Why do people conflate nationality and ethnicity nowadays?

[Anonymous]

This is a bit more complicated in the Western hemisphere when it comes to a national identity but I frequently see this as a European issue. For the sake of argument I'll focus on the UK.

A boy from Rwandan, Pakistani, Indian, Syrian, Afgani and any other country or any person born in the UK and given a UK passport is not British. They are a British national, sure. They still are not British.

They are still African, South Asian, Middle Eastern, or tied to their ancestral heritage. Ethnicity represents inherited culture, language, and ancestry, whereas nationality is simply a legal status with rights in a specific country. In the UK, there is a modern tendency to ignore this fact of nationality with ethnicity despite the historical groups like the Picts, Scots, Celts, Frisians, and Anglo-Saxons, whose identities were deeply rooted in specific lands and cultures that created modern Britain. Without having one of those in your ethnic line, you're not British and you never will be. This example is of Britain but the point is the same for Europe.

I think the notion of otherwise is nonsense and plays into the modern divisiveness of identity politics. I could be wrong though of course. Let me know your thoughts.

[Astarlessnightsky]

I disagree, because this rethoric is used by the far right to divide and spread hatred against certain minorities.

But i have to ask what about people who are the children of the migrants and grandchildren, those who are born and raised in Britain, are part of the British "culture". And never have been to the land their grandparents migrated from.

Those people have more in common with e. g. britain than e. g. syria.

Or a more extreme Example would be the US, even though the people or better their great great grandparents came from all over the place, they have more in common with each other than with people from Kenya or Germany, where their great great grand parents once lived. re-state//background_color_rgba (0, 0, 0, 0), font_color_rgb (77, 77, 77), justifyLeft

[Asker]

Nationality and ethnicity are factually different.

Idc about right wing, this is true. You cannot strip down people's true ethnicity to a passport when we know science and logic say otherwise.

You devalue both cultures this way.

You can be a British national, but they will never be British. They aren't anglo nor celt. You're born what you are, your nationality can change though.

It's a fact, a Rwandan child is the not the same kin to John Churchill, Arthur Wellesley, or even back Alfred of Wessex in any extent besides modern cultural acceptance based on nothing.

Ethnicity is the predominant factor.

[In_Trance]

It's a segregation tactic used by mass media

[Anonymous]

There was never a British people. There were Welsh, English, Irish, Scots, manx and others.

[Asker]

The house of Wessex unified the land and the king today is still of direct lineal descent.

Welsh were picts, Irish, celts etc.

Read some history.

An African man will genetically never be European.

[Opinion Owner]

The house of wessex were saxon immigrants from Germania, today's Holland, jutes from Denmark and angles also from Germany. Then you add in Scandinavian immigrants from Norway and Denmark. The Welsh were Roman Britons pushed into Wales by the angles and saxons. The picts were the orginial Britons pushed north by the Romans, and they were basically conquered by the Irish gaels.
The house of wessex unified much of what is England but they were saxons. The Norman's who were french-norse conquered England. They'd later conquer Wales under Edward longshanks and Ireland, they'd fail to conquer Scotland. A Scottish king would unite the kingdoms of Scotland and England into that of great Britain. The Scottish line would be replaced after the last Stuart queen failed to produce an heir. They would be replaced by Germans from the house of hanover and that line of German kings would rule to the present day with the son of two German nobles queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip ruling as king, that is King Charles the 3rd of the house of House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha who has very little if any lineage to the house of wessex.

[Opinion Owner]

So if immigrant descendants of German nobility and French Scandinavian nobles can be English then why not Africans?

[Asker]

Yes and then they culminated for over 600 years building an shared culture and people.

Same as Africans, genealogy isn't boiled down to a passport.

[Opinion Owner]

Africans have been in England for a long time.

[Asker]

When did Africans become more than 5% of the population? The Normans were Germanic invaders, the Saxons were invaders, the Norse were invaders, notice the common denominator is war because similar tribal or feudal groups waged wars and assimilated into similar but distinct cultures. That is the story of how every European culture was built. Does culture no longer exist in Europe to you?

This took hundreds of years to build the culture, people and nation of the UK, these very same things happened in Africa in a very different path, those stories and culture whatever they are is quiet literally bred into their DNA, their nationality can be British but they will never be British the way the king is or the way Churchill was.

[Opinion Owner]

If you get your history watching last kingdom...