Humanity Comes Before Identity

Members of the public wave the Australian flag as they watch the Anzac Day March in Sydney, Australia, on April 25, 2023. AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi

Commentary

Somebody gave me a DNA test for Christmas. I duly provided the saliva, and my results have just come back. People have often told me that my name is typically English.

Well, maybe that’s true, but it turned out that I’ve got almost no English DNA at all—I am, in fact, predominantly Irish and Scottish, but with just a touch of Finnish and even Basque!

Where on earth did the latter come from? I have no idea. When it comes to DNA and the secret life of atomic and sub-atomic particles, appearances, it seems, can be highly deceptive.

The unseen fabric of life, the reality behind appearances, is full of glorious and exciting mystery.

I recall a scientist friend of mine told me that every bath you take contains one molecule of water that once laved the comely limbs of Cleopatra.

A researcher a few years ago reported that Queen Elizabeth was descended directly from Mohammed.

Could that be true? Well, one of the things that confuse our perception of things like race and identity is our preoccupation, at least in the West, with the eldest male line of descent.

The common system of inheritance, known as primogeniture, means that only the senior male counts in a line of succession.

A saliva collection kit for DNA testing displayed in Washington on Dec. 19, 2018. Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images

This is a curious survival at a time when women’s equal rights have been widely recognised, but it survives because it is simple and easy to follow, even if at the sacrifice of perspective.

Suppose we are bold enough, however, to tear ourselves away from that preoccupation with the male line and do a quick calculation on the back of an envelope. In that case, we'll probably find that hundreds of millions of people are descended from Mohammed.

We Can’t Be Defined by Our Ancestors

The plain fact is that our racial identity is almost incredibly complex and that all claims to nobility, rank or status based upon descent and breeding are fundamentally absurd.

John Ball, the would-be mediaeval reformer (he was executed for his trouble in 1381), famously asked the question:

When Adam delved and Eve span,

Who was then the gentleman? How preposterous all our claims to social rank and status appear when we look behind appearances!

Likewise, claims of so-called racial purity, beloved by the reprehensible Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, are groundless absurdities.

I once wrote an article in which I suggested that everybody probably could find both slaves and slave-owners somewhere in the remote roots of their family tree.

One reader wrote back at once to tell me that his wife was directly descended, in just a few generations, from one of each!

The ancient Aboriginal rock carving known as 'Climbing Man,' believed to be thousands of years old in Burrup Peninsula, Western Australia, on June 17, 2008. Greg Wood/AFP via Getty Images

I was hoping that my DNA results might produce evidence that I had some Aboriginal ancestry. But I was disappointed.

I would have been proud of that if it had been true, though some of my pioneering forbears would probably have taken pains to conceal such a thing if it had come to their notice!

We’re much more honest and open about such things nowadays. Times are changing—and sometimes for the better.

Connected by an Intricate Web

Here’s a bold thought.

It could cause offence in the current sensitive climate, but might it actually strengthen the campaign for The Voice if people claiming aboriginality felt obliged to take DNA tests?

Clearly, there would be no need for those brought up in Aboriginal communities to do such a thing, but sadly there are some people whose claims to Aboriginal status appear so tenuous as to be virtually invisible.

Such claims attract suspicion and resentment, particularly if the claimants gain some kind of social or monetary benefit. Surely that can only be embarrassing to the Aboriginal cause.

We are soon to vote in a crucially important referendum. More people would vote YES if we had greater assurance around the actual composition and identity of the Indigenous community.

Youths and children wave the Australian Aboriginal flag as protesters take part in an "Invasion Day" demonstration on Australia Day in Sydney on Jan. 26, 2022. Steven Saphore/AFP via Getty Images

The reality, as I’ve tried to argue above, is that we are all joined together in the common web of humanity. We each have hundreds of direct ancestors, thousands indeed if we track back far enough into the past.

We can all count slaves among our ancestors, without any question, and slave owners too.

Some of us are descended from rape victims, but the inevitable, depressing corollary of that is that we are also the offspring of rapists.

It would be a wonderful thing if our country could recognise that we have become a melting pot of all nations and races! And that there’s good and bad in each one of us and unwanted skeletons in every closet.

It is no more reasonable to impute guilt for the crimes committed against Aboriginals (and against convicts, too) to the present generation of Australians—most of whom are descended from people who came to this country long after it had been “invaded” by the first European settlers—than it is to hold modern Europeans responsible for the persecution of the Celts by the Anglo-Saxons, or the Etruscans by the Romans.

The awful truth is that all peoples on earth have blood on their hands and that slavery, tyranny, and the greedy theft of other people’s land have been practised on every continent.

Hopefully, we are all kinder and wiser now. Let’s put the blame aside and build a nation together.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.