To: politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk
Re: Britain's and Europe's "hideously white" history

Date: Wednesday 15 December 04

In the Monday before last's leader (6 Dec) you refer to George Courtauld's British history, The Pocket Book of Patriotism, as a "Toff's Island Story" and "the history of white men, . . . ".

From what I've heard, you are probably right about it being a toff's history (far from the historical perspective that I'm interested in or might wish to identify with), but to disdainfully refer to it as "the history of white men" I find both offensive and rather puzzling. 

As far as I am aware, British history and European history, of which it is just a part, ARE, as Greg Dyke might put it, "hideously white " - more than 2500 years of it, as well as the millennia of prehistory that preceded it. Fair-skinned Europeans are native and indigenous to Europe, as the Chinese are to China, Asians to Asia, Black Africans to sub-Saharan Africa. I wouldn't dream of moving to Africa and complaining that their history is "too black".

Most native Britons try to be as friendly and tolerant (if not welcoming) as possible to immigrants, but they should not go pushing their luck (telling us that our history is "too" white!). Ethnic Europeans "be-long" in Europe because they have been here a very long time (at least since the end of the last ice age), they are the indigenous population, just as ethnic Chinese are in China, ethnic Asians in Asia, ethnic Africans in Africa, etc. That doesn't mean to say that other people cannot belong there too, but the native, indigenous population, I believe, wherever it is in the world, for reasons of fairness and diversity, has a greater claim to the land they inhabit and in determining its culture than relatively recent immigrants.

I'm making a very contentious point, I know, but one that needs to be made (and, no doubt, disputed). Can you imagine the Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, or ANY other people, for that matter, allowing Europeans to pour into their countries and change their ways the way Europeans (particularly Britain) are allowing (perversely, even encouraging) it to happen here. I certainly cannot. Neither can I see it continuing very long without there being serious ethnic conflict.

Once again, I fear, well-meaning but misconceived leftwing ideology, having failed so miserably and given up its noble goal of creating a just, classless society, has now set its sights on turning Europe into a "multiracial-multicultural" society, thus preparing the ground for yet another century (and more) of human conflict and suffering. Is it perhaps an expression of self-hate within the collective European soul: unable to achieve what they wanted they are now out to destroy the ethnic European identity(s) so cherished by the more traditional and conservative members of society? (it's just a thought).

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