Celtic retentions in Italy and Spain

In common parlance, the countries Italy and Spain, are not known as “Celtic nations”: that is more associated with certain marginal areas, be it independent “countries” of the British isles (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), with often added French Brittany (Bretagne), part of France. This is mostly a linguistic definition, as there Celtic languages survived to varying degrees, but with often a cultural connotation, due to certain nationalistic/cultural – or now “identity” – movements. Leaving linguistics apart, often parts of Northwestern Iberia (Galicia, Asturias, and surroundings) are – due to their folk culture characteristics - often part of a broader “cultural” definition of “Celtic nations”, even though speaking (now) Romance languages.

VAGUE

Here it becomes more problematic, or rather vague. Spain, Portugal, and Italy, but even most of France, are more known as (similarly vague) “Latin” countries culturally, whatever that may mean, but mostly linguistically determined. Parts of Northern Italy (Lombardy, Piemonte) – including in nationalist “Northernist”, separatist circles (Lega Nord political party), self-define often as with (largely) Celtic roots, to distinguish themselves from other parts of Italy.

Similarly, Galicia and Asturias in Northwestern Spain, claim their Celtic roots to set them as regions apart from other parts of Spain. Some critics of this, also within Galicia and Spain itself, argue that this is largely a later “fabrication”, and that Galicia’s “celticity” is a myth, something like an all-too-inventive “identity” search, based on little. Even that is not so uncommon: culture and ethnicity do seldom combine fully one-on-one, as e.g. the spread of Islam shows, and other “dominating” cultures throughout history, adopted by subjects, at least partly. DNA studies confirm this in many cases.

“Based on little” - this Galician “celticity” as supposed myth - is, I think, too much to say. There is evidence of Celtic presence in large parts of Spain, including in Galicia. Whether this remained “pure” or soon mixed is another issue.

DNA

Historical studies, and (since the 1950s) historical DNA studies gave some interesting insights into this “Celtic” history. It also shed light on what is “substantially proven” about Celtic roots, and what “myth”.

Strictly looking at DNA, genetic remainders in current indigenous populations, make present-day France much more a “Celtic nation” than neighboring, more Mediterranean Italy or Spain. Folk traditions and cultures that survived even outside of “Celtic stronghold” Brittany in France, notably in Central France and the Auvergne and Alpine region, confirm this culturally, if not linguistically (safe in substrate influences in language formation).

I find these genetic/DNA studies interesting from a historical perspective, as it shows how “traditional culture” develops in tandem, yet partly isolated from “genetics” as such, showing human agency, despite it.

The problem is only that – according to geneticists - “Celtic DNA” is not always distinguishable from other European populations, including the Latins and Romans (who became influential), but also Basques, or older groups present in Western Europe, upon Celtic arrival. By comparison, a Germanic DNA – more to the North - was easier to distinguish, studies showed, to show ethnic origins in certain parts of Europe, as was a “Slavic” DNA. Celts seemed more mixed from the start.

It might very well be that forefathers of the Celts (oldest sources date it to the Ukrain/Russia area), soon mixed with older peoples moving west, while the culture was still developing. Historians claim that in the Western Alps (Switzerland, NW Italy) – in a later stage – some cultural - and linguistic! -Celtic traits came to the fore, but not all that would later be known (like bagpipes, round brickpatch fortress houses, etc.). It was still changing, as cultures are never static.

DILUTED

The countries where my parents are from (father Northern Italy, mother Southern Spain) have proven, historical “Celtic” presence, but much more regionally limited and diluted than in France. Pure races or genetic peoples don’t exist (despite Nazi and other “race purity” rhetoric: also the Germanic tribes absorbed present people in Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, etc.), but one can say that Gauls (Celtic-speaking peoples in France) are among the “main foreparents” of most indigenous French, percentage-wise.

This cannot be said of neither Italy or Spain. The irony is maybe that one of the oldest “documented” Celtic languages and peoples found by historians - deep in pre-history - were as already mentioned traced to the Italian-Swiss border region, in NW Italy. For that reason, the “Alpine type” as genetic marker of a Celtic physical European type, is named as such (though as said, often hard to distinguish from others). It seemed that the very basic elements of Celtic culture were shaped partly in those (now Italian/Swiss) Alpine regions, before spreading to other parts of Europe. It differed from both the Germanic/Teutonic cultures more to the North, Slavic or Dinaric peoples to the East, or more “Mediterranean” peoples to the South, with sometimes not even Indo-European languages (Basque, Etruscan, Iberian, a.o.).

