Our ancestors packed up and left their homelands for good. What’s bewildering, if anything, is what the big deal is? Homeland? What’s that?
Do they have a specific area they desire for their homeland? Would they all accept moving there, or would there be dissenters who favor other approaches? (100% acceptance is hardly necessary; a great many Jews would never choose to move to Israel.) Could it be made to work? Is it a heartfelt desire among many?
A homeland is not indistinguishable from a random patch of same sized land somewhere else. When people have lived somewhere for generations they will have to some extent or other changed that land, buildings, roads and paths, fields, cultivated trees etc. If some other buggers come along, kick them out and either reap the benefits or destroy it. Olive trees, for example take fifty years from planting to bearing fruit, then with care and pruning they can live hundreds of years. Who wants to give up that kind of heritage without a fight?
Brief highjack, but is this always so? My dad planted an olive tree in 1955, and it was certainly heavy with fruit by 1965. It wasn’t planted as a seed, of course, but as a shoot.
I’ll plant a new shoot this weekend…and get back to you in ten years… 
A BBC weatherman has planted a grove in anticipation of global warming, ISTR he was talking about his grandchildren harvesting the fruit.
Perhaps you’d be so kind as to explain how we should determine who gets to live where.
I’ll ask the same question of you that I asked of Der Trihs. But as an added question, I’ll also ask everyone to define what they mean by the term homeland.
Oh, yeah, that’s gonna work. :rolleyes:
Thanks for the discussion, all. I get confused when people speak as though they have some inherent right to some particular piece of land - especially when someone else has been living there for some time. It also confuses me to hear the US opine how other nations ought to act towards their ethnic minorities, as tho such relations were dictated by some universal ethical principles rather than political realities.
It certainly isn’t easy to understand because to do so, we need to learn in depth about the grievance, and what solutions there might be. Usually a land has been invaded, occupied, or colonised by people with superior technology. The locals get killed or shoved aside, or even transported to another place. Think of the Trail of Tears.
Realistically, governments are the only entity which can return large areas to provide a homeland (however we define that). Governments are not going to move other people off land to achieve it. Manhattan isn’t going to be returned to Amerindians.
Don’t you think the United States should uphold ethical principles?
Sounds like you are getting the point.
Sure I do. But I’m not sure all of us would agree as to which ethical principles are “universal”, and what results such principles would dictate in each specific case.
Moreover, I think reality is somewhat messy - it might be more accurate to say that my preference is that government action be informed by ethical principals, rather than being dictated by them.
Why?
Who decided that they “deserved” it?
What criteria were used?
The Amerinds example isn’t clear either, since most Amerinds displaced other Amerinds. For example, should Michigan belong to the Chippewa, who invaded, displaced, slaughtered, and enslaved the Ottowa who preceded them? (Of course one wonders who was there before the Ottowas.)
Why not? What’s your definition of a homeland?
That’s where we are heading, eventually, one would hope (like the EU dissolving borders)>.
Yes it does. (2)Russia deserves your land because they can kill you and anyone else currently living there. As well as:
3 China
4 India
5 Germany
6 France
7 Japan
8 Turkey
9 Brazil
10 Great Britain
11 Italy
12 South Korea
13 Indonesia
14 Mexico
15 Canada
16 Iran
17 Egypt
18 North Korea
19 Spain
20 Pakistan
21 Australia
22 Saudi Arabia
23 Thailand
24 Argentina
25 Sweden
26 Israel
27 Greece
28 Taiwan
29 Syria
30 Philippines
31 Poland
32 Ukraine
33 Norway
34 Iraq
35 Libya
36 Venezuela
37 Lebanon
38 Nepal
39 Afghanistan
40 Cuba
Ptooey. Human beings are territorial, ethnocentric and tribalistic. However disturbing that fact may be to you, it remains a fact. You can sing “Kumbaya” as long as you want, it won’t change human nature.
I spent some of this weekend looking this up in various gardening books. Surprisingly, most of them didn’t say anything on the subject. I found a note in a 1959 Encyclopedia Americana, that olives begin bearing after four to eight years, and reach maximum yields after 12 to 16 years. I found some references that olive trees reach their maximum growth after fifty years, so that may have been the origin of the idea. I hope the weatherman in question is pleasantly surprised by olives within the decade.
Apologies for highjack. I’ll go back to my martini now!
Why not? An olympic weightlifter who is strong enough to lift a weight “deserves” his gold medal. A group of people who can put together an army to take/hold land can also “deserve” to call it their homeland. It’s not necessarily the only thing involved, but you cannot say it has nothing to do with it.
Thanks for the examples for my point. I didn’t realize it required explanation, but I suppose I didn’t make my meaning clear enough.