Independence for Yorkshire
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Another example of self-interest parochialism/nationalism at work.
Even if the article is mere click-bait, such localist sentiments can take root
As a Yorkshireman myself, I fully support this proposal. Independence for Yorkshire! I will leave you with the Yorkshire National Anthem, which your Yorkshire branches had better learn if The World's Greatest County is finally to achieve independence… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsQ9Qs2DQo
Ike Pettigrew wrote:As a Yorkshireman myself, I fully support this proposal. Independence for Yorkshire! I will leave you with the Yorkshire National Anthem, which your Yorkshire branches had better learn if The World's Greatest County is finally to achieve independence… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsQ9Qs2DQoLOL. Dont be surprised then if the Westminster parliament implement their version of Spain's article 155. Living in Spain Im constantly reminded these days of the stupidities of all nationalism – Spanish nationalism, Catalan nationalism and now it seems Yorkshire nationalism. How any sane person can be bothered beats me
robbo203 wrote:Dont be surprised then if the Westminster parliament implement their version of Spain's article 155.If that happens, the least I will expect is to see SPGB members on the barricades to defend the Yorkshire Working Class Socialist National Democratic Independence Revolution, and not to side with that other treasonous lot in the Yorkshire Democratic Independent Social Workers Rebellion.
Will the new Yorkshire national football team be as disappointing as the Scotland one, i ask myself?The World Socialist Party of Yorkshire will be hostile to all parties that fail to act in the interests of the working class an that class is an international world-wide class. not restricted to the borders of Yorkshire. But the issue may well be a real one. We do witness the increased regionalisation of politics and it is definitely not based upon ethnicity even if in 2016 DNA traced the most Anglo-Saxon heritage to Yorkshiremen and women https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/28/yorkshire-is-most-anglo-saxon-region-in-the-uk-dna-analysis-suggestsRather it appeals to the "i'm alright jack so stuff you" divisive attitudes fostered by capitalist ideology against the sentiment of solidarity supported by the socialists.
Being city born and bred with large numbers of tourists, foreign students and in-coming workers from elsewhere in the UK, i happen to think diversity is what appeals to us cosmopolitans.It widens the mind and it increases experiences. It builds tolerance as the statistics bear out.My persoanal anecdotal evidence is from where i worked. Some said it was like the United Nations and when our employer hung the flags of all the nationalities who worked there, it was indeed like the UN.The more people worked together, the more they talked and the more friendships developed. When we had a wildcat walk-out over an issue which only affected full-time permanent staff, the only two scabs was "indigenous". Class did indeed trump nationality, in my view.Perhaps the future will be one of city-states. Hong Kong, Singapore, those Gulf cities, added to the incredible urbanisation taking place around the globe. And people say that London, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Paris are indeed already different from their actual nation. Trump supporters seem to hate the "liberals" of NYC,SF, LA and Chicago. I suppose Japan would be perhaps your ideal nation. But they DO IMPOSE an idealist social model by purposefully excluding people. Their record for accepting refugees is dismal – 3 in the first 6 months of 2017 and since 1981 the total has been 700. In 2016 Japan accepted less than 1% of asylum seekers. Some may think this good. I beg to differ. It is shameful.When checking the ethnic division of Japan, i was surprised to see the number of Brasilians.
Quote:Japan, which is home to the second largest Brazilian community outside of Brazil. They also constitute the largest number of Portuguese speakers in Asia, even greater than those of formerly Portuguese East Timor, Macao and Goa combined. Likewise, Brazil maintains its status as home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan.Perhaps someone can explain and save me the bother of checking.