The Roman empire had a strong influence, culturally and linguistically, due to their domination up to around 400 AD, making also regions where once Celts lived Romance speaking. Further migrations and historical connections diluted this relatively “distinct” Celtic culture.

FOLK CULTURE

Yet: in folk culture aspects remain, albeit mixed. Traditional music and musical instruments seems the best, and most honest, evidence of this, as some aspects were there before a partly “artificial” Celtic identity was called upon for political/nationalist reasons (just copying examples from e.g. Ireland or Brittany). There are – in other words – actually a few Celtic folk culture/music/tradition “remnants”, truly indigenous, in parts of NW Italy or NW Spain (and Northern Portugal), before a “Celtic international identity” became a rhetorical/political issue.

Both parts of Lombardy (like Bergamo) and Galicia, for instance, have their own “bagpipes”, differing from the Scottish or Irish ones, just like several regions within France have own bagpipes. France is by the way the country with the most and most varied “bagpipes” in Europe, many people may not know. The ones in Brittany and Auvergne are just best known. While bagpipes are in origin not a Celtic instrument per se, they relatively early in history were adopted as such, and certainly “celtified”.

The same applies to some “old” dance and song forms, recurring musical structures (e.g. chord “jumps”), and some other instruments associated with Celts, such as harps, frame drums, fiddles (in some areas), and the “hurdy gurdy” string instrument (a bit fiddle-like as well – due to drones – bagpipe like), found in e.g. Galicia, and Northern Italy (as in Auvergne, France).

Here the “vagueness” comes in. Bagpipes are common in, yet not exclusive to, Celtic cultures, as also found among Slavic and other peoples (e.g. Arabs), neither are the fiddle, harp, or even the hurdy-gurdy, also found in Hungarian culture, and among Slavic peoples. The frame drums are traditionally common in Northern Africa (most common among Berbers), and later also in Spain and Italy, and probably meant an early international influence on the travelling Celts. The Celtic peoples after all once extended from what is now Turkey, in Anatolia, westward through Romania, The Northern Balkan, the Alpes region, France, to Ireland. Probably the most heat-resilient Celts went to Anatolia or Iberia.

ABSORBED

On the border regions – or where other ethnic groups were more numerous – they encountered and mixed with e.g. Germanic peoples in N. France, Belgium, and South Germany, Etruscan and Venetian peoples in Emilia-Romagna and Trentino/Veneto (NE Italy), and Basques and Iberians in southern France and the Iberian Peninsula.

Where Celts became more dominant (numerically or culturally) present populations with older DNA were absorbed by the Celts, including those that built the “dolmens” stone structures (similar to Stonehenge), later adopted by the Celts.

Such stone structures pre-date the Celts, but also Germanic peoples, as similar “dolmens” as in e.g. Galicia or Wales, are found in England (Stonehenge), as well as the province of Drenthe in the Netherlands, pre-dating Germanic/Saxon arrival, as the Netherlands became primarily Germanic/Teutonic (absorbing also present people).

That is why historical DNA studies, developed since the 1950s, are interesting. They contradict the Nazi “purity” idea of Germanic peoples, discarding both the purity and – of course! – the supposed “superiority” to all other people and racial types in the world, as nonsense. On the other hand, these same studies did confirm the existence of a typical “Germanic” DNA. Of course not in any way that it meant that they were a “superior” Herrenvolk. A Celtic DNA proved harder to define, though with indications.

In Central and South Spain and Portugal, Celts arrived, but found more numerous and culturally advanced groups (Phoenician/Carthaginian/Egyptian/Iberian-influenced). The Iberians and Tartessians/Phoenicians – speaking proto-Semitic languages in part - in Iberia had a writing system and more advanced societies with links to the Mediterranean and Egypt. Thus arose the Celtiberian culture in Central Spain, while in South Portugal and South Spain (even in parts of Western Andalusia and Extremadura Celtic groups arrived since around 600 BC) larger groups had to be absorbed by the Celts, or rather: the other way around, though Celtic languages kept being spoken.

Genetically and culturally, as the culture became more Mediterranean/Semitic, later Roman and Moorish, in South Spain and Portugal. Few Celtic cultural remnants remained in Southern Spain, safe certain customs and place names, while in more isolated, less-dominated areas, like NW Spain (Galicia and Asturias) and bordering N Portugal, these Celtic influences on traditional culture seemed stronger, and still living on. In rural architecture, as already mentioned music and dance, festivities, other customs and beliefs, albeit influenced by Roman and later Central Spanish and international culture. It gave regions like Galicia and Asturias their own characteristics within Spain.

