The United Nations declaration of the principles of universal human rights was signed by a majority of members in 1948. 48 member states approved it and 8 declined to sign it. Amongst those who refused to sign it was the Soviet Union and several communist countries; they did not wish to give humans rights ahead of State sovereignty. Another known not-signer was South Africa, where they were exactly in the process of establishing apartheid. Also Saudi Arabia was a no-signer because they did not wish to give individuals the right to change religion; nor did they want to give equal rights in marriage.
Maybe the earliest that human rights as such were recognized, was in the Declaration of Independence by the 13 colonies that became the United States of America. That document, however, only stated as self-evident that, “all men are created equal”, not including slaves, nor women who only received their Voting Rights more than 100 years later (after men who had been enslaved).
National sovereignty became again a hot controversial issue around the beginning of the 21st Century. At this time the conflict was between the European Union and some of the nationalistic states from Central Europe, who felt that the EU was encroaching over their Sovereign liberties. They wanted to receive aid, the benefits of free travel and free movement, but not at the expense of their sovereignty.
The United Nations Article 1 of the human rights declaration states that: “All humans are born free and equal …”. A proposition I fully accept and consider to be the foundation of all laws, regulations and agreements that govern human interactions.
I am a migrant. Why am I a migrant? The short answer is because I participated in a revolution against the Soviet Union,which we lost. A more complete answer would need to include the reasons for the revolution. And those reasons grew out of the Soviet ideology, on which the Hungarian communist state was based. It denied the idea that we are all born equal. That denial is well illustrated when all of us were assigned a symbol specifying our official inequality.: a letter, one of five, indicated our assigned social class and explicitly implied our inequality. And that symbol was regularly brought up in school (it was part of our school record, which registered grades, school level, and associated facts). One’s class had implications for continued education, employment, and political involvement. With the “wrong” letter, irrespective of one’s competence and education, the only employment available was unskilled labor. (Note 1) - - I believe that most migrants are driven by a sense of inequality in their home country. That inequality may vary; it may be political, outright oppression, criminal oppression, economic oppression. For most of us it is not easy to leave our familiar environment, friends, and family. There must be a strong reason for someone to decide to migrate.
Mass migration today may be the most significant unresolved Global issue. We are all connected across the globe by high speed communication systems. Also, by historical standards, travel across the world is now easy and relatively inexpensive. I do not have a good, practical, clear idea how to resolve the crisis currently globally evolving. But I do have a rather clear idea how Darwinian Evolution must continue so that as long as Earth is habitable, humans can reasonably happily exist, without a mass suicide leading to humanity’s global self-extinction.
Before I describe my desired long-term evolutionary view, I will review how we got to where we are today. Because where we come from is not where we must be heading now in search of a reasonably happy future.
According to modern science, based on experimental findings and well established models, all of us homo sapiens, i.e. humans, who live today are descendants of black Africans who lived in Eastern Africa, in Kenya. So how did they get there and what happened between then and now?
The universe is about 14 billion years old. Earth was formed about 4.8 billion years ago. Before life could start on Earth self-replicating molecules needed to evolve. Simple organic molecules formed into chains that could replicate evolved about 4 billion years ago. Within about one or a few hundred thousand years later the first single single cell life on Earth emerged. And then life evolved as follows:
First multicellular bacteria 2-3 billion years ago
First micro fossils 2.1 billion years ago
Plants in Marine environments 1.6 billion years ago
Plants on land 0.5 billion years ago
First vertebrates in water 0.5 billion years ago
Vertebrates on land 0.35 billion years ago
Homo erectus appears 1-2 million years ago
Homo Heidelbergensis 0.7 million years ago (Note 2)
Neanderthal split; evolution continued in Europe 0.6 million years ago
Homo sapiens fully evolves in Africa 300 thousand years ago
Homo sapiens Out of Africa starts 100 thousand years ago
Homo sapiens arrives in Australia 65 thousand years ago
Homo sapiens arrives in Europe 45 thousand years ago
Homo sapiens arrives in Asia 40 thousand years ago
Homo sapiens arrives in America 25 thousand years ago
That pretty much completes the summary of the prehistoric evolution and global spread of mankind. Now I will proceed to review the historical evolution.
