reached back even further to the Ice Age, writing in his circular: “History textbooks designed for Prussian youngsters should start with the Ice Age in Central Europe because prehistory is an eminently national science and will rebut the commonly held prejudices regarding the inferiority of the culture of the Germans, our ancestors.” “Teachers must briefly demonstrate how the Nordic race and the Falish race (a neologism devised by German racists to refer to what some ethnologists refer to as the Dalic race) spread throughout the North and Centre of Europe.” “The Hindus, the Medes, the Persians and the Hittites had Nordic roots. Similarly, Greek history should be traced back to central Europe; indeed, the conquering Hellenes were Nordic and it was they that formed the master-caste in the country.” “Democracy has triggered race mixing. Depopulation was the ruination of the Nordic race in Greece. Thus, in Italy, the strife between patricians and plebeians was a racial struggle: the vast majority of the population of Italy was made up of descendents of Oriental slaves. The migration of the Germanic peoples (the barbarian invasions) injected fresh Germanic blood into a hodgepodge of races in the degenerate later empire. Which explains the fresh cultural upsurge of the Middle Ages, since this took place only in countries where the Germanic tribes finally settled: Northern Italy (as distinct from the South), Spain, France and England”...

What still amazes modern day historians is the ability of the propaganda scientists in Nazi Germany to give scientific value to their Aryan tale: "In non-Nordics, the roots of teeth are slanted more, as they are in animals, and this corresponds with the protruding upper jaw in animals. As the color red has an exciting effect, the light pink lips of a Nordic man, by inviting kisses, play an important part in love-play.”

“The mastication of the Nordic who tends to crush and grind food down is carried out with mouth closed. By contrast, in non-Nordics, vertical mastication tends to be noisy, like in animals.”

“...in non-Nordics, wide mouth and thick lips are indicative of concupiscence. Ingestion is noisy and eager and sensation-hungry. Movement is frantic and pleasure is taken in the ability to cause upset.”

“Shame proper is pretty much non-existent in non-Nordics, who in fact use the word ʽshameʼ to designate the sexual organs. Besides, the dark-skinned man finds it very difficult to blush from embarrassment.”

“The non-Nordic is half way between Nordic man and the animals, coming right after the anthropomorphic monkeys. Thus he is not the perfect man nor in fact a man as against an animal; he is merely a transition, an intermediate stage. The designation ʽun-manʼ would be a lot fairer and particularly appropriate”...

Jazz music was banned by Goebbels on the grounds that it is African-American music, but he pronounced that the saxophone is ʽAryanʼ in that it was “invented by the German Adolf Sax” and because it was played in military bands.

Germans and JewsNazi Germany hated Jews and considered them as the ultimate evil. To Germans, the Jews were not only a race but also an inferior one. However, there is enormous anthropological variety among Jews that proves exactly the opposite. Prunier, Bey, Lombroso and other have proven that the Jews of North Africa, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula and the French Midi are dolicocephalic where as Kopernicki, Mayer and others have concluded that The Polish, Russian and German Jews are brachycephalic. There are also black Jews who live on the fringes of the Sahara Desert and the Falashas in Ethiopia (Abyssinian Jews) as well as in India. There are Jews who have light skin and blonde hair, dark skin and brown or black eyes and tall Jews (Southern Russia). There are Jews of Slavic origin mainly found in Ukraine and Poland.

The people who were originally from Sarmatia but finally settled between the Caspian and the Black Sea, known as the Khazars, converted to Judaism around 763 B.C. In the 4th century the Khazars were subjugated by the Huns (Germanic tribes) and later by the Avars and Turks. In the 7th century they defeated Persia and allied themselves with the Byzantine Empire. In the first half of the 8th century, their capital, Semender, was conquered by the Arabs and they were driven into Mesopotamia. This population traffic leads us to believe that there was a mixing of Mongolian-Semitic-Mediterranean Greek types in the process.

Not even the ancient Jews were an ethnic unity by any means. During the times of King Herod, the Jewish people were a mixture of Egyptians, Idumeans, Greeks, Syrians and Phoenicians. Josephus Flavius (De Bello Judaico, Book VII, Chapter III, part 3) asserts that many Greeks in Antioch converted to Judaism. In a book titled Man and the Earth, the author Elisée Reclus states that the Aryans of Armenia were heavily judaicized and were regarded by the Byzantines as belonging to the Jewish race due to their nomadic lifestyle. That proves the resemblance between the Armenians and the Jews. There were even Jews who became sovereign over the whole Aiasdan region, including Georgia.

The myth that all Jews have “aquilinine” nose is another product of the Nazi propaganda. Only 13% of the Jews have such nose. All the rest have “Greek” noses. Furthermore, a comparative analysis of blood shows that that there is no such thing as “Jewish blood”, “Greek blood”, “French blood” or “German blood”, nor any other national blood type. The Nazi professor Fischberg claimed that the Jews constituted a fixed human type identifiable at a glance or by smell. Pure Idiocy! Elisée Reclus and Bernard Lazare noted that the Jews constitute a nation “insofar as they share an awareness of a collective past of joys and sufferings, sediment of identical traditions such as the more or less illusory belief in a shared ancestry”. But, doesnʼt this apply to all other so called nations as well?

The Racist Guidelines for a good Marriage In Nazi Germany, “a woman who willingly consorted with blacks, yellows, half-breeds or Jews, placed herself outside of any lawful protection and the children, legitimate or illegitimate, would not be able to claim the rights of German citizens. Rape committed by a person of a different race is to be punishable by flogging, forced labor, confiscation of assets and definitive expulsion from the German Reich...”

“There are enough willing and hard-working men and youths available to fertilize women and girls and luckily one vigorous male per ten to twenty women who have not yet lost the urge to bear children, if only we can do away with the cultural and unnatural nonsense of everlasting monogamy”.

“...The Third Reich is not founded on the principle of monogamy. Adultery is not regarded as a crime unless it is liable to harm the purity of the race, which is to say, unless a German woman or man has sexual intercourse with blacks, yellows, Jews, etc.” (The Brown Book, French edition, pp 202–203).