BAGPIPE REGION

As in Africa you have a specific, restricted “Djembe region”, where that type of drum is traditionally played, mostly Mande-speaking, Sahel areas from Senegal to Northern Ghana, in Europe (and Spain) you also have a Gaita (Spanish for “bagpipe”) region, limited mostly to the Northwest of Spain, and bordering areas. The non-Celtic speaking Basques know a type of “bagpipe” too, as does more Iberian Aragón, but Galicia and Asturias (and parts of Northern León and Castile) are most known for and specialized in it. Bagpipe (Gaita) use is Spain thus mostly connected to regions with Celtic pasts.

Other “stereotypical” Spanish instruments, like the Spanish guitar (Andalusian in origin), and the castanets (percussive, wooden clappers) are more associated with Central and Southern Spain, with the Castanets – probably originally from Egypt - dating back to the Phoenicians or before. Tambourines (and later with national unification also Castanets) tend to have spread more peninsula-wide from early on. Bagpipes/gaitas remained regional.

LINGUISTICS

Linguistically, Celtic languages disappeared in Spain and Portugal, safe loanwords. The what they call substrate influence (shaping new languages from older spoken ones) of Celtic tongues are found in the developing Galician languages (later developing southward into Portuguese), and Asturian dialects/languages, but less in Castilian Spanish, which had more Basque as substrate influence. The early Kingdom of Castile bordered Basque areas, soon outweighing Celtic connections.

Substrate influence of Celtic languages have also been confirmed through studies in some other Romance dialects, such as in Lombardy, Piemonte, or Emilia (NW Italy) – known even as Gallo-Romance languages -, Central France, but also in specific German accents/dialects in SW Germany (Schwaben), the Alsace, and Switzerland, and types of English in NW England and Scotland.

Languages/dialects in Northern Italy like the Lombard and Piedmonte languages have, like French, the “u” sound as in English picTURE, or French Bien SUR, or close to this as in English FUR or French LEUR. Formal Spanish or Italian don’t have those sounds: only the open latin vowels, but French and Gallo-Italian dialects like Lombard do: it must be due to stronger Celtic substrates there. Neither does Galician or Asturian, but they have similarities with Gallo-Italian dialects/languages, that Spanish lacks: vowel extension or change, for instance, and the common, “slissing” “sy” sound.

I find interesting that certain phonetic or grammatical “pan-Celtic” characteristics somehow recur between French, Lombardian, Schwabisch Deutsch, and , say, Scottish English. More “long-voweled”, “meandering” or semi-mumbling “sing-songy” is sometimes said, while the “nasal” element in French, or (hinted at) in e.g. Irish or Galician/Portuguese probably are also Celtic in origin.

Formal Italian developed in Tuscany, so was probably Etruscan (non-Indo-European/Anatolian)- influenced, while Latin of Rome developed from local, more Mediterranean Italic groups in Central Italy. Evidence showed that Celtic groups actually reached parts of Italy South of even Rome, but as a less influential minority, not unlike Southern Spain.

REGIONAL

One can conclude that the Celtic influences in Italy and Spain remained regional – rather than national -, reflecting in local folk culture primarily. DNA studies give an indication, but no guarantee. Celts absorbed local (Neolithic) groups to differing degrees and mixed somewhat more than e.g. Germanic/Teutonic peoples, and DNA-wise, the Basques differ only in some details from surrounding peoples (linguistically much more), Celts or otherwise, while the genetic difference between SW Spain (where Celtic-speaking people lived) and Eastern Spain (where Iberians lived) is remarkably small, shaped throughout history, with admixture of Germanic peoples, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Moors (Arabs, Berbers), Jews, and internal migration. Genetically, it is as usual all very mixed, with some regional accents. That accent is there in Galicia and Asturias, but even there Moorish DNA entered (via later migrations, is assumed) and after the Romans, in the 5th c AD, also Germanic DNA by Suevi and Goths in Galicia (part of so-called “Barbaric” Nordic hordes invading the fallen Roman Empire).

That “Germanic” DNA, that exists as distinguishable, according to scientists, is less common in Spain than elsewhere in Europe, even lower than in Italy (less than 4%, is estimated). The genetic maps earlier in this post showed that. Some parts of Galicia (Suevi), Northern Portugal, and Catalonia (Franks, Goths) have relatively higher Germanic DNA percentages, and even – according to strange studies – more “blond” hair and blue eyes. This percentage never surpasses about 8 % though, while the Celtic DNA (though harder to distinguish as said) attributed much more to Spaniards (around 30%, they think), representing thus a connection to France and other parts of Europe, though not an overwhelming one.

