Intbel

__________________
We are all free to choose - every step of the way - no exceptions.

Yes, and 'white' includes Hispanics, Puerto Ricans, etc.

Aardvark

There continues to be confusion in the PC lobby about the whole issue. You can regularly watch so called educated people accusing the largest Semitic group, the Arabs (descendants of Abraham), of being anti-Semitic because they condemn the apartheid state of Israel (there are different laws for Arabs and Jews - if an Israeli Arab marries a Palestinian they can lose their right to live in Israel, but if a Jewish person marries a Russian the Russian is allowed to take up Israeli citizenship).

The saddest thing is that a lot of the PC brigade get up the noses of the various ethnic groups they purport to represent. It is all very confusing.

Here are reasons why people talk of Asian.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangla Desh are all part of the Indian sub-continent and their inhabitants are 'Indian' geographically.

Bangla Desh is East Bengal therefore it is possible to confuse a Bengali speaking Muslim from East Bengal with his/her Muslim cousin from Bengali speaking West Bengal; without seeing a person's passport it is actually impossible to tell a Bangla Deshi from an Indian.

The Punjab is divided between Pakistan and India. Most Sikhs and Hindus live on the Indian side whilst most Muslims live on the Pakistani side - not everyone was murdered or migrated during partition and Punjabi Muslims in Pakistan have relatives in India. They all speak Punjabi. Without seeing a passport it isn't easy to tell, although most, but not all, male Sikhs wear turbans in the same way that Muslim males who have been on the Haj might wear a turban! Urdu is the official language of Pakistan and Hindi is one of the official languages of India. Although they use different scripts the languages are similar, and in some dialects virtually identical, and to tell the difference you have to be skilled. During the various wars it was not uncommon for soldiers to force male prisoners to drop their trousers to check for circumcision as a way of identifying their potential enemies because there was no other means of identification; prisoners of the wrong sort would then have their willies chopped off, usually before death, so nobody knew which religious rite to administer at their funerals.

In southern India, Kerala specifically, a large number of the people are Christian from before our islands were Christianised (doubting Thomas was killed at Madras apparently). The people of Kerala speak Malayalam and could easily be confused with Malays, Indonesians or the citizens of Brunei or Singapore - again without seeing a passport it is impossible to tell.

Sri Lanka has 2 main groups - Sinhala (mainly Buddhists)and Tamil (mainly Hindu). Most ethnic Tamils live in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu - hence the secessionist movement in northern Sri Lanka. If you recognise a Tamil speaker then you would still need to see a passport to discover his/her nationality.

Jammu and Kashmir are split between India and Pakistan and, as you watch the nightmare of the earthquake unfold on the benighted people, you should note that the 2 governments restored their defensive lines and moved troops to the demarcation line before they bothered getting aid to their civilian people, 53000 of whom are now dead with thousands to follow in the next few days. The only way you can tell the nationality of a Muslim Kashmiri is to see his/her passport; there are no other differences.

The hill tribes in the east are settled on both sides of the India/Myanmar border. Only a passport decides which is Indian and which Burmese.

When India received independence there were Gurkha regiments raised in India and others raised in Nepal. Some battalions joined the British Army, some the Indian - hence the weird numbering system. All Gurkhas were initially paid the same, regardless of who they served, although the Brit ones now get considerably more than their Indian brothers and cousins. You can only tell the nationality of a Gurkha by his passport.

Sikkim was absorbed INTO phpbb_India in the 50s. Some Sikkimese are ethnically the same as some Tibetans (now officially Chinese). I couldn't possibly tell; nor could I spot an ethnic Tibetan who has an Indian passport following the flight to India with the Dalai Lama or one whose family stayed and has a Chinese passport.

