On the topic of 'the celtic nations'
Nov. 23rd, 2007 11:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynI just read a rant on LJ, in which someone said (and I quote) "I am not Native American, but I am of Great Celtic descent* and and the rising Christian Europeans** did the same thing to those people as they did to the Native Americans***. That is why it angers me"
Now, obviously there are a number of problematic things about this statement. However, the one thing in this which really irritates me is the following.
THE IRISH AND CHUNKS OF THE SCOTS WERE CHRISTIAN BEFORE THE FRICKING ANGLO-SAXONS WERE! THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH WAS PARTIALLY FORMED BY MISSIONARIES FROM IONA IN SCOTLAND. THERE WAS AN IRISH DELEGATION AT THE SYNOD OF WHITBY.
(yes, those capital letters do mean I'm shouting)
For some reason there is this demented faith amongst a certain type of American than the collective peoples of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittony (actually, I think they mostly forget about the Cornish and the Bretons. Probably because the Bretons are French) were the Native Americans of Europe. Really, they weren't!
Scotland was a sovereign nation until the 17th century when it's king became king of England as well. It always had its own aristocracy. Ireland had its own episcopal church structure when England was run by large men called 'Wulfgar' who were busy worshippping Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. There was a lovely wealthy Christian church in Ireland until the pagan Vikings decided to come and pillage with gay abandon, thus destroying almost all the written records of that period (the vikings basically created the concept of the 'dark ages' by destroying all the records of this period, meaning we know next to nothing beyond a few single documents and a few bits and pieces from the oral tradition). Do any Americans rant about how the Evil Pagans destroying their lovely Celtic culture?
No? Instead they whitter inanely about some nebulous 'European culture' which allegedly came and colonized them.
Why?
Why do people feel the need to go there.
Gah!
*I don't think anyone has told him that 'Great Celtic' is not an ethnicity.
**I also think someone needs to explain that 'European' is also not a homogenous cultural grouping.
***I think he means 'make them Christian and then kill them. I must say, as a White Anglo-Saxon Christian I'm shocked to hear this. How could we have let our standards fall since the 5th century? Why are the Welsh not safely locked away on a reservation right now?
Now, obviously there are a number of problematic things about this statement. However, the one thing in this which really irritates me is the following.
THE IRISH AND CHUNKS OF THE SCOTS WERE CHRISTIAN BEFORE THE FRICKING ANGLO-SAXONS WERE! THE ANGLO-SAXON CHURCH WAS PARTIALLY FORMED BY MISSIONARIES FROM IONA IN SCOTLAND. THERE WAS AN IRISH DELEGATION AT THE SYNOD OF WHITBY.
(yes, those capital letters do mean I'm shouting)
For some reason there is this demented faith amongst a certain type of American than the collective peoples of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall and Brittony (actually, I think they mostly forget about the Cornish and the Bretons. Probably because the Bretons are French) were the Native Americans of Europe. Really, they weren't!
Scotland was a sovereign nation until the 17th century when it's king became king of England as well. It always had its own aristocracy. Ireland had its own episcopal church structure when England was run by large men called 'Wulfgar' who were busy worshippping Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. There was a lovely wealthy Christian church in Ireland until the pagan Vikings decided to come and pillage with gay abandon, thus destroying almost all the written records of that period (the vikings basically created the concept of the 'dark ages' by destroying all the records of this period, meaning we know next to nothing beyond a few single documents and a few bits and pieces from the oral tradition). Do any Americans rant about how the Evil Pagans destroying their lovely Celtic culture?
No? Instead they whitter inanely about some nebulous 'European culture' which allegedly came and colonized them.
Why?
Why do people feel the need to go there.
Gah!
*I don't think anyone has told him that 'Great Celtic' is not an ethnicity.
**I also think someone needs to explain that 'European' is also not a homogenous cultural grouping.
***I think he means 'make them Christian and then kill them. I must say, as a White Anglo-Saxon Christian I'm shocked to hear this. How could we have let our standards fall since the 5th century? Why are the Welsh not safely locked away on a reservation right now?
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 11:35 am (UTC)He's amazingly funny, and I am contemplating joing communities just to wind him up every time he calls himself a 'Great Celt', because I know more than he does. :-D
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 11:41 am (UTC)"What, you mean a different bunch to the group who killed and enslaved each other, and anyone else who got close enough - and were just unlucky not to be as big, aggressive and well armed as the Scandinavians (or Romans), nor close-knit enough to really be much of a threat in terms of Empire?"
"Err"
"Tit"
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 11:49 am (UTC)He quite obviously has no idea what he's talking about. His rant was originally about the evil that is Thanksgiving, and how he wants to live on a Reservation with that noble, peaceable savage, the Native American, oh how evil are the Europeans, etc. When asked to SHUT THE HELL UP by some NAs, he said no. Which says everything you need to know about this guy.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 12:21 pm (UTC)Thanksgiving is, in some ways, a fairly weirdly not good holiday - celebrating the natives helping early settlers to survive, to give them the opportunity to later destroy culture and life, and drive folks off their lands... But does seem to have a good focus - food and family/friends!