Correspondance
Your letters are welcome but please keep them under 250 words. Please e-mail letters to: llb@gn.apc.org
I found your article “one race — the human race” annoying (September’s LLB). Keith Veness seems to be jumping on the Out of Africa II bandwagon. This theory holds that the human species has a very recent common ancestor dubbed “Eve”, going back only about a hundred thousand years. So of course it appears a more politically correct theory (all one big happy family) than the Out of Africa I theory that the human race goes back about a million years and which posits a multi-regional evolution of the human species.
It is true that the DNA evidence points towards Out of Africa II, and personally I support Out of Africa II. However it needs to be stated that the main proponents of Out of Africa I vigorously deny racist labels attrib uted to them. Furthermore recent archaeological evidence from Australia and Java, and DNA research carried out in Oxford has swung the pendulum in their favour.
So what if they are correct? Does this mean that LLB will no longer define us as “one human race”? Will racism be acceptable after all?
I do not exactly know what the term “race” means. I am aware that terms like Caucasian, Mongoloid, Negro etc are now questioned. I have recently heard some socialists declare that no such thing as race exists. There seems to be a tendency on the left not to mention differences amongst humans.
Surely the main point is that we are all by definition one species or else we could not interbreed and produce fertile offspring. But even if two or more hominid species did exist then that does not sanction genocide. Note here in passing that the Out of Africa II theory assumes that our species must have completely exterminated all other hominid species across the entire planet (unless the spurious claims as to the existence of Yetis being remnants of Homo erectus are true!). Socialists should not need a “scientific proof” of the theory of race and human origins when combatting racism.
Geoff Goss, Kentish Town
LLB has been far too uncritical about New Labour’s devolution policy. Blair has held blind pre-legislative referenda in Scotland and Wales as a facade of democracy and will now huddle down inside the British state in London to decide exactly what the Scots and Welsh can do in their assemblies. Nothing could better illustrate Enoch Powell’s remark, “power devolved is power retained”.
LLB should campaign for the Scots and Welsh to elect constituent assemblies as soon as possible which would then negotiate with London on their future powers. In Scotland this would probably lead to far greater powers for the Scottish assembly; in Wales such procedures could help heal the regional differences in Wales which Ceri Evans wrote about.
Surely, too, if LLB wants to tackle the leadership’s crypto-Toryism, it should campaign for the complete independence of the Scottish and Welsh Labour Parties. Not only would that give a far greater potential degree of local accountability to the Labour Parties in Scotland and Wales, but in all matters it would force Blair’s London New Labour Government to negotiate rather than dictate. In such circumstances the potential of the left to influence New Labour would be greater.
Peter Bowing, Hungary