Not overwhelming (and with a lot of genetic admixtures over time, as elsewhere), and in this sense the DNA more or less correlates with Celtic folk culture in Spain and Italy. Not really a central part of either Italian or Spanish “national culture”, but confined to regional folk culture, to which attest in specific regions e.g. the bagpipe music, specific folk songs and music styles, material culture, like housing and clothing, and folk spiritual ideas (Celts had a magical bond with trees, woodlands, and nature, the oak being a sacred tree, for instance, wood spirit stories, etcetera. And Galicia and Asturias are in a “green”, wooded part of Iberia).

Galician/Asturian, but also Lombard and Piedmonte folk music in Northern Italy preserves some of this, also used as “revival” by modern composers or musical artists and singer/songwriters, such as Angelo Branduardi, who draws on folk traditions, also from Lombardy, and several artists from Galicia and Asturias, even “pop” artists like Asturian-born Victor Manuel, drawing at times on Asturian folk bagpipes or song styles, or revival “fusion” groups in Galicia, like Milladoiro, or more modern local pop/rock (and even hip-hop) groups using Gaitas and folk music. An example is the Galician hip-hop/pop group Os Resentidos.

TRIBUTE

Regional as it remained, this Celtic heritage in NW Spain still received somewhat of a tribute on the famous album by Miles Davis, Sketches Of Spain (1960), on which the Jazz artist/trumpeter explored several Spanish “known” folk genres. Besides a predictable emphasis on Castile and Andalusia on this album, due to the rich and influential legacy of genres like Jota, Fandango, and Flamenco, one song of that album – or rather: instrumental composition -, called The Pan Piper, is based on more marginal and local folk music from around Vigo in Galicia, a style known as Alborada.

The counter-patterns and –melodies to Miles’ trumpet on the track The Pan Piper, show these Celtic musical (meandering/chord-jump) forms, still characteristic in much Galician folk music, and certainly comparable to other Celtic music (e.g. of Ireland, rural Lombardy or France, etc.).

Equally interesting are similarities between two “pop” songs by Italian Angelo Branduardi – his “big hit” Cogli La Prima Mela, and the song Quiero Abrazarte Tanto by Spanish singer Victor Manuel, both drawing loosely, if recognizably, on Celtic traditions from their regions (Lombardy and Asturias, respectively), combined with other influences (folk, rest of Spain/Italy, pop, rock, Latin American, etc.). They are both catchy, lively, and danceable songs, by the way.

At the very least, in parts of Northern Italy and Northern Spain – especially rural parts - a genuine Celtic-influenced folk culture was indeed kept alive, beyond mere “inventions of tradition” for politicized, nationalist/regionalist identity ideologies (such as by Lega Nord or Galician nationalist groups), making it in part a real, non-artificial cultural retention (albeit sometimes modernized/mixed) in these parts.

Some musical artists use this heritage well, giving the world their art, as happened more often, such as with the African retentions to differing degrees in “Black” music from the Americas or modern African pop genres, South Spanish “Flamenco-pop”, or Indian/Bhangra- or Arab-influenced modern pop.

Use what you got and know from your culture to shape your art, seems to be a lesson here.

FAKE?

Finally, I come back to the critical claim – even within Galicia - that Galicia’s supposed cultural “celticity” – with after all unlike Brittany, Ireland, or Wales NO surviving spoken Celtic language – is a mere “myth”. In other words: actually “fake”, as the critique goes. I think that this accusation of “myth” or “fake invention” may sound spectacular and assertive, but is at least exaggerated and simplistic. Simplistic, because people with that critique forget that “cultural formation” – of many peoples in this world - involves mixture and adoption over time, and indeed the Celts from early on – way in European pre-history, showed this flexibility, when interacting both with changing natural environments and other peoples. Over time something like an own “Celtic culture” formed, which stood apart from “ethnic purity”.

That latter romantic, racial “purity” idea was common in parts of Europe in the Early 20th c., and also the German Weimar Republic, mixing with Romanticism as cultural movement. It became less “innocent” when it – according to historians – influenced Nazi and other (e.g. Italian) Fascist ideologues connecting “race” and culture, and this in turn with “superiority”, e.g. power politics.

Though a Germanic DNA seems to exist according to geneticists, it is historically (geographic travelling, conquering patterns) and maybe culturally interesting, but not much more than that. It shows funnily that the English share more DNA (mostly Germanic) with the Germans than many English would wish to have (since Hitler and WW II), haha. Similarly, while Dutch and Flemish people in my experience are more realistic and quite reasonable about their Germanic heritage (less absurd denial), after WW II and the Nazi German invasion of the Low Countries, a “Germanic identity” as a nation is seen as a bit contaminated in the present-day Netherlands, and, in an international world, also too limited.