A draft bill drawn up by Professor Stammler“for the preservation of race purity” proposed: “1. Marriages between the German and foreign races are banned. Those already contracted retain their validity; but further marriages may not be contracted and will not be recognized. 2. Extra-marital sexual relations between Germans and foreigners of different race are punishable by penal incarceration of the foreigner and imprisonment of the German partner. Prostitutes are not covered by this legislation. 3. The entry into this country of those outside of the race is not permitted except in special cases. Immigration is forbidden. 4. Changes of name which generally have no purpose other than to conceal racial origin are banned pending further notice.

In his criminal code Hans Kerre (Prussian Justice Minister) titled “Race Crime Law”, stated: “Any sexual liaison between a German and a person of another race is to be regarded as race treason and both culprits will face punishment. Even should precautionary steps be taken within such liaisons, this will not prevent their being looked upon as constituting sexual liaisons falling under the rigors of this present law. Deliberate concealment of oneʼs real race in sexual liaisons outside of marriage or within marriage will be regarded as an aggravating circumstance.

From the point of view of civil law, marriages between persons of differing races are to be declared null and void.

Anyone who may favor sexual relations between a member of the German race and a member of another race, thereby contributing to the decadence and demoralization of the German people, will be guilty of treason against the race. Such treachery will be found even where contraceptive measures are taken". Offences against race honor are punishable under the article that states: "A German who offends German feelings through the maintenance of relations with persons belonging to colored races becomes culpable of offences against German honor.”

German neoclassical statue where the Nordic racial features are idealized. (Arno Breker, 1939).

Dr. Heinsius of Berlin, in cooperation with the Reich Interior ministry, the Racial Hygiene Office and the National Socialist Partyʼs Race Bureau listed the 10 rules of a proper German Aryan marriage: 1.Remember that you are German.2.If you are genetically healthy, you should marry. 3.Keep your body healthy. 4.Keep your spirit and mind healthy. 5.As a German, do not choose as a spouse anyone other than a German or someone of Nordic blood. 6.When choosing a spouse, check into ancestry. 7.Health is also a condition of outer beauty. 8.Do not marry for love. 9.Do not choose a playmate, but look to your spouse as a marriage partner. 10.The real meaning of marriage is healthy progeny. Survival is assured after the third or fourth child. SterilizationThe idea of eugenics is neither new nor a Nazi invention. From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, we read: “Although philosophers have contemplated the meaning and value of eugenics at least since Plato recommended a state-run program of mating intended to strengthen the guardian class in his Republic, the modern version of eugenics had its start with the 19th century cousin of Charles Darwin, British scientist Francis Galton (1883). Galton was interested in 'improving human stock' through scientific management of mating; his explicit goal was to create better humans. His ideas were taken up widely in the early part of the 20th century by seemingly well-intended scientists and policy makers, particularly in the United States, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries. Notable eugenicists included Alexander Graham Bell and Margaret Sanger. Eugenicists had two-fold aims: to encourage people of good health to reproduce together to create good births (what is known as 'positive' eugenics), and to end certain diseases and disabilities by discouraging or preventing others from reproducing (what is known as 'negative' eugenics). In the United States, programs to encourage positive eugenics involved the creation of 'Fitter Family Fairs' in which families competed for prizes at local county fairs, much in the way that livestock is judged for conformation and physical dexterity (Stern 2002). Negative eugenics took the form of encouraged or forced sterilizations of men and women deemed unfit to reproduce (in the language of the day, this included individuals who were 'poor, mentally insane, feeble-minded, idiots, drunken' and more). At the time, many eugenicists seemed to assume that social and behavioral conditions, such as poverty, vagrancy or prostitution, would be passed from parent to child, inherited as traits rather than shared as common social situations.”

The racial form of Eugenics, however, is where the Nazis based their “race continuity” and “pure blood” theories. Undoubtedly, the Nazi sterilization program was enforced for political reasons and was taken to the most nonsensical extremes.

Dr. Vellguth wrote in a leading medical review (Aerzliche Mitteilungen, Leipzig, 20 May 1933) in praise of sterilization: “The infiltration of foreign blood into the body of our people must be prevented. The Jews, the Mongols and others can therefore be lawfully sterilized with their consent, be they healthy or ailing individuals.” The good doctor goes on to suggest “encouraging persons of different race to allow themselves to be sterilized by offering a reasonably high premium.”

New TribalismsIn Austria in October 1933, the courts granted a divorce in a marriage contracted between an Aryan and a Jewish woman, in a verdict in which the grounds cited include incompatibility deriving from race difference between the spouses, a difference that ought “in a symbiosis as close as marriage, inevitably trigger profound frictions.”

In Lithuania the National Socialist Party there called for a ban on marriages between Jews and non-Jews. In France we have observed the launching of a blatantly racist and anti-semitic Celtic League. In the United States of America there were laws prohibiting marriages between blacks and whites. There were also universities closed to black students and anthropologists who talked of an American race. In Italy there were and still are many racist newspapers and a few political parties that support “national purity”. As a matter of fact, a non Japanese who happens to walk in a big city like Tokyo or Osaka, he may be blatantly called “gaikokujin” (foreigner) followed by a shout expressive of anger “Get Out of Japan”. There are many Japanese who insist that they find the smell of white people offensive. In the nostrils of the Japanese, who are also expert in matters of race smells, white people all smell alike, regardless of their origin.

The Japanese racists claim that “The most functional countries in the world are Japan and South Korea... They believe in cultural monoculturalism mixed with a free-market democracy... We believe in cultural monoculturalism and to a large degree ethnocentrism, because we know that is the only proven way of preserving social cohesion levels required to facilitate a welfare state. We believe … that the fundamental requirement for a democracy and a welfare state is social cohesion and a non-reformable cultural conservative framework. And as history shows, you cannot have social cohesion in a multicultural society. The US illustrates this quite well.”

