I have a friend. Not a good friend particularly, more of an
acquaintance. He’s a regular sort of a guy. Runs a computer
business. Has a family. Normal, regular, 9 to 5, straight, noth-
ing unusual about him. Or so he thought.
He is English, born and bred. He used to have a bit of a rant
about immigration. Went on a bit about numbers, but you
always felt it was a bit deeper than that. He found out not long
back that he was actually adopted. Nothing wrong with that—
plenty are—but it set him to tracing his family. Yep, you’ve
guessed it. His father was a foreigner.* Now you wouldn’t
know it to look at the man, but he’s only half as English as he
thought he was. Interesting.
If you trace back anyone’s history, it’s going to throw up a lot
of different bits from different communities and ethnic group-
ings. None of us is in any way “pure.” The whole thing has
been melted, shaken and stirred, and blended until any one of
us would be hard-pressed to swear where we originated. Go
back far enough, and we all contain something a bit different.
Apparently half of all European males carry a line that can be
traced back to Genghis Khan—and he came from Mongolia.
My point? Don’t judge others, because we are all human, all
drawn from the same melting pot. We are all related if you go
back far enough. There is no difference. We have to accept
other communities, other cultures even if they are very differ-
ent from ours because the difference between us is so very
little when you wipe away the veneer we all wear.
We’re All Closer Than You Think
*That’s his word, by the way, not mine.