For many thousands of years humans were hunters and gatherers. Agriculture started in Mesopotamia about 15 thousand years ago. Assuming that the above times are reasonably accurate, people led foraging lives for 95% of the entire human history. During the hunting gathering era, humans moved around in small groups; there were no settled communities, villages, or cities. Also we have no evidence f formal hierarchical governmental organization. People moved around in small groups, typically well under 100 people in a group, or tribe. They moved an “annual round” of 100 to 500 miles following animals or available flora, covering a total range of less than 1,000 square miles annually. Prior to agriculture, the growth of the human population was very slow. It reached a few million people over the entire Earth at the time of the start of agriculture. After that the growth rate picked up and by the time of the start of the current era (CE) there may have been close to 300 million people living on Earth. During the next 1500 years the total population of Earth grew to about 500 million. By 1800 it grew to 1 billion people, today we have about 8.3 billion. The number of humans is expected to peak at around the year 2080, when it will reach 10.4 billion. The average population growth between 10,000 BCE and 1,700 current ERA was about 0.04%, it peaked in 1964, when it reached 2.2%. By 2100 is expected to decline to minus 0.1%.
During the foraging era people were relatively free and equal. There was no accumulated wealth. There were no dynasties, nor inherited leadership positions. Men and women also enjoyed relative equality. Men mostly hunted and women mostly gathered. Women sometimes joined hunting and men sometimes joined gathering. However, since gathering represented maybe up to 80% of the food supply of the group, it is reasonable to assume that women enjoyed a relatively significant position within the tribe.
Much of that equality ended with the introduction of agriculture and social organization. Agriculture led to permanent settlements, which then led to the need to coordinate and organize. Governments, hierarchies, and monarchies rapidly came into being. Slavery soon followed. As it was mentioned earlier, global recognition of the fundamental human rights, reflecting the belief that all people are born equal, occurred in 1948. Thus early humans enjoyed eqquality for hundreds of thousands of years before they lost it. Then it took about 20 thousand years to at least recognize the principle, even if it was not fully recovered.
Obviously, advances in several areas accompanied the introduction of agriculture, which was then followed by industrialization, the development of science and the post industrial era. Most notable is the elimination of the very high infant and child mortality of the pre-agriculture era. According to current estimates, life expectancy of the foraging tribes at birth was about 30 years, mostly determined by infant and child mortality; those who survived childhood may have lived into their sixties and possibly seventies. With the introduction of large settlements, infectious diseases developed and spread across humanity. Eventually with the growth of science Public Health evolved and as a result, major diseases became mostly under control.
While hunting and gathering societies did not need to defend their territories, partly because there was plenty of land for the small number of people occupying Earth, with organized Society conflict between large groups became regular, and wars became regular parts of human history.
But why did agriculture develop and why did it develop more or less simultaneously around the globe, even though the Americas were completely isolated from Europe and Asia? (We know that Columbus “discovered” America; he did not simply come to visit an area that he was fully aware of.) The simple answer most likely is population pressure. While above I described the movement of the foraging tribes as following an “annual round”, in fact the tribes were progressively expanding the area covered by humans. This expansion was slow but nevertheless it moved people in the direction away from areas occupied by others. By the time agriculture developed men had occupied all continents on earth. There was no longer empty space into which foragers could expand. Agriculture started in fertile areas, where hunter gatherers lived more densely and where to explore growing food, instead of gathering it, was easier than in other places. Unfortunately, the lack of open areas to expand into and the success of certain areas then led to conflict with those surrounding these successful areas. This process then led to successful armies with successful leaders, leaders wanting to “lead more-and-more” until they became emperors. Empires wanted to colonize, managing colonies became simpler by enslaving those living there as inhabitants. The winners wanted to win more, just like billionaires today want more billions, even though they do not necessarily need more to live well.
As a global population grew, success was not uniform across the world. At the same time as population grew, populations became much more connected worldwide. People in less successful areas became fully aware of the wealth and comfort of the more successful (or luckier) areas. Furthermore, as basic public health improved everywhere, population pressure became the strongest in the poorest areas. In the foreseeable future billions of people can be expected to want to move from some parts of Africa to Europe and North America.