In his book titled “New Tribalisms, The resurgence of Race and Ethnicity”, Sociologist Michael W. Hughey notes: “Perhaps, it would be helpful at the outset to state what a nation is not". Despite its habitual misuse as a synonym for either (1) a state (for example the League of Nations, the United Nations) or (2) the population of a state without regard to its ethnic composition (for example, "the British nation, even though the British people are composed, inter alia, of the Cornish, English, Manx, Scottish, and Welsh nations), the nation is neither. "The American nation," whether used in reference to the country called the United States or in reference to the multi-ethnic citizenry of that country, is also a misnomer.

In its pristine meaning, a nation is a group of people whose members: believe they are ancestrally related. [Nation derives from the past participle of the Latin verb nasci ("to be born"), and hence the Latin noun nationem, which connoted breed or race. Ethnic is derived from the closest equivalent to nationem in ancient Greek, ethnos, and thus ethnic group, properly used, also refers, in Max Weber's words, to "those human groups that entertain a subjective belief in their common descent."] It is the largest group to share such a myth of common descent; it is, in a sentient sense, the fully extended family. In some cases, the myth of common descent has been given specific content through putative ties to a legendary figure (Noah has been particularly popular) or to an earlier people (Trojans, Phoenicians, and one of the ten lost tribes of Israel have all been broadly claimed as progenitors).

While interesting, such genealogical specificity is not essential to that intuitive sense of kinship which is the glue of the national bond. Indeed, where such a genealogical myth exists, it is often most questionable whether the preponderant number of members of a nation are aware of it. [See the New York Times Magazine (27 March, 1988, p. 77) for an interesting discussion with Korean university students who, after noting with envy that the Japanese have their "National myths about racial purity and the divine ancestry of their Emperor," suggest that the myth of a divine creator of the Korean nation must be more broadly propagated. They refer to the legend of Tangun, purportedly the offspring of a god and a bear, who is said to have founded the first Korean dynasty on 3 October 2333 B.C. It is evident from the context that the students do not believe that many Koreans are familiar with the myth.]

Familiarity with Irish mythology and the name of Cuchulain is no more essential to a sense of being Irish than is knowledge of the O'Connell family's genealogy essential for a person with that surname to feel that he is descended from a line of O' Connells stretching back to a pre-recorded era. Moreover, a specific myth of national descent which proves voguish for a time within certain circles, may be subsequently replaced by a totally incompatible myth of descent, or even Jettisoned without replacement, while causing no perceptible damage to the sense of nationalism. [For a historical account of two competing myths involving the English nation - one which traced the English to the Trojans, the other to ancient Germanic tribes, see Hugh MacDougall, Racial Myths in English History, Montreal, 1982.]

Furthermore, several contending genealogical myths may exist conterminously, also without perceptible effect on a national identity. The Basque nation is illustrative: Today there are still those who maintain that the Basques are descendants of the survivors of the lost continent, Atlantis. Others claim they are one of the long lost tribes of Israel. Some claim the Basques to be the only direct descendants of the Cro-Magnon people who dwelt in south-western Europe some thirty to forty thousand years ago. Others hold that they descend from a people who migrated from the Caucasus. Yet still others maintain that the Basques came originally from northern Africa. But amidst this proliferation of contending accounts of their ancestry, Basque nationalists are agreed on one point: the Basques are a distinct national group, unrelated to all those around them.

A myth with content is therefore not essential to nationhood. All that is irreducibly required for the existence of a nation is that the members share an intuitive sense of the group s separate origin and evolution. To aver that one is a member of the Japanese, German, or Thai nation is not merely to identify oneself with the Japanese, German, or Thai people of today, but with that people and its saga throughout time. Logically, such a sense of one's nation must rest upon a presumption that somewhere in a hazy, pre-recorded era there existed a Japanese, German, or Thai Adam and Eve. [Seldom, however, will this assumption be made as explicit as it was by a 16th century Flemish physician (Joannes Becanus). It was his stated conviction that German was the language spoken in the Garden of Eden and was the language of the original Old Testament.] But logic operates in the realm of the rational and conscious; convictions concerning the singular origin and evolution of one's nation belong to the realm of the non- (note: not ir-) rational and subconscious.

Because its roots lie in the subconscious, rather than in reason, the conviction that one's nation was somehow created sui generis and remained essentially unadulterated down to the present is immunized against contrary fact. There is hardly a nation whom historians have not established to be the offspring of several ethnic strains. The English, for example, are (at the least) a compound of Celtic Briton with a heavy overlay of Germanic Angle, Saxon, Jute, Dane, and Norman; The French are a concoction of Celtic Gaul and Germanic Frank, Burgundian, Norman, and Visigoth. And a physical anthropologist has recently cast serious doubt upon the Japanese claim of ethnically pure descent at (New York Times, 6 June 1989). But knowledge of contrary data and even its rational acceptance need not alter the subconscious conviction that one's nation has been ethnically hermetical. Despite the past infusion of Teutonic blood, an Englishman senses no kinship with a German.

From what has already been said, it is clear that the myth of common descent which defines the nation will seldom accord with factual history, and this divergence is what has led many students of nationalism astray. After noting that most nations can be shown to be the offspring of several peoples, they have concluded that ethnic purity cannot be accepted as a criterion for nationhood. But this conclusion ignores a primary rule of human behavior: it is not what is but what people perceive as is that has behavioral consequences. And, as we have noted, people can retain an intuitive conviction concerning the ethnic purity of their nation whatever the facts, and this conviction is a fundamental factor in ethnopsychology. It is this perceived association between exclusive descent and the nation which accounts for the once popular and still not totally passe practice of inter-utilizing the terms race and nation. References to an English, French, or other national race were very common in the pre-World War II literature. Moreover, there is, of course, a measure of factual accuracy in referring to a nation as a descent group, since a nation has for some generations been an essentially endogamous group and must remain so if it is to survive as such.

In sharp contrast with most academic analysts of nationalism, those who have successfully mobilized nations have understood that at the core of ethnopsychology is the sense of shared blood, and they have not hesitated to appeal to it. In general, therefore, nationalistic speeches and proclamations are more productive areas for research into the emotional/psychological nature of nationalism than are scholarly works. Too often such speeches and proclamations have been precipitously dismissed as propaganda in which the leadership did not truly believe. But nationalism is a mass phenomenon, and the degree to which its inciters are true believers does not affect its reality. The question is not the sincerity of the propagandist, but the nature of the mass instinct to which he or she appeals.