That Celtic cultures seem to have a stronger folk culture and music than the more meager heritage of Germanic peoples (Irish are known as more musical than English), but parts of Germany, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands, do have own (also musical) customs. Perhaps earlier industrialization/modernization of Germanic peoples limited their folk culture, compared to more rural and marginal Ireland, Wales, Galicia, Auvergne, or Italian Alps.

Or – also possible – the earlier mixing, travelling and adopting early on (since 2000 BC) by Celts, when travelling through Central Europe, later to more populated Western and Southern parts, enabled flexibility, in turn inspiring a richer and more varied culture. A matter of human agency in cultural formation and distinction. There is nothing wrong with that. It is in fact the very flexible creativity that tends to give birth to the intriguing variety of folk culture world wide..

Migration is freedom

In reality, it is an example of how we ended up in a strange world: the often problematic and politicized use of “migration”.

Humans, after originating in Africa, roam from the beginning, seeking livelihoods, greener pastures, even adventure and joy, populating the world. Humanity is in that sense interwoven with migration, and with that human “culture”. In an episode of the Migrant Journal, nr. 6, titled Foreign Agents (2019), the author/editor writes in the introduction: “the grounds of culture rely on a capacity to develop local traditions, which are then transmitted not only across social groups, but also across time and space. The very foundations of culture appear inseparable from the logics of migration”.

Of course, separate civilizations developed, urbanization, modernizations, distinct nation states, and hierarchies of power, up to the 21st c.. During this process, “migration” became “framed” as intrusive and disturbing an order. Man kind lost an essential and existential – and original! – freedom. Migration is essentially freedom.

Dutch critic of Neoliberalism, Ewald Engelen, justly argued that in today’s world, movement of “capital” is problematic and detrimental, not movement of “people”.

Yet, it became accepted policy to halt people crossing over to another piece of the earth, while using their natural freedom of movement. Most of this world is after all not an unorganized, small-scale and fragmented “society” through which one can freely roam around – unbound – like a Gypsy or nomad. There are upheld boundaries.

Rhetorics of “national protection” against all things foreign are widely accepted, being in fact an off-spin of warring empires and kingdoms from ancient times, the times of Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, way before AD.

In modern times, passports, visas, and citizenship cards keep people in control, and essentially bound to nation states. Loss of original human freedom, that many now even take for granted.

The large wealth inequalities in this world, shocked some humans into going back to that original and inherent “migrant” within, that always remained there. Illegal migrations from nearby poorer areas are well-known, such as from Mexico to the US, and from North Africa to Europe.

Not to dwell too much on an abstract level, I will now make it more concrete and topical.

CORONA

The “corona crisis” since Early 2020, in relation to a proclaimed pandemic, showed how we took more freedoms for granted: free migration we gave up already, now with unprecedented “lockdown” policies, which I personally am NOT in favour of, for a variety of reasons (Covid 19 is not severe enough, being a main one), but that’s not the issue here.

The long ago loss of free migration of humans was limiting “where” we go, while recent, enforced, international measures (like obliged facemasks, forced closing of places, keeping distance, gathering bans), deal with “how” we go. Other draconian measures, like travel restrictions and curfews, come closer to that “original loss of free migrating”, impacting on “where we go” , limiting even more and in a detailed manner our freedom of movement.

The Main Stream Media is lost and utterly corrupted in this stage in human history. The uncritical propaganda for the corona policies of mass media, raise suspicion of corruption (mentally or financially). As part of this, even large popular demonstrations against corona policies, lockdowns, curfews, etcetera, are either downplayed or ignored, like in fact all critics or opponents.

In reality, there are worldwide many opponents – and skeptics - of these corona policies, increasing with consciousness, lamenting the loss of freedoms. Justly, in my opinion.

PERSONAL STORIES

I wish to elaborate deeper on the human search for freedom though migration, by discussing personal stories of migration I have encountered – or am connected with. I live in the Netherlands.

I myself am Netherlands-born, and a son of immigrant parents, my father came from Northern Italy, my mother from Southern Spain, via Madrid, both in the 1960s. Both the different countries my parents came from, plus the fact that I was born in the Netherlands, while my family roots lay elsewhere, made it difficult for me to embrace a “national protection” or “national purity” idea. Many Dutch people have less difficulties with that, I noticed.

