Statistically, someone out there probably voted the same as me in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, loves The Breakfast Club, bacon and mushroom pizza, and believes indirect democracy is maybe the least worst political system. Even more likely is that you'd find far more people who don't match those first three conditions. Well what does that or anything have to do with being White or being 'British'? All it seems to come down to is the nationstate being a geo-socio-linguistic construct cobbled together across the centuries from the middle ages to the Renaissance.
The concept of race has long since been debunked unless you're a rac(e)ist. There is such a thing a genetic lineage which you could call ethnicity, but it only makes sense in comparative genetics. Going by the uncited numbers from Wikipedia, the human genome varies by 0.5% between any two random people. So if that's the difference between a White Briton and, say, someone of Chinese extraction, try and imagine the massive gulf between White British and White Irish. When I attended the induction at the Royal Mail office in Glasgow three years ago the manager there asked our group how many races we thought there were. I said it depends on who and when in history you ask and gave some examples of the conflicting categorisations, such as whether African blacks and Australian Aborigines are or are not the same race (intending to point out the absurdity of race). He then says 'but aren't we all human?'. The way he said it pissed me off because I was making that exact point but in more words, so it made me look like a racist because I didn't put it so pithily. That still pisses me off now. That we're all human is something an increasingly connected world is coming to realise, yet we remain divided into geo-political states.
Look at the photo at the top of this post. The Americans were first to the Moon and left a plaque with the words "We came in peace for all mankind". It's a moment from history I wish I had been alive to see. The world watched or listened or read about it and people said 'humanity did it'. But in reality it was so one country could beat another, which is why three and a half years later the budget was cut and we've never been back since. So much for the great leap. To give you an idea of just how long it's been, there was a comment [which I can't find now] on one of the BBC stories about Obama cancelling the Constellation program and a man wrote that he was a young adult when Apollo 11 touched down in the Sea of Tranquillity and now he's almost collecting his pension. So much for the future.
Just look at how short-sightedness is interfering with long-term progress. The geo-political tension between the US and Russia over the past few years nearly left NASA without access to the International Space Station. The US trade embargo would have prevented post-Shuttle NASA from purchasing rides on Russian Soyuz flights until an exception was granted in September 2008. That's the International Space Station: originally envisioned in the 80s (SS Freedom) as the US answer to Mir, but the large operating cost forced NASA to seek international partners. That was possible because of Pax Americana and pretty much everyone, including Russia, was then aligned with Washington. Now that tribalism has made a comeback we'd much rather spend that money dicking around the Middle East.
The stepping stone required to operate beyond Low Earth Orbit is a functioning space station. Columbus needed the Canaries to get to the Americas. It cost a fortune for a single super-power to make it only 3 light-seconds away from the surface of Earth onto the surface of another astronomical body. That was too much out of the ordinary. Let's go back to sleep.
I'm not calling for world government. The world should not be united by politicians.
Incorporating drafts December 2005 and February 2006, and June 2009
[787]
No comments:
Post a Comment