PETER BRUCE: Neanderthals and the politics of identity
Identity politics will one day self-implode or, more likely, be imploded
What fragile, insignificant fools we humans are. A story I read in the Washington Post last week reveals that humans mated (as in had sex with) Neanderthals as a matter of routine after dividing into separate groups 750,000 years ago. About 4% of the DNA of people from places as far apart as Britain and Japan is Neanderthal. Neanderthals get a raw deal in the media. They're low-breeds with skanky hair and thick eyebrows. They grunt at each other and throw stones badly. I’m going to assume it was Neanderthal DNA that drove European migration to SA and Australia. If you look hard enough at us you can see the faint outlines of what I mean. Long arms, little chins, big foreheads. That sort of thing. The story reminded me of the way the Sunday papers in the old apartheid days used to feed off stories about Afrikaner nationalists being caught in bed with the servants. It was always terribly shameful to be caught loving someone of another race, let alone another species. People would kill ...
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