Consider, then, Bismarck's famous exhortation to the Germans, spread at the time throughout more than thirty sovereign entities, urging them to unite in a single state: "Germans, think with your blood!"Adolph Hitler's repeated appeals to the racial (read ethnic) purity of the German nation (Volk) are notorious. To take but two examples: In a speech in Munich in 1933, he proclaimed:

"The realization of the fundamental conception of a national policy which finds its expression in the doctrine of 'Blood and Soil' ─ a conception which has been re-awakened by National Socialism-will mean the most profound revolutionary transformation that there has ever been. Our fundamental demand for the strengthening of the racial bases of our people's life which is represented by these words and which at the same time includes every possible safeguarding of our existence as a people determines also the aims of National Socialism alike in its domestic and foreign policy.

The inner regeneration, the Constitution of a people determined by that people's system of values and anchored in its blood, conditions also in the last resort the unity of its will that unity which alone puts it into a position in which it can with success conduct the fight for its existence...

When alike in our domestic and foreign policy we bring to realization the fundamental principle of Blood and Soil, then in the future for the first time we shall be no longer tossed hither and thither by events: we ourselves shall then be the master of circumstances".

And in an election campaign speech in Koenigsberg which opened his 1938 election drive, Hitler declared with even more poignancy: "In Germany today we enjoy the consciousness of belonging to a community, a consciousness which is far stronger than that created by political or economic interests. That community is conditioned by the fact of a blood-relationship. Man to-day refuses any longer to be separated from the life of his people (Volkstum); to that he clings with a resolute affection. He will bear extreme distress and misery, but he desires to remain with his people. [It is this noble passion which alone can raise man above thoughts of gain and profit.] Blood binds more firmly than business".

It is ironic that Benito Mussolini, to whom Hitler was indebted for the inspiration of numerous nationalistic motifs, should have come to power in a state characterized by significant ethnic heterogeneity. His task was therefore far more difficult: if he were to mobilize all segments of the population through nationalistic appeals, he must first convince the Lombards, Venetians, Florentines, Neapolitans, Calabrians, Sardinians, Sicilians etcat of their consanguinity. To this end, the local vernaculars were outlawed and state propaganda seldom passed up the opportunity to emphasize a common Italian identity. In his public speeches, Mussolini would typically preface each major section with "Italians!", much as his contemporary, Stalin, would, in the course of a major speech, periodically address his audience as "Comrades!"

One of the more artfully worded illustrations of Mussolini's desire to inculcate a sense of homogeneous Italianness was his 1935 announcement of the invasion of Ethiopia: "Blackshirts of the Revolution, men and women of Italy, Italians scattered throughout the world, across the mountains and across the oceans, listen! A solemn hour is about to strike in the history of the fatherland. Twenty million men are at this moment gathered in the piazzas through the whole of' Italy. Never in the history of mankind has there been seen a more gigantic demonstration. Twenty million men: a single heart, a single will, a single decision. This demonstration is meant to show and it does show to the world that the identity between Italy and Fascism is perfect, absolute, and unchangeable. ... Not only is an army marching toward its objectives, but 44,000,000 Italians are marching in unison with this army. ... Never more than in this historic epoch has the Italian people revealed the force of its spirit and the power of its character".

Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs. This includes, depending on the particular manner of practice, the language, race, culture, religion, and customs of the "nation" in its primal sense of those who were born within its culture. This form of nationalism arose in reaction to dynastic or imperial hegemony, which assessed the legitimacy of the state from the top down, emanating from a monarch or other authority, which justified its existence.

More explicit in its insistence on the ethnic and racial purity of all Italians was the manifesto promulgated throughout Italy in 1938: "The root of differences among peoples and nations is to be found in differences of race. If Italians differ from Frenchmen, Germans, Turks, Greeks, etc., this is not just because they possess a different language and different history, but because their racial development is different. ... A pure 'Italian race' is already in existence. This pronouncement [rests] on the very pure blood tie that unites present-day Italians... This ancient purity of blood is the Italian nation's greatest title of nobility".

Nationalistic appeals to ethnic purity were fully consonant, of course, with fascist dogma. More surprising is that Marxist-Leninist leaders, despite the philosophical incompatibility between communism and nationalism, should feel compelled to resort to nationalistic appeals to gain the support of the masses, But both Marx and Lenin, while insisting that nationalism was a bourgeois ideology that must be anathema to all communists, nonetheless appreciated its influence over the masses. They not only condoned but recommended appealing to it as a means of taking power. Even with this men background, however, it appears strange to encounter Mao Tse-tung referring in 1938 to the Chinese Communists as "part of the Great Chinese nation, flesh of its flesh and blood of its blood".

Mao was also given to familial terms, such as brothers and sisters, when addressing the Han nation, as witness the following exhortation, written in 1931: "Brothers! Sisters! Can we allow the reactionary rule to connive freely with imperialism to carve us up like sheep? Can we watch our land being forcefully taken away by Japanese imperialism? Can we endure the cruelest kind of oppression, slaughter, and humiliation suffered by slaves in the colonies? Can we silently watch our own brothers being whipped, killed, and slaughtered? Can we unfeelingly watch our sisters being molested, insulted and raped? No! No! Ten thousand times no! We must rise up in unison to oppose, oppose the aggression of Japanese and international imperialism, oppose the shameless capitulation of the Kuomintang rulers, to imperialism, and its betrayal of China!"

These same familial forms of address were used in a later proclamation, which addition made explicit reference to the ancestral ties of all Han: "Beloved Compatriots! The Central Committee of the CCP respectfully and most sincerely issues the following manifesto to all fathers, brothers, aunts, and sisters throughout the country: [W]e know that in order to transform this glorious future into a new China, independent, free, and happy, all our fellow countrymen, every single zealous descendent of Huang-ti [the legendary first emperor of China] must determinedly and relentlessly participate in the concerted struggle".

At the peak of Mao's campaign to woo the masses, the standard description of the Chinese Communist Party as the vanguard of the proletariat was replaced by "the vanguard of the Chinese nation and the Chinese people".