“The paradox is in the ugliness of vanity”, as singer Vaughn Benjamin from the Reggae band Midnite sang. The ugliness in this case being the judging by “locals” of people on their descent or presence, not their behavior or personality, of treating foreigners – in worst cases – as polluting hindrances. As absurd as it is cold and evil.

To make sense within this evil absurdity, I will discuss a few of the “migrant” stories I heard in my life, mainly from “foreigners” in the Netherlands I know.

One main fallacy, I soon learned, is the simplifying as “one-dimensional” of migrant motivations. Of course, escaping poverty is a main motivation (or sending money to poor families home), but even with that there are nuances. Others, refugees, escape political oppression or persecution in their own country.

SYRIA

One such refugee I know told me a lot about his travelling and “migrations”. He is a young man from Syria, the civil war in which, seemed “eclipsed” in the global news, by everything related to corona/Covid 19. That Syrian civil war has been in fact going on since 2011, so now over a decade there is war in Syria. The war and conflict is still continuing in Syria during the now pandemic policies, though less intensely. This Syrian I know, was accepted as refugee, and obtained the Dutch nationality.

He told me stories of bombing by state forces where “rebels” hid, fearing it, when rebels hid near their building. He told about intense corruption dealing with Syria’s bureaucracy, state control mechanisms, obligated military service, and Syria’s wider political context under the Assad dictatorship.

I understood through him, that for all intents and purposes, Syria is a dictatorship, even in the classic sense. It can be compared to what we heard about Saddam Hoessein’s Iraq, but also harkened back to other known dictatorships: big photos of Assad in the streets and in every school, artists must first praise Assad in their work, before censorship might loosen. Hard to “breathe” in such dictatorships, is what you often hear. Another analogy is of a life “without colours”. Of course worsened with the tensions of civil war.

SPAIN

In fact, I found comparisons with the story of my mother, similarly “escaping” a dictatorship under Franco. The dictatorship with photos of the “leader”, state propaganda, censorship, reducing gathering and demonstrations, seemed to have parallels of the stories of my Syrian friend. One difference being maybe that in Spain “democracy” lost to Franco’s Fascist dictatorship in the period 1939-1975, while the ongoing conflict in Syria is between myriad forces, some of which are pro-democracy, but others not much more democratic than President Assad himself.

My mother was officially a labour migrant. Though not made easy, under Franco’s Spain travelling or migrating out of the country was partly allowed, also to limit the strain on the economy. Spain was then poorer than the Netherlands, surely, and she found a job in the Netherlands, near Haarlem, in 1966.

This was part of the “guest labourers” program, with labour migrants from the wider Mediterranean area, doing work that Dutch, German, Belgian, French, or Swiss people did not want to do anymore.

There’s more to it, though. Having talked a lot with my mother, I found out she was also a kind of a refugee.

“Bullied away” you can say, but anyway, she told me that having to work to contribute supporting her younger siblings and parents, she noted the harsh treatment and exploitation at virtually all workplaces in Spain. She felt treated “like a slave”, she even said to me. This related to the Fascist doctrine of Francoist Spain, where poor people’s “obedience” to bosses and work was promoted, and “Left-wing” democratization discouraged. My mother told me she did not feel “free” in Franco’s Spain: neither at workplaces nor in society as a whole (Spain was then more or less a police state), though with differing intensity (and arbitrariness).

Her migration to the Netherlands, was as much an escape toward wealth, as one toward “freedom”. This is an essential birthright of humans: finding another place, maybe better. Being a good guest when the host treats you good, is likewise natural for most migrants, I argue. Loyalty is however not an obligation, and human dignity comes first. Having crossed a border can never be an excuse for trampling one’s rights, though it has become that.

UNPLANNED

These, and other migrant stories, point at other aspects that are often disregarded in politicized “migration” debates. The haphazard, chaotic, and “unplanned” steps one takes toward eventually migrating to a foreign land. A land of which one does not even know or speak the language, as both was the case of my Syrian friend and my mother.

Many migrants, especially pre-digital ones, did not even know that the Netherlands actually had an own (Germanic) language. Even in European countries like Italy and Spain, some thought that people spoke French or German in the Netherlands. Of course, they found out soon enough about that own language.

INTEGRATION

Also, I learned from migrant stories, the confrontation with the other culture of host countries, in this case the Netherlands, was also multidimensional: haphazard, changing, and contradictory. Of course, some Dutch people likewise criticized immigrants’ behaviours and cultural customs, and still do. My Spanish mother attributed such demeaning remarks about South Europeans (such as the countries of my parents) to Dutch “jealousy” and thus a hidden inferiority complex. That is a way to look at it.

