Following Brunnen-G's lead, I'd like to give you a British person's view on the subject.

Great Britain as a whole is regarded as something somewhat of the instigator of all this. We were a great sea power for many years and this helped us make war on and beat quite a few nations. We then went out and colonised whatever new bits of land we came across. So did most of the Europen nations, if truth be told. France and Holland had American colonies as well as us. It just seems that we were the bad guys because it was the attitude of the British government that kicked the whole thing off. We also went out and did the same to Australia and NZ which only helps to reinforce the point.

But Britain itself has one of the greatest immigrant populations in the world. People have been migrating across the English Channel and beating up the natives as soon as they discovered how to make boats. The Romans did it around 2000 years ago to the ancient britons. The Saxons then came along about 400-600 years later and did it to the remnants of the Romans. The Angles came along about the same time. A little after that the Vikings got in on the act and came pillaging along the coasts. They left quite a few of their number behind who got settled. Then, of course, the Normans came in led by William and proceeded to royally kick butt of anyone who happened to be here. That was the last great invasion of these islands but ever since we have been accepting refugees, nomads and just plain shipwreck victims. (The Spanish Armada left a lot of Spanish sailors stranded here.)


So, do I feel any less British for it? Do I feel sorry that 2000 years ago the Romans came and displaced the natives? No in both cases. I was born and have lived here all my life. I see people of all ethnic backgounds every day and they all have the right to live, so why not here? Those natives were probably not the origianl natives anyway. They'd most likely gone to Eire and booted its natives out.

Whatever history says happened 200 years ago is exactly that. History. Learn about it, study it, teach it if you want, but don't dwell on it when it has no bearing on today's society at all.

Besides, when the Hostile Aliens come and want this planet for themselves, who owns what little piece of land and whose Great-Great-Grandfather owned whoever else's Great-Great-Grandfather is gonna be pretty irrelevant then.

Bea"Heh, we accidentally invaded Spain the other day..."sty