Ho Chi Minh, the father of the Vietnamese communist movement, also appealed to common ancestors and made use of terms connoting familial relationships, when courting the support of the masses: "Compatriots in the South and the Southern part of Central Viet-Nam! The North, Center, and South are part and parcel of Viet-Nam! ... We have the same ancestors, we are of the same family, we are all brothers and sisters. ... No one can divide the children of the same family. Likewise, no one can divide Viet-Nam".

To repeat: unlike most academic writers on nationalism, political leaders of the most diverse ideological strains have been mindful of the common blood component of ethnonational psychology and have not hesitated to appeal to it when seeking popular support.

The sense of kinship among members of a nation explains why surnames often serve as the principal marker of national identity. Thus, in the struggle against aristocratic privilege, which commenced in 17th century Britain, it was common practice to point to the prevalence of Norman surnames are among the aristocracy as evidence of their foreign roots and non-membership in the English-Saxon nation.

Far from being distressed at having one's national ancestry aired in this manner, the author of an 1874 study, after examining the list of surnames in the London Post Office Directory, gloated that the ruling intellectual aristocracy was still firmly in Norman hands.

Because of the saliency of the surname as a badge of national ancestry, those wishing to join or pass as members of a nation other than that into which they were born have often elected to hide their ancestry and to adopt a new one by changing their surname. Perhaps the most famous person to do so was Napoleon. Born into a Corsican family and having actively supported in his youth the separation of Corsica from France, Napoleon subsequently decided his aspirations were far too amplitudinous to be carried to fruition by such a numerically small people. He therefore francofied his name, passed himself off as ethnically French, and harnessed his ambitions to French nationalism.

Changes of surname have not always been voluntary. In some cases, governments desirous of assimilating an ethnic minority, have required that members of the minority accept a surname generally recognized as belonging to the dominant national element. A recent case of this was offered by the Bulgarian government which insisted that all Turks and other Moslem groups within Bulgaria legally adopt Bulgarian surnames (a policy discarded only in 1990 following the introduction of glasnost and perestroika). By such policies governments have shown their awareness that a surname can be a constant reminder that one's ancestry is distinct from that of the state's dominant group and that the consequent feeling of alienation can weaken the sense of loyalty to the state.

Nationalism on steroids!: When an ideology becomes materialized, the situation gets really dangerous. Fanaticism, intolerance, arrogance, mischief, racism and many other passions follow almost immediately in a desperate and inhumane attempt to give validity to those ideological movements.In the right photo, right-wing Greek “patriots” attempt to cleanse Greece from immigrants. That is, the descendants of Slavs, Albanians, Turks, Armenians, Vlachs, etc.,(Modern Greeks) who happen to have the illusion that they are the descendants of the ancient Greeks, chase Pakistanis, Hindus, and so forth, people who do not have the same illusion with them. But if those immigrants manage to stay in Greece alone or with their children (which will go to Greek schools), they will soon behave like the rest of the "Greeks" and share the same illusion with them although they are a bit darker in the skin. Many Greeks today have a somewhat darker skin than others, anyway.

It is its intuitive conviction of common descent that causes ethnonational identity to be more deeply rooted and potent than are non-kinship group identities, such as those flowing from common class, common religion, common locale (or region), or common citizenship. In many instances, these nonkindred identities may be perceived by the individual as free of conflict with his national identity. Indeed, where such a non-kindred group closely coincides with one's nation ─as, for example, religion in the case of the Armenians, Druze, Sikhs, and Tibetans─ it will reinforce the sense of national cohesion and uniqueness. [There are those who maintain that Druzes and Sikhs are only religious groups and not nations. However, a non-proselytizing religion which survives for several generations, because of its emphasis uponendogamy, creates in time a national consciousness - that is to say, not just a sense of shared religion but a sense of common kinship. In turn, the sense of national identity often outlasts adherence to the faith.] However, when a non-kindred identity is perceived as irreconcilable conflict with one's national identity, it is the latter that customarily proves the stronger.

Thus Ayatollah Khomeini's crusade failed. His revolution within Iran incited numerous populist movements elsewhere, which drew heavily upon Islamic traditions and symbolism, but they operated within the confines of national groups. In the war between Iran and Iraq, for example,Baghdad successfully countered Khomeini's Islamic-couched appeals by describing the war as a non-religious struggle between Arabs and Persians.

The interrelationship between national identity and the identity which flows from citizenship in a state merit closer scrutiny since, as noted, the two are often confused. Loyalty to the state and its institutions, properly termed patriotism, can either reinforce or conflict with nationalism. Within true nation- states- the approximately ten per cent of all states which are essentially ethnically homogeneous-patriotism and nationalism clearly reinforce each other.

The state is seen as the political expression or embodiment of the nation. Leaders can invoke with equal effectiveness the nation (for example, der Volk) or the country (Deutschland) because each triggers the same psychological vibrations among the (German) populace.

This blurring of nationalism and patriotism into a single, reinforcing unity is also evident in the case of a staatvolk, that is to say, a national group living within a multiethnic state but within which they are numerically, culturally, and politically preeminent. Such a group also tends to think of the state as the political extension of the nation, The English tendency to so view the United Kingdom is manifest, inter alia, in their tendency to use the term England to describe the entire country and English to describe all the people therein.

A recent illustration of both is offered by the commentary of David Loviband in the Sunday Telegraph (London) of 15 October 1989. Referring to the then current debate concerning the number of British passports to be granted to Hong Kong residents prior to the Colony's reannexation by Beijing, he noted the "profound foreignness of the Hong Kong people" and then continued: "The prospect of an unprecedented influx of Chinese immigrants obliges us to consider whether the pernicious doctrine of multi-racialism has so debilitated the English that they have lost their voice and no longer think of themselves as the only possessors of England. Barely a generation ago these islands were occupied by a single people. Thirty years on and the English have become "the white section of the community."

As in the case of nations with their own state, staatvolk tend to perceive no distinction between nationalism and patriotism.

The greatest potentiality for a conflict between nationalism and patriotism is found on the part of national minorities. For such peoples, loyalty to nation and loyalty to state do not reinforce one another.

This need not mean the two loyalties are seen as incompatible. Attitudinal data collected from the principal national minorities within the democratic states of Western Europe and Canada demonstrate that the state and its institutions enjoy a significant level of good will. The attachment to one's own people and particular homeland (Basqueland, Quebec, Scotland, etc.) is greater than the attachment to country, but Spain, Canada, Britain, etc. evoke a consequential, if lesser, level of affection. In each case, only a minority supports secession.

[By contrast, a series of polls taken in the Baltic Republics, Azerbaijan, and Georgia during 1989 indicated that a majority of those polled desired to secede from the Soviet Union.] In each case also, however, a substantial majority do desire a radical restructuring of the political system which would permit their nation to exert far more control over its welfare and destiny. [Scottish attitudes have been difficult to anticipate. In a 1979 referendum, only 52 per cent of a small turnout voted for devolution. But in 1982, a poll showed that 23 percent desired independence, 53 percent desired greater autonomy, and only 19 percent favored the status quo.] If frustration in this matter should lead to a perception of nationalism and patriotism as being in irreconcilable conflict, concern for one's own nation can be expected to win the test of loyalties.

The sense of kinship which lies at the heart of national consciousness also accounts for the ugly manifestations of inhumanity that often erupt in the relations among national groups. In a most recent illustration of such behavior, in the late 1980s Soviet authorities proved totally unprepared for the scale of the brutality that surfaced in the wake of perestroika and glasnost, as national groups across the entire southern USSR gave vent to their previously pent-up ethnic enmities. Bloodletting broke out among Georgians and Ossetians, Georgians and Abkhazis, Georgians and Azerbaijanis, Kazakhs and various "Caucasians," Turkmen and Armenians, Tajiks and Kirghiz, Uzbeks and Mesklictians, and Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Equally inhumane was the manner in which peaceful demonstrators in the Georgian capital were attacked by non-Georgian troops employing poisonous gas and sharpened spades.

Such behavior patterns are hardly unusual. The annual reports of organizations such as Amnesty International offer a dismal recitation of officially condoned oppression of national minorities: Tibetans by Han Chinese; West Bank Arabs by Jews; Kurds by Iraqi Arabs, by Persians, and by Turks; Dinkas and other Nilotic peoples by Sudanese Arabs; Xhosas, Zulus, and other black peoples by Afrikaners; Quechuans by Peruvian mestizos; Ndebele by Shonas; Turks by Bulgars; Mayan peoples by Guatemalan mestizos; Kachins, Karens, Mons, and Shans by Burmese. The list could be lengthened. Moreover, as suggested by earlier described events in the Soviet Union, genocidal tendencies towards another nation have often surfaced without governmental approval. Recent non-Soviet illustrations of sets of nations who have manifested such tendencies are Xhosa and Zulu, Serb and Croat, Serb and Albanian, Irishman and "Orangeman," Greek and Turk, Sikh and Punjabi, Punjabi and Sindhi, Sindhi and Pushtun, Hutu and Tutsi, Ovambo and Herero, Corsican and Frenchman, Vietnamese and Han, Khmer and Vietnamese, Assamese and Bengali, Malay and Han, et multis allis.

ConclusionNot all relations among nations are so hate-filled. Popular attitudes held by one nation toward another are often quite positive. But because the sense of common kinship does not extend beyond the nation, that sense of compassion to which kinship usually gives rise is lacking in the relations among national groups. The fault lines that separate nations are deeper and broader than those separating non-kindred groups, and the tremors that follow those fault lines more potentially cataclysmic. Consequently, what underlies the now commonplace phrase, "man's inhumanity to man" is all too often "nation's inhumanity to nation."

Ανώνυμος 43207

10 Ιουν 2017

@ 43204
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h2w3kcKo3A
Typing on a mobile phone keyboard can be a difficult thing in my age. But I am sure that you have not read the article at all.
The joke is on you mate.

Ανώνυμος 43206

10 Ιουν 2017

Bielidopoulian English:

Bla, bla, bla=Μπλα, μπλα, μπλα, μπλα

We are talking about a very intellectual guy with vast knowledge, many university degrees, master of languages (especially English), Professor Emeritus at the most prestigious schools in the world and a great writer.
Too bad he's got such a small penis and no balls! Life can be so unfair to some people.

Ανώνυμος 43205

10 Ιουν 2017

@Bielidopoulos,
You may need this. Call them now.
http://www.aboutyouth.gr/el/service_197.html

Ανώνυμος 43204

10 Ιουν 2017

@43201
"Search your feelings Luke", because arguments like yours do not reserve serious answers."
Bad English, my friend! First of all my name is not Luke. You probably wanted to write "Dude". "reserve" is the wrong verb. You probably meant to write "deserve". And now the question: Do you expect me to believe that a person like yourself who knows very little English, read the whole article and formed an opinion?
You are a joke, buddy. You really are!

Bielidopoulos

Ανώνυμος 43202

10 Ιουν 2017

A far fetched hypothesis but you never know.
Is it possible that M.I and @Bielidopoulos are the same person?
Is it possible that @bielidopoulos is a troll name for M.I and posts comments pretending that he disagrees or doesn't like M.I so as the page receives many hits? It may sound too far fetched as I said before but the nicks of these two guys are extraordinarily similar. If that's the case, I am signing off.

Your Worst Nightmare

Ανώνυμος 43201

10 Ιουν 2017

"Search your feelings Luke", because arguments like yours do not reserve serious answers.

Ανώνυμος 43200

10 Ιουν 2017

@43198
You may have a point there but are you a supporter of racial purity?
If you are, just say so. Say for example that your ancestors were the ancient Greeks and that you are a member of the most supreme race!