An integral part of the historical evolution of humanity during the foraging period was that different human races evolved in different parts of Earth. People who moved to new areas encountered new environmental conditions. As a result of the natural biological evolutionary defense process, certain visible characteristics changed in response to the need to adapt to different conditions. Thus human races with easily visible differentiated characteristics evolved. (In my childhood in Europe I was taught that there were five: white, yellow, brown, black, and red.)
To justify success by the winners in an unequal world, notions of racial superiority were conceived and adopted, along with various religious and national superiority claims. All this led to mass murders and eventually the Holocaust. The United Nations announcement of universal human rights is a direct response to the Holocaust.
In the modern post industrial world the biological need for environmental adaptation and the resulting racial differentiation of humans no longer exists. I believe that in the long term there will only be one human race. As the world has become physically integrated, biological integration is inevitable. (Within a pre-history perspective, we could say “reintegration” of the human species.)
As I stated before, and I repeat it here because of its fundamental importance: I believe that all men are born equal. I believe that the UN declared Universal Human Rights is the basic law on which all constitutions, laws, and regulations stand.
In a densely occupied, globally connected, single-race world, all communities need to connect in a peaceful manner, to cooperate.
How do we get there? I do not know. But the sooner we get there the better off we are. Global efforts should be concentrated on getting us there as soon as possible. Fences along borders may be useful to manage short-term massive migration surges, but they are not the long-term solution.
Let us hope that we get to a place of peaceful cooperation before some man-made, or natural disaster hits. Mankind is not destined to live forever. But we still have the option to live on this planet for many millions of years.
It is well known that the solar system eventually will cease to exist. Before the solar system entirely disappears, there are several astrophysical facts and their consequences that guarantee the end of life on Earth. And not only on Earth but everywhere in the solar system. And I do not believe that we could move outside our solar system. Other lives and cultures may exist in other parts of the universe, but men from Earth are destined to remain only in our known solar system. When that ends, humans of Earth will also end. - - It is not inconceivable that we could end our own existence. Possible horror scenarios include mass extinction through nuclear war and man-made environmental collapse. And who knows what else? - - No need to hurry things up.
Let us focus on the single humane solution to our growing migration crisis: establishing a single race globally integrated human Federation.
—-----------------------------------------
Note 1 Here I provide further details of the inequality that was so much an integrated part of the Stalinist Soviet system which ruled all the Warsaw Pact countries, including Hungary where I grew up. - - At the time the system was established it was declared and enforced that the State owned virtually everything: real estate, industry, and most of the land. The control at all levels of the economy and politics was in the hands of the Communist Party. Party members formed an effective nobility. The party was totally controlled by the Central Committee, which formed the communist aristocracy. The Central Committee was under the total dictatorial power first of Stalin and after 1953 of his successors. The dictatorial power was executed through the secret police. Recurring purges, resulting in imprisonments and executions, secured the power of the dictator over all members of the the aristocracy. Nobody could ever feel fully secure without total fealty to the dictator. Membership in the Communist Party was awarded after a careful and detailed process. One did not simply apply to join the party, one had to be approved. The Communist aristocracy were provided abundant luxury by the State; the Western super-rich would have been envious.
Note 2 The last common ancestor of modern humans and of the Neanderthals was the homo Heidelbergensis. After their split, the Neanderthals headed to Europe, where they fully evolved. The earlier human line stayed in Africa where it completed its full Evolution to Homo Sapiens. Many hundreds of thousands of years later Homo Sapiens also appeared in Europe, where they interbred with the Neanderthals. Today all Europeans, unlike native Africans, have some Neanderthal genes. Neanderthals died out about 40 thousand years ago, their max. population was ~10,000. - - An interesting puzzle: the standard definition of species is based on the idea that if two groups interbreed and can not produce fertile offspring they are different species; obviously the Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens produced fertile offspring. Why are they still classified as separate species in the same Genus? - - There is a third group descendants from the last common ancestor, the Dennisovans. They too are extinct. Neanderthals went to Europe and Western Asia, the Denisovans lived in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Denisovans and Neanderthals are closely related cousins; they interbred and share most of their genes. Some sources state more than 80%, others state that more than 90% of their DNA is common. Denisovans also interbreed with Homo Sapiens, and some humans today have both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes, adding up to a few percent of the human genome. Neither the Denisovans, nor the Neanderthals are considered species today; the fossils found thus far do not include sufficient bone structure to assign them the term “species” by taxonomists.