It is all very well for some smart @rsed PC prat to say we should be more specific, but I have an interest in history and ethnicity and nationality that is not shared by 90+% of the population (I'm currently reading an excellent book on the life of Frank Youghusband). I speak none of the official languages of the Indian sub-continent other than English (the equalising language amongst all the ethnic groups). I cannot tell either by the way a man speaks, the way he dresses, the way his wife dresses etc what nationality he is even if he looks Indian to me. Nor can any of the self-serving pillocks in the PC brigade. I can't even spot with certainty an Irishman, Welshman or Scot if they have been brought up in England; a person's accent is no guarantee as can be noted by Kashmiris with Brummie accents or Sikhs with Yorkshire accents.

When I worked in the West Bank a recent American Jewish settler (armed as they all are), with fair skin and blue eyes, shot dead some guys who looked like Arabs. He was so ignorant, as most settlers are, of Jewish history that he killed Sephardic Jews whose families had lived in Palestine for centuries. Having been brought up in Brooklyn he didn't realise that, until the mass migration of Ashkenazis to Israel, Jews, Christians and Muslims had co-existed, not always comfortably, in the Ottoman province of Palestine for centuries and to all extents looked alike apart from some slight differences in dress.

Don't even start on Africa where all the lines on the map were drawn by imperialists with no consideration for racial or linguistic boundaries (as in both American continents). They even redrew the border of Kenya and Tanganyika because the Kaiser hadn't got a mountain and the Brits had 2!!!!

The post-war boundaries of most of Europe were drawn at gun point. Ask any older German where Memel, Danzig, Konigsberg, Pilsen, Stettin and Breslau are?

Then there's Cyprus can you tell a Cypriot Greek from a Greek Greek? The carving up of the Ottoman Empire which created Iraq out of several diverse provinces means that Iraqis hate each other more than they hate their neighbours. If a PC tw@t met a Kurd could he tell if the Kurd was Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi or Iranian?

If you don't ask you'll never know the difference between a Serb, Croat and Bosniac (ethnic creation of the Nazis to separate off Muslim Serbs).

It is not practical for everyone to educate themselves on the totality of world history every time they want to fill in a police complaint form. Does anybody seriously believe that a coloured Muslim making a complaint about 'white' racism can tell the difference between an Englishman, an Irishman and a son of Polish migrants brought up in this country? I'm white, but a mixture of English (in the main), Welsh (Jones), Scots (MacDougall), Irish (Gilman from Essexes expedition) with a dose of Huguenot/Norman (Beauchamps), gypsy and Jew for good measure. I know that, but nobody looking at me could deduce it other than on a balance of probabilities knowing British history. If there is an option for white (other) on race data collection forms I sometimes use it.

Few if any of the PC brigade know anything about world history. When it comes to race and religion you cannot have a history A-level and be totally PC IMHO.

I find it funny that some find dropping Asian for Pakistani, etc to be political correctness, because the BNP have been arguing for that based on what Hindus and Sikhs have told them.

The BNP are now part of the PC Brigade!

Christina

SGK

An informative post Aardvark. I believe that I initially became anti-EU from my hobby of studying history. Unfortunately, as this message board often shows, people can interpret history - particularly regarding race - to fit their own agendas. I always do my best to learn from history, rather then use it to prop up my own beliefs.

Roger Gough

Not totally correct. A female Police Officer cannot be labelled as such. The pre-fix 'W' to denote their gender is strictly forbidden and has been for over 15 years. Also, in all Police Services (strictly not 'Force' - too aggressive) a password is required to access certain information stored on computer. One Service recently employed the password 'Stormtrooper'. This was changed within the week as it was thought offensive to anyone who had family who had suffered at the hands of Nazi Germany. Talking of Nazi Germany, has anyone noticed how the imposition of Political Correctness has all the hallmarks of what Hitler achieved? A complete brainwashing of certain sections of the populace which induces them to perform acts and make pronouncements that they wouldn't otherwise do or say.

Intbel

Intbel

__________________
We are all free to choose - every step of the way - no exceptions.

SGK

Are you sure it wasn't changed to avoid offending all those who claimed 'Jedi' as their religion?

Aardvark

Are you suggesting that I only 'claimed' to be a Jedi knight when I completed my census form? :roll: