Today, my column comes from Johannesburg, written in the café of the Apartheid Museum close to Soweto. Here is an example of what the great German philosopher Hannah Arendt, reporting on the Adolf Eichmann trial, described as “the banality of evil”. The sheer effort the Apartheid regime put into keeping people segregated is phenomenal in its tedious attention to the smallest detail, snooping, spying, humiliating, terrorising and, ultimately, losing.
When the change came, it came swiftly and largely peacefully.
Twenty years on, South Africa no doubt has its economic problems. The upper echelons of the ANC have turned large parts of the productive economy into, if not quite a kleptocracy, something of a cronies’ free-for-all. But the big picture shouldn’t be forgotten. The country survived. There was no civil war and large swathes of the population benefited.
What is it about race that so divides humans?
When you are sitting in this museum here in Africa, or looking at the black/white tensions in the US, or even reading about the caste system in India, one strange human weakness reappears over and over again, and it is racism. Why do/did many whites feel superior to blacks? Why are darker people in India considered to be from a lower caste and discriminated against? Why do African and Indian women spend millions of euro each year on “whitening” products?
Why do we have different skin colours in the first place and why does it matter to so many people?
Let’s leave Africa and go far north from here to just south of the Arctic circle and a small Swedish town of Matfors. Mat in old Swedish means food and fors means stream. Matfors is full of salmon. The river is bursting with these fish and that is what the people have been eating for years. However, by the late 19th century the people had reached ‘peak salmon’. By then, the town was operating a successful paper mill and wanted to attract more workers. As well as good wages, one of the perks of the job — written explicitly in the job advertisement — was a commitment from the management not to feed the workers salmon more than three days a week. The Swedes were simply sick of salmon.
How could that be, particularly today when all doctors tell us to eat more, not less fish?
And critically, what relevance has this ‘peak salmon’ story (which I came across for some other research) got to do with race and skin colour and Apartheid?
Permit me a bit of a digression here.
As you head to the sun for a week or two, have you ever asked yourself why Scandinavians tan in the sun and Irish people don’t? There are far fewer hours of sunlight in northern Scandinavia than Ireland and yet when the Swedes go abroad on holiday to the sun, these very blonde, fair people go a deep bronze colour in a matter of hours. The Irish, who in the winter look like Scandinavians and share a preponderance for red hair, fair skin and blue eyes, are burnt to a crisp on the beach. Why is this?
The reason is Vitamin D.
The reason we have black, white and yellow people is because of Vitamin D. We all need a minimum of Vitamin D, which we get by either absorbing it through our skin from sunlight or we ingest it in certain foods. We need Vitamin D for our bones to strengthen. This is why people with a Vitamin D deficiency can get rickets. (The science is a little more complicated and involves Folic Acid as well as Vitamin D; for a more detailed, yet accessible, explanation see ‘Skin’, a biography by Dr Sharad Paul.)
Black skin is a protector against the sun. It repels sunlight and this obviously helped the first humans not to ‘overdose’ on the abundant Vitamin D that they were getting from the sun’s rays.
We were all black when we walked out of Africa about 120,000 years ago and headed on a slow march North and East. But as we moved north from sunny Africa to less sunny Europe, our black skin began to lighten to allow it to absorb more Vitamin D from less sunlight. The more sparse the sunlight, the whiter the people became until you went to northern Europe, to Ireland and Scandinavia, where the people’s hair and skin lightened in order to eke out the maximum Vitamin D from the very few hours of sunlight we were exposed to.
But what explains the Swedes tanning and the Irish burning? This is where the salmon comes in.
Sweden and Ireland, although very far north, are distinguished by one major climatic difference. We get the Gulf Stream and they don’t. This makes our climate a lot warmer and wetter. This warmer climate allows cereals and grass to grow. This means that the cultivation of cereals, cattle and sheep is much more suited to us. This is how the ancient Irish derived protein. Because large parts of Sweden are too cold for grass, they had to find their protein in fish. Fish, and salmon in particular, are very rich in Vitamin D.
So over thousands of years, Swedes supplemented their meagre Vitamin D intake from the sun by gorging on salmon. As they did, their skin went darker because they didn’t need to be so pinkish white and open to sunrays to absorb the precious Vitamin D.
This is why they tan and we don’t.
Our cereal-based economy, due entirely to the warm influence of the Gulf Stream, may also explain why fishing in Ireland was never as developed as fishing in Scandinavia, despite our better Atlantic position.
So you see that skin colour is just the result of the great human battle for Vitamin D. The more constant your supply of Vitamin D, the less white you had to be to absorb it. In contrast, the more deprived of sun you were, the whiter you had to be — unless like the Scandinavians, you ate so much fish that you got sick of it!
As I walk around this museum, the horrific and very human results of the great battle for Vitamin D are all too evident and, in terms of the great march of humanity, all too pathetic to behold.
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Every system has it’s echelons so racism really has nothing to do with it – somebody always ends up ruling the roost.
ie Some are more equal than others for whatever reason.
Maybe too much Vitamin D makes people inferior in some, as yet undetected, way.
There’s a doctorate in there so someone.
Right now a lot of white people are fearful of other races rather than feeling superior to them.
Fear is a great motivator………………………
Subscribe from the lovely Isle of Man. Lashing rain here today, loads of sun yesterday though. This place used to be part of Norway.
http://www.i4u.com/2016/07/113633/early-human-fossils-discoveries-china-challenge-african-origin
Very Jarred Diamond, David :)
Yay! Science!
And sun tans. Don’t forget sun tans.
I used to blame joining the EEC for our dilapidated fishing industry. But now I see that as a nation we just didn’t give a shite. It was easier to grow veg and herd cattle, so that’s what the inland guys did. The fellahs on the coast obviously preferred to play GAA and become builders in London.
Mystery solved.
In accordance with one of the main principles of Latin civilisation “Nemo judex in causa sua”, this is the other side of Nelson Mandela: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7HyuLPWF9I I am curious what people think about the facts about Nelson Mandela and his family presented in this video (there are more thorough videos available, but I chose the shortest). I just do not understand one thing – how can the same person praise Nelson Mandela, who used violence to make his country poorer and less safe, while at the same condemning General Pinochet – who used violence to make his country richer and more… Read more »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7GM6nGmNQ8
https://srsroccoreport.com/confessions-of-a-keynesian-enabler/
From riches to rags, story of the decade, but as yet largely not reported.
http://spectator.org/the-democrats-hack-attack/?utm_source=American+Spectator+Emails&utm_campaign=876e1b6f09-DNC_3_7_28_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_797a38d487-876e1b6f09-104365713
Recognising a difference is one thing, what meaning is ascribed to that difference is a whole other ball game. But let’s not pretend that it is a mystery as to where the “X race(s) are inferior” beliefs came from, or what drives those ideas. Back in an earlier article, June 13, 2016 Brexit: Ireland needs Britain, Mr McWilliams referenced Maggie Thatcher’s Bruges speech. It is an important reference. Even then, all the way back in the pre-civilisation era of AD1988, the attitude that the conquest of various people (various races) was a positive experience for them as certainly they needed… Read more »
While we’re on Germany, its largest bank, Deutsche Bank, a criminal enterprise like US large banks, announced a 98% year over year DROP in Q2 income. Shares fell 4% yesterday, and yesterday’s $13.25/share close stood 62% below the 31 July 2015 price. Oh, and DB is laying off 3,300 employees, closing its banks in two countries, and 300 branches in Germany. Doomed to die.
http://the-moneychanger.com/eCampaign/commentary.php?Key=20160728
Racism in its simplest form is love of ones own family before others. Then comes the extended family. Ones uncles and aunts , nephews and nieces. ( Family feuds take place of course as anti family interests. )Then there is immediate neighbourhood where all are known to each other. Enter the traveling stranger. Either treated with honour and fed and watered are treated with distrust because of the unknown or strange accent. The stranger may be from a neighbouring tribe , technically of the same race with even the same language. It does not take much to create warring tribes.… Read more »
http://kingworldnews.com/top-advisor-to-sovereign-wealth-funds-says-gold-silver-headed-into-the-stratosphere/
Then there’s sexism or not?
I have to admit to being a male chauvanisr and I don’t have a problem with it.
But I had to smile when I read this.
http://lofi.phys.org/news/2016-07-accreditation-exams-reveals-biases-favor.html
Was I right all along.
As David would be well aware – In NI you are advised to vote early and vote often.
Don’t know if that worjs in the states.
Ireland’s excessively wet climate is unsuited to cereals, and that is why Ireland was a pastoral rather than a cereal growing society.
Did you know that the Old Norse for “clouds” is “sky”, it just took on it’s modern English meaning when they got to Britain (and we are worse).
Have a look up at the “sky” there and you have all the reasons you need why we are pasty faced. Ireland may have more daylight hours, but Sweden has more sunlight hours.
http://www.stockholm.climatemps.com/sunlight.php
http://www.dublin.climatemps.com/sunlight.php
http://usawatchdog.com/weekly-news-wrap-up-7-29-16-greg-hunter/
Criminal corruption riddles the democrats and the DEM convention as Clintons buy all the votes.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/
Ever wondered why do we the Irish burn in the sun, yet the Scandinavians tan?
First of all, no, and second of all. this is one of, if not the most, asinine pieces I’ve ever read on this blog.
Stephen is right. It is terrible. “Racism” is the Great Sin of the times, whatever it is, and it is against it that all virtue is defined. David will obviously write anything that comes into his head (and on this occasion it’s all nonsense) when it comes to this. Ireland suitable for growing *cereals*?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRlKH3qOpE
David, Look around and weep for Africa, for you and your economist brethren, and not racism, are responsible for the failure of African nations to become modern and capable societies. Modern Economics should be a definer of what needs to be done so that each nation and particularly each African Nation can build a prosperous society capable of providing secure livelihoods for all of its people. Modern economists cannot do that, they just measure and pontificate,and justify the debasement of money while in harness with incapable politicians and Davos trotting economic academics. When will your profession grow up and become… Read more »
And here was me thinking that the Irish sent the wheat to England and ate the potatoes for themselves. I suppose that’s only 300 years of potato eating as opposed to 3,000 years of salmon eating by the Scandinavians. Could it not be that the Celts are long-limbed and red-haired (as described by the Romans) not to mention freckly, and the Scandinavians are actually a Germanic race? Quite a few of the Germans tan quite well in the sun also. Do they have adequate access to salmon? Didn’t the Vikings bring longboats to Ireland? Surely the Celts must have thought… Read more »
I did some thinking about this article, before being able to figure it out. Yes, Mandela saved South Africa from implosion. But South Africa was not actually the most extreme example The worst incidence of racism in the 20th century did not involve very Vitamin D. And by that I mean what followed Operation Barbarroso in 1941, when militarists mostly from Germany, but also with collaborators in Belgium, Latvia, Croatia, Ukraine, etc.. decided murder all in front of them. And that was inspired by a theory of superiority. The theory was that the Germanics were superior to all others –… Read more »
“Racism is a subset of Otherism. All manifestations of human cruelty emerge from the biological ideology of Otherism. Compassion, not Politics, is the antidote to Otherism.” Andy Mooney
Jungian psychology is a better guide than PC fulminations on this topic.
The Shadow. Self & Other. Anima. Animus, etc.
And Shakespeare. Some people still think ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is ‘anti-semitic’ when, in fact, it totally debunks racism centuries before 2Tone rose in nearby Coventry here in the Mercian Shires:
Paterson Joseph as Shylock: ‘You call me misbeliever’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vSR6W8_uBU
Hi David where did you do get your research regarding the salmon and tanning? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Would be great to do further research
Hi David where did you do get your research regarding the salmon and tanning? It doesn’t make any sense to me. Would be great to do further research on this topic
[…] So over thousands of years, Swedes supplemented their meagre Vitamin D intake from the sun by gorging on salmon. As they did, their skin went darker because they didn't need to be so pinkish white and open to sunrays to absorb the precious Vitamin D. This is why they tan and we don't. via […]