The Guardian article is imprecise in that it lumps together different ethnic groups under 'Anglo-Saxon'. What the researchers will have meant by 'Anglo-Saxon' are all northern European settlors and their genetic descendants during the Iron Age and Middles Ages, which covers not just those migrating from what is now northern Germany, Holland and Denmark, but also non-Danish Scandinavians. Maybe part of the misunderstanding or confusion comes from the fact that the early Britons used to call the sea raiders 'Danes' without reference to their precise origins. There's also the fact that in modern life, reference to 'Viking' is used in the vernacular to refer not just to Vikings proper but Scandinavian settlors too ('Viking communities'), and of course in that regard, the terms 'Anglo-Saxon' and 'Viking' are not necessarily mutually-exclusive.In reality, probably the "Anglo-Saxon" origins of Yorkshire people are in fact a generic mixture of northern European ethnicities, which could be broken down into Danes (or sea-Danes, what we think of as Vikings in the Hollywood film sense), "Viking communities" (basically Scandinavians), and Angles (especially in what is now the East Riding), and the rest of the admixture will be Celtic and early Britons (especially in what is now West Yorkshire, which was the centre of an ancient Celtic kingdom). The indigenous Celts and Britons will have come to regard themselves as part of the Anglo-Saxon communities and indistinguishable.I actually doubt that the genetic origins of Yorkshire people vary much from other white Britons, despite what everybody says. My own ethnic origins are a mixture of British and Irish, and I believe that is typical. Yorkies do not have a discrete ethno-genetic identity. Devolution for Yorkshire only became a serious proposition about 20 years ago, at the beginning of the Blair government, and is about governance/democracy, not political nationalism. When a Yorkshireman calls for independence for the ceremonial county, it is almost-always tongue-in-cheek, or where it is meant seriously, it is a reference to the reorganisation of local government in the North in a way that formalises historic Yorkshire.An interesting contrast can be made with Cornwall, which historically has always been regarded paradoxically as both a nation in its own right and an English county – a sort of Celtish tribe within England, with its own language and unique identity. Yorkshire does not compare in this respect. Some of the more rural areas – I'm thinking here of parts of North Yorkshire and the East Riding – are quite parochial and even retain a distinct Norse-like dialect, but they are idiosyncracies.I do agree that we may see a reboot of ancient ethnic identities – a sort of Balkanisation – in Western countries, but I see it as a defensive phenomenon in response to enforced/imposed multi-racial multi-culturalism. My personal view is that the best societies are those that avoid diversity. An optimal society is one that is highly-homogeneous ethnically, which does not mean that we all take DNA tests and move to where one of our ancestors came from, but does mean that we respect organic identities and don't try to impose idealistic social models on each other.
We can argue over the semantics of what is an 'idealistic social model' and what isn't, but it's probably better if I clarify more fully what I meant by the phrase. I start with a basic dichotomy (which I accept is a simplification) between, on the one hand, a society that develops organically and consensually, and in which changes are mostly bottom-up, and on the other hand, a society that develops non-organically and in which changes are mostly top-down and are imposed whether the population likes it or not. I believe the former is good and healthy and reflects natural circumstances, while the latter does not. I accept that capitalism will tend to favour the latter, while a socialist society (or something broadly similar, like a distributist society) would favour more organic arrangements. An organic society, as I would have it, could take on various forms and could include hierarchy and still be 'bottom-up' in nature: indeed, a hierarchy might help conserve certain traditions that hold society together.The changes imposed in a top-down society are often rationalised idealistically, whereas in a bottom-up society there is no need for idealistic rationalisation, instead change happens that reflects human needs and that is all the excuse needed.If the Japanese government has traditionally tended to discourage non-Japanese ethnic migrants from settling in that archipalego, that is not something that is being 'imposed' on the Japanese, it simply allows the status quo to evolve at its own pace and it reflects what the ethnic Japanese want. If that weren't the case, then the Japanese government has plenty of reasons to allow all-comers into that country, but that hasn't happened. Naturally, the Japanese wish to retain those cultures and identities that we call 'Japanese' and that would be threatened by the import of workers who do not share this meta-ethnicity. However, I am sure if the Japanese government decided to fall in line with other neo-liberal Western governments and allow mass immigration, then support for mass immigration and its consequences would grow among the Japanese people. But then, all that demonstrates is a mass psychological phenomenon with which we are well-familiar. One need only consult reports of the Stanford Prison Experiment or the Asch Experiment for an explanation of why Japanese people would fall into line, just like your Scots miners fell into line and accepted the Lithuanians, and for the same reason your work colleagues say nothing about what most of them are probably really thinking. No doubt the probability that you would scream 'racist' at even the mildest utterance of non-obedience also helps dissuade them from letting out their likely true feelings. Such is "democracy".Of course, you may disagree with my axioms and instead hold that human beings are non-tribal. You are entitled to your view, and as such, I accept that that would lead you to quite different conclusions.
