What makes one of a particular nationality, ethnicity & culture?

[Salem1]

This is something we discussed in class a month back or so. Our teacher pretty much asked us ''what makes one a Swede?'', and here are my definitions and explanations. Before I begin however let me post some information about myself.

First name: Salem
Last name: Suwareh
Secondary names: Erik, Martin
Age: 1st March 1993 (16)
Born: Stockholm, Sweden
Living in: Stockholm, Sweden
Main language: Swedish
Secondary language: English
Mom's ethnicity: Swedish
Dad's ethnicity: Gambian (Mandinka)
My self-identification: ethnic Swede, cultural Swede, ethnic Gambian

Now I will post the main course.

I myself know not a single word of the languages spoken down in my father's homeland. I have as much cultural similarity with a Gambian as I have with a Micronesian. I believe in general that who is and isn't what is up to each person, mostly the person himself. I also believe that as long as you have an ethnic or cultural tag, then how much of it you have isn't of as much significance as long as it's a major part of you (someone with a Swedish parent from 2000 years ago isn't an ethnic Swede) - the fact that you do have is more important. In this light, I am not a fully ethnic Swede but I am still a Swede, yet I do consider myself to be a fully cultural Swede. There can be no set of criteria, but I will post what I believe. I will probably forget to say some things, make some errors etc. but that's unavoidable in an issue as delicate as this, so bear with me.

There are several key terms that are very important for definition. These are language, parents, majority, culture, history and self-identification. Note that ethnic and cultural are two things that I consider to be exclusive, being an ethnic Swede doesn't automatically make you into a cultural Swede and vice-versa.

Ethnic person - the lineage you receive from your parents. But then one must ask, what makes the parents Swedish? and go back to their parents. However, at some point the fisherman must have taught himself instead of having it passed onto him by a tutor. Thus, I believe that what made those parents into ethnic Swedes was that their collective culture, history, main language, parents and self-identification fit in with the majority of Sweden's population. An ethnic Swede is therefor a person whom has ethnically Swedish parents.

What is and isn't ethnic changes throughout time - Finns were Swedes three centuries ago when the thought of Finland as an independant nation was at best a fantasy and no one could remember a time when Finland and Finns weren't Swedish. Today, not so much.

Cultural person - someone who identifies himself as a Swede but does not have enough in common with the majority of Swedes to be an ethnic Swede. One cannot be of a particular nationality without identifying yourself as such, self-identification is thus the single far most important measure. If a Polish person moves to Sweden then he can become Swedish, but he cannot become an ethnic Swede since he does not have Swedish parents. His descendants however can become Swedes, but what happens if he gets kids with a Polish woman and raises them as Swedes in Sweden is a question I have yet to find a sufficient answer to.

It'd probably end up with the children deciding whether they want to continue their cultural Swedish status or become ethnic Swedes, as 1-2 of their parents were cultural Swedes. Alternatively they may decide that they are Polish since their parents were ethnically Polish, and renounce their Swedish status - no matter how ridiculous this may seem this happens.

What I think is very important to remember is that for something to become, it must - perhaps with some exceptions, but that's a debate for another thread - have changed from something else. Thus, there must always be a way for a person and/or his descendants to move between ethnic and cultural tags.

[Helm]

Nationality is purely where you're legally allowed to live but you're probably talking more about ethnicity, that is more the shared culture you belong to within the country you legally live within.

[jankren]

I heard they hate dark people in Sweden. Are you holding up fine over there Salem?

[removeduser_487563287433]

It's mostly language and location. Most people can't trace their ancestry back further than their great-grandparents, if that, so your ethnicity is pretty much a mystery and one that matters only to tedious people.

[basics]

I think ethnicity and culture do make the nation but I can see that they can be two quite different things especially where a foreign entity is introduced. When I say foreign I mean it in the very basist of terms in that it is not what is considered to be the norm within ethnicity of the peoples of a particular area.

Of course time can make anyone ethnic to any area. What can be divisive is culture especially religious culture and has been and is being at the time of writing. I would say that most wars, perhaps all wars, began by the diversity of culture rather than ethnicity. The latter takes the form of which side is preferred but the former is what begins the conflict.

For example, in today's world it has become the obsession to be multi-cultural, to destroy ethnicity, but this leaves a vacuum where one man's culture is more important to him than his neighbour's. The result is confusion leading to internal strife that will last for generations until one overcomes the other to bring about another form of ethnicity.

This is already seen in what could be the largest migration of peoples the world has ever seen. It is the sheer numbers of differing cultures that are moving into ethnic lands to which they are foreign with the intent of not integrating, rather of changing what the ethnics don't want changed that is the present danger.

My point is that someone born in Sweden is Swede and should remain so as long as he or she wants to be part of the country that has given him or her that welcome. The problems arise when the land of their fathers becomes what they want their birthland to be and not what it already is content with being.

[Saxon wårolord]

I always said so, musicology is more important than any language, phenotype or gene.

The music you appreciate is your ethnic background.

[Helm]

I always said so, musicology is more important than any language, phenotype or gene.

The music you appreciate is your ethnic background.

What if like me there isn't any particular kind of music you appreciate? Besides they have pop songs in India.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I always said so, musicology is more important than any language, phenotype or gene.

The music you appreciate is your ethnic background.

what total bollocks.

[Saxon wårolord]

what total bollocks.

That's how genetic tests started with the Lemba: After discovering Jewish influences in their music.

[iudas]

I always said so, musicology is more important than any language, phenotype or gene.

The music you appreciate is your ethnic background.

Interesting. So I am an African-American, since I appreciate rock and blues...

[removeduser_487563287433]

Interesting. So I am an African-American, since I appreciate rock and blues...

Hell I'm Canadian Baroque Roma.

[Didz]

I would say its mostly the way you were brought up that determines your cultural nationality. Your legal nationality is something quite different.

[Boyar Son]

Interesting. So I am an African-American, since I appreciate rock and blues...

Congratulations!

[Ciabhán]

I was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I came up in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I have lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Marietta, Georgia, United States. Multiple military bases in the United States and other US Army bases around the world, as well as other various private homes.

My oldest(daughter)was born in Switzerland to me an(British, by legal definition)Irish fella and an American mother while I was stationed in Italy. She has spent the majority of her life in the United States. Her mother and (adopted)father are both American. She is American.

My older son was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland to me and my wife, an English mother. He is Irish(Northern Irish, British by legal definition). He has spent the majority of his life in Northern Ireland though he has lived in the US and England.

My youngest son was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States to me and my wife, an English mother. He has spent nearly equal time in Northern Ireland and the US. He is Northern Irish(British) as well.

In reality it's a combination of parentage, upbringing, and where you have lived(and which one you wish to lay claim to).

[iudas]

Congratulations!

But I hate african-americans...

[ivan_the_terrible]

Lenin said that the language a person thinks in determines their nationality.

I agree, to a point. I'm fairly certain that most of my ancestors were Ukrainians, and what Russian is in me comes from Don Cossacks, who's 'Russianness' is dubious anyway. One of my grandfathers is also Caucasian.

But my mother tongue is Russian, not Ukrainian or Karachay (I speak neither of these, in fact), so I'm Russian.
However, I find myself thinking in English sometimes, when conversing with English-speakers, so I don't know anymore.

I don't have a real nationality.

The music you appreciate is your ethnic background.

Interesting. I must be Spanish/Latin American, and black American. But also white American, English, Gypsy and Russian.

[skag]

Education & where you lived

Values, principles, are from education
Society behaviour is from where you live

basically for me, it's that.

But values and principle, can only continue for a given time if you aren't in the same society. They tends to disappear

I mean by that : you are italian, born from italians, you marry an italian girl. You go work otherwhere, and you have childrens in ... let's say canada. Your childrens will be italians, if they don't live any contact with italy, even with their italian education, they will become Canadians, and their childrens will be canadian

Ethnically/culturally, in 1,5 generations, everything is lost, you are 100% from where you live.
that's my opinion

[removeduser_487563287433]

Music is not hereditary. That is absurd. That discards all reality. Do you have the first notion of what genetics is?

[Didz]

Music is not hereditary. That is absurd. That discards all reality. Do you have the first notion of what genetics is?

Not sure if the music was the sole clue, but it certainly was one of the clues that triggerred scientific interest in the Lemba's ancestry.

The late Professor Margaret Nunes Nabarro studied the Lemba music and recorded their playing of a deer's horn very reminiscent to the Shofar blowing by Jews at the time of the Jewish New Year.

http://www.haruth.com/JewishLemba.html

[removeduser_487563287433]

Not sure if the music was the sole clue, but it certainly was one of the clues that triggerred scientific interest in the Lemba's ancestry.
http://www.haruth.com/JewishLemba.html

That doesn't make music related to genetics. If you took a baby Lemba and raised him in Japan he's not going to be playing any ing fiddles on any roof.