@Bielidopoulos
So, you are a supporter of racial purity too! Congratulations!
I don't give a shit where M.I lives and what he believes. You seem to know the guy, not me. Otherwise, you wouldn't know so many details about his personal life. Were you friends with him once? I am just asking out of curiosity. Your "nicks" (pseudonyms) are very similar so you must have been friends, I assume. I may be wrong but it looks that way.
Concerning the article, all I can say is that the article is quite well written with lots of information. It's a well documented article, no doubt about it. Please remind me, however, when and where you smacked me. You used the word "pali" meaning "again". Could please tell me when you started smacking me or is it one of the ways you use to lift your self -esteem? If it is, there other ways to help yourself. Learning good English would be a good start. My final question to you smart ass: Since you are so well read and knowledgeable, how come you don't know any English?
I know you will reply with your usual "smack" statements but who knows! The holly ghost may shit on your head and you may see the light!
Get a job idiot!

Ανώνυμος 43198

10 Ιουν 2017

Instead of explaining why racial purity is a myth M. Ignatius prefers to write about the nazi, the fascist Italian, the american, the japanese, the soviet etc racial theories and practices. Thank you for the history lesson but you are out of order Muammar.

Ανώνυμος 43197

10 Ιουν 2017

@Bielidopoulos
What are you talking about banana brain?
I've got no relatives living in Greece so forget about my relatives receiving pensions there. Why do you imagine things? Don't you see that you make a fool of yourself? Listen, you are in need of a good psychotherapist but unfortunately my field is Quantum Probability and Econometrics so I can't do much to help you. You are the one who is supported by your parents' pension, not me. Speaking of employment, what is exactly your profession besides being a pain in the ass? Have you ever worked in your life? Get a life you moron. OK, you are funny but this doesn't mean that you can be tolerated for long. If you do have the guts, write a well documented article in English. present your arguments and accept the criticism positive or negative. Writing comments is easy. Writing a scientific article is another story. That is why I do not write for this page. I have no time to do it. On the other hand, it seems that you have plenty of time. So, why don't you write?
Because you are a scared little p@ssy afraid of the sounds your smelly farts make. You are worthless, completely worthless. Do something about it. Good luck!

Ανώνυμος 43194

10 Ιουν 2017

@Bielidopoulos
How come you improved your Greekglish so fast? That's a first step, no doubt about it. Listen, I am @43182 but not M.I. You know why? I would never write anything on a site that tolerates psychiatric cases like yourself.
Now that you've made the first step with Greekglish, write a few words in English as well. Show us the magnitude of your vast knowledge in everything.
Listen looney bean, get a life! The first thing you've got to do is to get a real job. The second is to get a girlfriend (or a boyfriend, deping on your preferences). The third is to learn English. You can start by reading comics because you are a comic character after all!
Keep it up! You make us all laugh here. Perhaps that's the reason why the site owner allows you to keep writing your bullshit. Now that I come to think of it, yeah! that's the reason!

Bielidopoulos

Ανώνυμος 43191

@ YIANNIS PAPADOPOULOS. Of course. Everyone has the right not only to dream but to masturbate as well...
Aunan

Ανώνυμος 43189

9 Ιουν 2017

For those interested in researching CRT
https://spacrs.wordpress.com/what-is-critical-race-theory/.

Ανώνυμος 43187

9 Ιουν 2017

@43182
Please do not reply to the comments (always written in Greek) made by @Bielidopoulos. The guy is like a bad case of diarrhea. Spare him. It's not worth it, believe me. The guy knows very little English, anyway and he is unable to understand what is being written anyway.
Let's move on.
Kostas made a very good point in the example he gave so it's worth taking his view into account. One should examine the roots of CRT (Critical Race Theory with its emphasis upon the concept of white supremacy as it is very popular and appealing these days even in its camouflaged forms. CRT can be seen as an extension of the black gaze as it articulates much of what black scholars, writers, thinkers and artist have been expressing for generations. Critical Race Theory according to Delgado (1995) developed out of Critical Legal Studies in the mid 1970s with the early work of Derrick Bell (an African American) and Alan Freeman (a white American), both of whom were deeply disappointed by the slow pace of racial reforms in the USA. According to Ladson-Billings (1998) what this theory provides are the tools with which to expose and interrogate racism in its various forms. Though there is not even one core statement that defines Critical Race Theory, there are three core themes (Taylor, 2009). The main and perhaps most challenging theme to surface from CRT is the one that regards racism as a ʽpermanent fixtureʼ of society (Ladson-Billings 1998), bringing racism to the center of discussions. For CRT scholars such as Delgado & Stefancic (2001) racism is so entrenched in the Western world (mainly the US) that it is taken for granted and viewed as something natural. CRT Academics emphasize that racism does not only necessarily operate in the crude explicit forms of extreme white power groups but operates in a socio-political manner that permeates the daily social fabric (Ignatiev,1997, Leonardo, 2004). Perhaps this constitutes the platform where socio-political conditions are dictated by race. However, searching for objectivity in such matters is a rather futile effort.

Ανώνυμος 43184

9 Ιουν 2017

AND WHY, MY DUDES, SAY BUT THINGS ABOUT GREEK RACE;
MAYBE WE (MODERNS GREEKS) ARE ALL A MIX BETWEEN A SLAVIC, TURKIC, ARMENIAN, ALBANIAN, GYPSY (HINDI), ARABIAN AND MORE TRIBES/HORDES WHO INVADE GREEK LANDS, BUT WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO DREAMING THAT WE ARE A CLEAR RACE, CONTINUE OF ANCIENT GREEK PEOPLE.
STOP TO BE A SELFISH.