"We can argue over the semantics…"
Quote:If the Japanese government has traditionally tended to discourage non-Japanese ethnic migrants from settling in that archipalego, that is not something that is being 'imposed' on the Japanese, it simply allows the status quo to evolve at its own pace and it reflects what the ethnic Japanese want.""Traditionally tended to discourage" – only if you ignore the forced importation of Chinese and Korean labour during WW2. In 1947 the Japanese began deporting them.Marriages to foreigners – 2006 – 6% but dropped to 3% in 2013. (I wonder why)2014 – 2 million foreigners residing in Japan. Of this number, a third were considered long-term A 2015 poll found 34% opposed an expansion of immigration while 51% people support increased immigration.According to the United Nations' 2008 report, communities affected by racism and xenophobia in Japan included the national minorities Ainu indigenous to Hokkaido, and the Ryukyuans indigenous to OkinawaI believe the status quo for humanity has always been migration and acceptance and non-acceptance is very often a political choice made for economic reasons. In the modern context, can you define tribal and non-tribal. I often find "tribalism" associated with football club rivalry and hooliganism.
Regarding tribal/non-tribal, I would argue that all human beings have an innate need to want to be part of an in-group. [An academic ethologist would put it less clumsily than that, but it should be more or less clear what I mean].The in-group could be the local chess club, a political party, a philosophical allegiance, an industrial association, a consumer group, an ethnic group or a nation, or whatever.I would say that the Tribal Imperative (if we can call it that) acknowledges that human societies are in fact multi-dimensional communities of over-lapping self-interested groups.An anti-tribal position would deny this in all or part and assert either that no self-interested groups exist in the first place, or if they do exist, they are relatively unimportant to human behaviour (or a related position might be taken that even if they are important, human societies can still exist without some or all of them).According to this definition, most people (including yourself and most other people on here) would accept the Tribal Imperative to some degree while borrowing some of the anti-tribal position as caveats. Only a modern type of classical liberal or free market anarchist or other kind of extreme individualist might perhaps deny the Tribal Imperative altogether and adopt a purely anti-tribal point-of-view.Tribal-ism (and in an agglomerated form, nationalism) would be the position that affirms the Tribal Imperative and regards it as a good thing and sets out to base a society on it to the fullest extent. In doing so, nationalism identifies and prioritises a particular sub-set of tribalism: allegiance to a nation. This is because the nation is thought to be the most adaptive form of social organisation: it embraces people of all types within a given ethnic group, and ethnic homogeneity allows personal freedom to be maximised.
Ike Pettigrew wrote:As a Yorkshireman myself, I fully support this proposal. Independence for Yorkshire! I will leave you with the Yorkshire National Anthem, which your Yorkshire branches had better learn if The World's Greatest County is finally to achieve independence… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsQ9Qs2DQoAre you arguing the SPGB hostility clause is an example of tribalism? I would argue not. Or is your tribalism strictly race based?
Quote:I would argue that all human beings have an innate need to want to be part of an in-group. [An academic ethologist would put it less clumsily than that, but it should be more or less clear what I mean].And i think any socialist on this list would say we are, as a species, social beings. We do indeed prefer and prosper as a group and not as atomised isolated individuals although we do possess certain personal needs which we seek to satisfy.I suggest a read of the Right to Be Greedy might be useful regards that aspecthttps://libcom.org/library/right-be-greedy-theses-practical-necessity-demanding-everythingI suggest you make a great leap from tribalism ie the basic being familial relationships to nationalism. It was not an organic growth but a political process over centuries which involved slaughter and land-grabbing to create a "nation".I think on the other thread Robbo recommended Benedict Anderson but i am guessing you are well versed in your "subject" enough to have read him.But on a practical historical level Scotland is a history of clans being opposed to nationalism.Can i refer you to a Socialist Standard article i wrote prior to the Scottish independence referendum to give some sort of perspective of what "belonging" meant in ye olden dayes.http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1318-june-2014/scottish-english-who-caresI think English history also reflects this…even today with the trite saying "North of the Watford Gap" is still used as to divide England. Wasn't the civil War of the Roses between the Lancastrians and the Yorkshiremen a battle of families to dominate? (although i claim to be no expert in that "tribal" war)
Another article on Yorkshire independencehttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/12/one-yorkshire-calls-for-devolution-growing-louder
Quote:“It’s not a revolutionary feeling. It’s just a very sensible, pragmatic view that if London has a bit more control and Scotland has a lot more control, then why can’t we have a bit more control? ”
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