‘The native people of these lands are Celts’ viral video challenges British identity
Molly Stubbs
A powerful video has gone viral for challenging misconceptions over British ‘ownership and identity’, highlighting how the Welsh and Irish were the original inhabitants of Britain.
The video, captioned ‘A message to the ones who think they own this country’, has received 1.6 million views and 88,000 likes since it was uploaded to TikTok on Thursday, July 24.
The creator, Dawah Pulse, regularly shares content of interest to the British Muslim community, which continues to face rising Islamophobia and anti-migrant rhetoric.
‘Where do you come from?’
In the video, a man delivers an impassioned speech, saying: “English people here, they’re telling others to get out, ‘this is our land, this is our country’.
“I would ask them ‘Where do you come from?’ You are called English. English means a mixture of Angles and Saxons. Angles came from Scandinavia, Saxons came from Germany. In other words, you are also immigrants.
“The native people of these lands are Celts, who were driven westwards. The Irish and the Welsh are actually the native people of these lands.
@dawahpulse2 A message to the ones who think they own this country #islam #muslim #english #england #welsh #ireland ♬ Einaudi: Experience – Ludovico Einaudi & Daniel Hope & I Virtuosi Italiani
“Imagine if a Welsh man came to some English people in central London and said ‘get out, go back to your country. You don’t belong here, this is my island, this is my land. You have taken all our fields, all our corn, and all our sunshine, clouds and rain. Go back to your lands.’ Where would they go back to?
“Likewise, this xenophobic rhetoric is very unacademic, very uneducated, and very ill-informed. Unfortunately, it is causing a lot of hate, a lot of destruction, and murder and mass murder.”
‘Very true’
The video was also posted to Facebook, where it received over 6,500 likes and 670 shares, with most commenters expressing strong support for the message.
On TikTok, responses included: ‘I’m certain 99.9% of English don’t know this,’ ‘Very true, the Welsh are the original Britons,’ and ‘Tell ‘em, sir! And say it louder for those at the back!’
A commenter, Matthew Davis, wrote ‘I am English/British and immigration is important to the UK and always had been. I have zero issues with immigration, refugees and asylum seekers. I do have problem with racists and bigots.’
Another wrote ‘The English stopped us Welsh from speaking our native language – Google the Welsh knot. Few people know about the atrocities that the English inflicted on the Celts.’
The video appears to have been taken in Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, an area in which individuals and groups can engage in free speech and debate.
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Trouble is the ABNOXIOUS little englanders do not like the TRUTH
This’ll probably go down like a lead balloon, but the Celts weren’t the first inhabitants. The mesolithic hunter-gatherers predated them, by several thousands of years; they certainly weren’t Celts. There are mesolithic sites that are over 10,000 years old. Indo-European languages (of which Celtic languages are derivatives) didn’t even arrive in Europe ’til 6,000 years ago, at the earliest. Celtic languages and culture probably didn’t reach these shores ’til about 3,000 years ago. However you slice it, there are several thousands of years of prehistory being ignored here. The Celts certainly predate the Germanic incursions, by about 1,500 years, but… Read more »
If that’s your definition of indigenous then no culture is indigenous. Hunter-gatherers moved around, they didn’t establish communities that lasted for generations in the same place.
They were still people, whatever their culture and lifestyles.
Take your response, then apply it to the Plains tribes of North America, or some groups Australian Aboriginals….
…They weren’t indigenous, because they moved about a bit?
Perhaps the Canadians have better terminology when they say “first nations”. It’s about being the first to establish distinct cultures that survive to the modern day, not about who has the oldest bones in a museum.
Which does rather remind us that ‘migration’ has in fact taken place since the beginning of time!
Indeed you’re correct, but the original inhabitants were themselves incomers after the Ice Age – the first cohesive society that could be described as inhabitants of these islands were certainly Celtic, even if there were Iberic peoples here before them
Point taken, I could, probably should, have mentioned that. Even though the southernmost parts of GB and Ireland weren’t covered in kilometre thick ice, the conditions would have been incredibly hostile. It was only when the ice had retreated significantly that people were able to occupy the land furthest south.
There is no actual proof that Britons are Celts – While ancient Britons are often referred to as Celtic, and their language and some customs were related to those of continental Celts, there is no definitive proof of a large scale invasion or migration of ‘Celtic’ people to Britain during the iron age. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that the iron age cultures in Britain developed from the preceding bronze age, with regional variations, rather than from a single, large scale influx of continental Celts. The problem is that there is zero evidence to support that there is no connection… Read more »
Ah, the old Celtoscepticism. Yes I remember John Collis and his fellow anti-Celts at Cambridge spouting the same drivel. He has since been discredited, but his manufactured alternatives, mainly in response to the calls for devolution, still linger like Wakefield’s autism-causing vaccines. Maybe, it’s time you revisited your studies.
I’m reminded of a TV interview with a Tory MP a few years back about returning the Elgin marbles held in the British Museum of Thievery. In complete exasperation they said – if we send everything back what will we have left? Which was an astonishing thing to say when there’s thousands of years of actual British history to talk about. And I realised then what it’s really all about – the empire, unnecessary wars, the deliberately bad governance, ignoring and belittling indigenous culture, the Boris Johnson antics, the obsession with modern immigrants. It’s all a distraction from an embarrassing… Read more »
The word ‘indigenous’ is not allowed to be used when it comes to the peoples of the European nations. You should all know that by now.
Only if you’re trying to rewrite history.
Around 20 years ago i was on holiday in Greece having a meal behind me where 3 English couples judging by their accents they where from the South east of England they where talking about great English early Kings and queens they kept on calling king Arthur an English King and Boudica or Boudicca whichever you prefer an English queen i wanted to correct them as i was getting really angry with their ignorance and arrogance my wife told me to just leave it after an hour and leaving my wife went to the toilet i got up and turned… Read more »
There is an air of irony about this video. We have this gentleman , obviously with heritage not from these shores, schools those wearing England & Union Flag capes, who like antiheroes, minus the y-fronts, scream like football thugs at asylum seekers, “go home” , when they themselves have Anglo-Saxon ancestors who came in their small boats to Britain from Germany some 1,500 years ago overstaying their visa. So funny. Ignorance is bliss and they are obviously blissfully ignorant Also, how many know that the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons was actually documented first by Welsh monk Gildas. Who wrote, “De… Read more »
Keep walking it backwards and you end up in Africa.
The problem is, the Germans and Scandinavians won’t want them back so we’re stuck with them.
I love him.
My DNA says I am an original Briton. However, I still don’t want my country flooded with people from overseas. Why should I?
Because immigrants are a net benefit to the ecomony, of which you are a beneficiary. I suspect what you don’t want is to see your culture marginalised. But what you consider to be traditional is a relatively modern concoction, something your ancestors would have viewed as foreign. The ancient Britons felt the same way about the inroads made by English culture, but I bet what you consider to be your culture is very Englished, and not as “pure” British as you might like to think. And before them, the Neolithic farmers no doubt felt the same about the encroaching Beaker… Read more »
Steffan, don’t waste your letters, you can’t educate pork. The defiantly ignorant and proudly stupid now have a platform and they will have their say. Dog help us.
Let’s remember that a quarter of the people living in Wales today were born elsewhere and that the vast majority of us have at least one ancestor who migrated here in recent generations. We are a nation of immigrants.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if people making contentious statements actually checked the facts before making fools of themselves. History isn’t always what we would like it to be – but doing a Mel Gibson doesn’t make it the factual.