YIANNIS PAPADOPOULOS

Ανώνυμος 43183

9 Ιουν 2017

All dogs have equal rights to food, all dogs can be excellent companions, all dogs have a purpose and a skill. We have no difficulty to scientifically establish and accept that some dogs are smarter than others, some learn more, some can smell better, some can hear better. Yet, when it comes to people, all bets are off, and we want to pretend that none of this happens, suddenly biology hit the breaks. Yes, things are more complicated, in dog terms all humans are mutts, and the distinctions are not easy to make. They may not even be as important because the acquired skills may supersede the hereditary. But we must recognize things for what they are, not what some liberal or communist doctrine wants to enforce. There is also another important aspect: Forming families, alliances, groups with something in common, even if imaginary, is and has always been fundamental to survival. Lone wolves do not fare well in human societies. Flocks survive, so do religions, and their attributes are inherited. Consequently, it may not be as easy to abolish all forms of "racism", it may not even be recommended.
Kostas

Ανώνυμος 43182

9 Ιουν 2017

@ Bielidopoulos:
Have you had any vaccination recently? All vaccines come with several dangerous side effects. One of them is the inability to comprehend text (mainly ih English). Consult your doctor.
Doctor doctor, please

Ανώνυμος 43181

9 Ιουν 2017

An interesting remark by John Gibson on the race supremacy theory:

It has always amazed me that educated and intelligent people will accept the hypothesis that no one race is superior to another without examining the question, or finding any reason. Ignoring for the moment that "superior" is an ambiguous term, and that people filled with racial animosity are capable of great injustice therefrom, I have to say that it would be a mathematical oddity if equality turned out to be the norm. As I scan nature's abundance of variety, I see not a single instance of equality. Could it be that I am alone in noticing this? I doubt it.
I believe that good hearted people have agreed to accept the idea that no one race is superior to another, this for the goal of peace and harmony in society. It's true a lot of people instead believe that their particular race is superior. But please note the almost comical irony that those people are never the superior specimens of their own race.
Even were it politically acceptable and scientifically feasible to create a ranking of the races, it would be of no practical use, because there is clearly a lot greater fluctuation of talent within a race than there is among the races. If it were to be determined that race "D" ranked the lowest, a member of race "D" could nevertheless be the valedictorian of the local high school, or the local chess champ, or the local home run king...........
..........Each person should be evaluated on what she has accomplished in life relative to the circumstances involved in that life. Since we can never know what all those circumstances are, we have no right to make generally negative evaluations. The converse however is not true. We can laud achievement, tho we know not how great the difficulty may have been.

Ανώνυμος 43180

9 Ιουν 2017

A really good article. There is no solid scientific evidence that can depict a correlation between race and culture as far as I am aware of.
You guys have guts dealing with such issues! Thumbs up!

Ανώνυμος 43178

9 Ιουν 2017

Awesome article!

Ανώνυμος 43177

9 Ιουν 2017

It was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon this article.
A well written article as it examines a broad spectrum of racial issues, I must say.
Whether race is a myth or not is something debatable even today or should I say especially today.
Good job!

Kathy Anneker

Ανώνυμος 43176

9 Ιουν 2017

A prime example of how national states attempt to suppress the truth regarding the different peoples who live within a countryʼs borders.
The first link is the book of Peter Alford Andrews who records more than 70 different ethnic groups in Turkey and traces their racial and cultural background.

http://www.gbv.de/dms/goettingen/358797616.pdf

The other link concerns a failed attempt by some “academic” Turkish writers who supposedly attempted to translate the book but in reality they altered its contents, omitted huge parts of the book that were considered “sensitive” etc. The author describes his attempts to stop the publication of this fake book. He mentions the unwillingness of the Turkish Academia to support him.

According to the 1939 Reich census, there were about 72,000 Mischlinge of the 1st degree, ~39,000 of the 2nd degree, and potentially tens of thousands at higher degrees, which went unrecorded as those people were considered Aryan by the Reich. According to historian Bryan Mark Rigg, an Israeli Army and United States Marine Corps veteran, up to 160,000 soldiers who were one-quarter, one-half, and even fully Jewish served in the German armed forces during World War II. This included several generals, admirals, and at least one field marshal, Erhard Milch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mischling#Numbers_of_people_considered_Jewish_Mischlinge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Laws#Law_for_the_Protection_of_German_Blood_and_German_Honour

Ανώνυμος 43173

9 Ιουν 2017

The dynamics between “race” and “nationality” should be examined. Just because a group of people are within the borders of a country, It doesnʼt mean that they have the same racial or tribal traits. It is possible that people across borders share more racial traits than people who are within the same borders. However, an ignorant person may think that the people who live in the same country and are citizens of the same nation also share the same ancestry, history and culture among them. This is a great misconception responsible for creating stereotypes. Reality is much more complex in that respect.

A.H

Ανώνυμος 43172

9 Ιουν 2017

The 2010 U.S. Census generally defined "white" people as having European, Middle Eastern, or North African heritage. Although people's personal senses of identity may not match that definition, for official purposes Turks – as well as Persians, Arabs, Kurds, and every other ethnic identity of the region – are regarded as "white."

Ανώνυμος 43171

9 Ιουν 2017

The big issue here is if race dictates culture and to what extent. Are racial differences the root of cultural and socio-economic and perhaps political differences? In other words, are the racial differences between whites, Africans and Asians the roots of their cultural differences as well? Another annoying term due to its broadness is the term "Indoeuropeans". I never understood why the Indians and the Pakistanis belong to the same racial group with the Mediterraneans or the Northern Europeans. Personally, I am against the "political correctness" norm that has been imposed on all of us. Another equally delicate issue is the "tribal" differences within a racial groups. Both the Nordic and the Mediterranean peoples are listed as "Whites". However, to they really belong to the same group? A German has much more in common with a Scandinavian or an Austrian. An Italian has more in common with a Spaniard and a Portuguese. Their cultures are similar as well as their racial features. A future article should also focus on mixed races. There are case where children of mixed races suffer from exclusion and alienation by both of their different parental races. By no means do I propose that mixed races are inferior. The kids who belong to mixed races should never be condemned or stigmatized. But it happens. It does happen as those kids face racism by both races. Sometimes, our attempts to "correct" mother nature are lead to failure.

Ανώνυμος 43170

9 Ιουν 2017

I agree with the above comment. I'll be waiting for the response of Free Inquiry so that all points of view of such a delicate issue will be analyzed.
Tiger Woods

Ανώνυμος 43169

9 Ιουν 2017

I am not so sure that race and racial differences are myths. No doubt that there are no superior or inferior races. Nevertheless, racial differences do exist and I believe we would be hypocrites if we follow the "politically correct" path and pretend they don't. There are races that seem to be more warlike, more or less organized as social groups, better at sports and perhaps more artistic. Surely, education is the key factor when it comes to the real progress and high achievements of a social group but certain elements that highlight racial differences are quite obvious. Racial discrimination although righteously condemned, is an unavoidable reality.