Ideas of "racial purity" get no encouragement from this book. Our common origin is in fact one of its central themes. But such ideas have a long history, and the Nazis were not the only people to embrace them. There was a strong push in 20th century China, for example, both Republican and Communist, to claim a specific Chinese racial identity and history. Rather than descending from African forebears, the Chinese, it was argued, may have evolved on their own direct from Homo Erectus, an earlier hominid whose remains have been found not far from Beijing.
This claim is entirely dismissed by DNA research. The Chinese are no more descended from a regional forebearer than Europeans are descended from a Neanderthal one. We all derive from ancestors who left Africa 10, 20, 40 or 50 thousand years ago.
These minute DNA variations are of outstanding value in the search for mankind's origins, but they have a dark side too. They mean, at least in theory, that DNA-specific biological weapons could be developed, fine-tuned to affect only people of a specific ethnicity. There is some evidence that this terrifying prospect may be only just round the corner.
In one current conflict zone such a weapon would be difficult to perfect, however. The DNA patterns of Arabs and the majority of Israelis are so close that researchers, however fiendish, would be hard pressed to target the other grouping exclusively.
As usual, there are some things to be said on one side and some things on the other. The way many nations see ethnic diversity as an impediment to unity, for example, can be deplored. Villagers are relocated, the language of the majority becomes compulsory in schools, and before long the young from these minorities actually feel embarrassed to admit to their heritage. This is a route on which minority cultures die, and with them all identifiable traces of humanity's diverse origins.
On the other hand, the ethnic mix that is already a feature of urban centers, and that the modern ease of mobility is certain to make more common, rather than being seen as lamentable (as exponents of racial purity would have it) can be viewed as highly desirable. Biological weapons targeted at a specific racial group could only be feasible when the ethnic groupings are separate and distinct. Inter-breeding of ethnicities makes biological weapons aimed at specific groups outdated before they are even a reality.
Such areas of thought, however, are not this book's main preoccupation. Human brotherhood is what it primarily demonstrates. Racial hatred, let alone inter-racial war, is something a contemplation of its contents ought to consign to the garbage collector's wagon.
The book is magnificently illustrated with photographs by Mark Read. What makes his pictures so special is that, rather than being of "tribal" peoples in the way we have become accustomed to in works of ethnography, they are of modern men -- in baseball caps worn back-to-front, broad-brimmed outback hats, or knitted rasta scull-caps. This makes the book's central statements as to who we are and where we came from even more relevant than, to anyone who thinks about it, they are already.
RSS