DIFFERENCES

Many irritations uttered about “other cultures” are also “guesses” about human behavior, less recognized from one’s own background. In time they understood or accepted the differences more, I noticed.

The “speaking loud (or fast)” norm among many migrant groups (including Spaniards) in the Netherlands, versus the “speaking soft” norm in the Netherlands, being an example of anecdotal difference. Controlled temper and emotions (Dutch “reserve”), or the Dutch fame for being “Protestantly” economical with money, other differences.

Politeness with strangers is not very common anymore in the Netherlands, causing some cultural misunderstandings. Harsh insults as sarcastic “jokes” are for instance sometimes accepted among close friends in countries like Spain or Italy, but not by strangers just met on the streets, as occurred with Dutch people making harsh (racist?) jokes toward them. Like in Britain and Ireland, Spain and to a lesser degree Italy still have a norm of “public politeness” in social life. The Netherlands is in that sense “freer” and rougher (especially in the cities), but even to that many migrants become accustomed, dealing more with Dutch people.

Often, such traits are both admired and ridiculed concurrently. At the same time, noting them shows a genuine curiosity in people with other cultures. It is no cold detachment or dehumanization. This curiosity is not static, but always continuing and changing. All too human, and as natural as the original human urge to travel.

The interesting thing is that even poor, individual immigrants over time tend to influence local cultures, but organically and voluntary. Cultures with not very developed cuisines (Britain, the Netherlands) enriched their food choices, and for instance Jamaican migrants attributed to British youth culture, and also in part Surinamese migrants in the Netherlands.

Even other migrant groups are influenced by other migrant groups, such as Moroccans in the Netherlands, using Surinamese terms, or in the choice of music genres. There is no force in such processes; it is all voluntary and organic.

Only racist or nationalist ideas, or feelings of cultural superiority or conservatism, make many object to such “multicultural” mixtures and ways. In reality, it innovated and broadened culture and creativity. It increased options for all.

Even without “bigger”, geopolitical contexts, highly individual stories of migrations – often involving simply sense of adventure – migration is not by definition “negative”. Somehow that was put in our heads: migration is a bad thing.

Falling in love, just wanting a change in life, or limited options due to direct family or surroundings, are less “sensational” than heroic stories of “escaping deep poverty”, “escaping war”, or “escaping a dictatorship or repression”. They are still “all too human”. I think they are also legitimate migration reasons for free human beings.

ITALY

The northern Italy, where my father came from, became soon after World War II, more industrialized and wealthier than Spain, where my mother came from. Like in Germany (but less disciplined), Northern Italy experienced a kind of “economic miracle”, after being on the wrong side during the preceding devastating war. Many industries developed, e.g. manufacturing, textile and automobiles. My father even told me that because of this rapid growth, wages in many companies in parts of Northern Italy for low-wage workers, were even higher than in the Netherlands he migrated to. He just migrated for several reasons, partly economic, largely relating to personal circumstances, and including the search for freedom.

There is nothing wrong with that: that is personal freedom.

The crux of the matter is that the now politicized “migration” falsely is depicted as an ‘invasion”, as if it were an invading army “taking over” and imposing its will. An inappropriate and unfounded “war” terminology, especially when dealing with individual poor, virtually powerless immigrants.

REGGAE

Being a Reggae fan for decades now, I more or less specialized in Reggae music, including its lyrics. Relevant to this post, I can mention that “migration” is a theme in Reggae lyrics, but especially with regard to Jamaicans going to wealthier countries like US or Britain.

Also, the Jamaican national hero and intellectual – important for Rastafari adherents – Marcus Garvey, was migrating for various reasons: economic (labour- and poverty-related), political, and personal. It can be seen as part of Garvey’s studying of the wider world, and particularly the downtrodden position of Black people in it.

In Reggae lyrics, other, contemporary migrants are also discussed, including common Jamaicans who went astray, as they got caught up in urban and modern confusion and temptations abroad.

Linton Kwesi Johnson’s classic song Inglan Is A Bitch exemplifies in its autobiographical lyrics adequately the poor Black immigrant labourer’s life – and social position of poor newcomers - in Britain.

Mutabaruka’s Johnny Drughead, and Don Carlos’s Cool Johnny Cool deal with a Jamaican migrating to New York and it going wrong, ending up addicted, or involved in crime.

Also Lutan Fyah’s discusses this “migrants gone astray” theme in the lyrics of Rough A Yard, also as a “cautionary” tale against losing yourself.

This may seem a negative or pessimist take, yet only goes to show that with freedom of course should come responsibility. Freedom without responsibility is dangerous. Responsibility without freedom is slavery.

More positive, in some lyrics, hard-working immigrants are praised.

Success stories are discussed less in Reggae lyrics, beyond the impressive movement Marcus Garvey – against all odds - set up for Black Americans in the US since 1917, pioneering even the Black Power movement as such in the US.

Meanwhile, being a poor and problematic country, many Jamaican artists migrated too, some temporarily (such as Bob Marley to Britain, following a shooting of him), some for good.

POLITICIZED

Over time, many Right-wing politicians raised objections against “free migrations” (especially of poor people with “other” cultures) as disturbing. They used economic and cultural arguments, and some Extreme Right parties even racist arguments. This denies the fact that, as I outlined above, humans are inherently migrants, historically. As natural as walking or breathing, and therefore limiting it, simply infringes on humans’ natural freedoms and rights.

CORONA AGAIN

The “freedom of movement” came under attack again with the current corona policies, and its increased “control focus”. Some opponents even speak of “psychological warfare”, in this regard. This did not lead to a massive global uprising, as many world citizens thought the restrictions had actually to do with a pandemic or health (I myself lost that belief in the course of 2020). I see it as an aim of a world elite to control the world population even more strictly than before, and indeed a psychological warfare.

Curfews, lockdowns, or gathering bans, in essence make that where before you were impeded to “cross national borders” – limiting that freedom -, these stricter corona policies now go further: even impeding leaving your own house (curfews), or limiting what you can do outside of your house, forced to show you are not infected with a flu virus, which is not even that grave or extra infectious.

While “the whole world” did not stand up against this as one (unfortunately, in my opinion), of course there was protest, critique, and opposition to such corona policies.

CONTRADICTORY

Somewhat contradictory in all this was that the formal political opposition was - at least in the Netherlands - not of (most of the formally “Left” parliamentarians), who were remarkably supportive of this elitist new order plan, but more often of Right-wing parties, combining corona policy critique in some cases with anti-immigration stances. This I consider contradictory. Migration is after all freedom, and represents the essence of human freedom: the same essence now trampled upon with these corona policies. Open up the society, but do not let those poor immigrants with other cultures in to be part of it?

A somewhat smaller political party (FVD: Forum for Democracy) in the Netherlands is critical about the corona policies and its negative effects, saying some sensible things in this regard. On the other hand it also pleads to not allow much more “poor” migrants entering in the Netherlands, and for instance proposing to send back Syrian refugees to “safe areas” in Syria (with less war activities).

The biggest and governing Right-wing political party in the Netherlands, the VVD, holds similar (though more diplomatically worded) views, but supports strongly the corona policies and the nonsense of ineffective lockdowns (for whatever reason). At least they are consistent in their attack on and fight against human freedoms and rights. Consistently wrong and immoral.

Also Right-wing presidents like Trump in the US and Bolsonaro in Brazil (both having made some anti-immigration and xenophobic statements), were a bit downplaying regarding the Covid 19 virus, with fewer restrictions on freedoms.

Again contradictory, also because those Right-wing policies do the same as what in my opinion is fundamentally wrong with this “lockdownism” of international corona policies: it “dehumanizes” people, reducing them to soulless – potentially annoying - “numbers” or “factors” that can be manipulated without consent or involvement. Without respecting their freedoms, fundamental rights and desires, their humanity, physical integrity, and birthright to self-determination.

Some things the mentioned Syrian friend of mine also told me can bring this point home.

When I mentioned that idea of some Dutch politicians of having Syrians return to “safe“ parts of Syria, he responded that “if I could return to live among my people and family there, I would”. Politicians not knowing actual situations in countries, and like so often (and now with the corona policies) reducing individuals to abstract, one-dimensional factors to be controlled, not as complex persons with complex stories.

Even more significant was therefore another thing this Syrian friend said to me, as we were facing more and more absurdly strict “anti-corona” measures in the Netherlands: besides the patronizing facemasks and “1,5 m distance between persons rule”, these included a ban on groups over 2 or 3 people, and there was even a curfew, where Dutch citizens could not leave their own house between 21:00 and 04:30, as in more countries around the world. Meanwhile demonstrations were roughly disbanded, and dictatorial methods like censorship became more common in Dutch mainstream press, especially against anti-corona policy voices.

In response to this police state-like measures, my Syrian friend said: “I exactly left Syria because of these kind of things, for a free country like the Netherlands. Now it’s here in the Netherlands too..”

Nuff said.