the term "coincidence" is weird. I read it as somehow relying on the idea that first, there is a person (like a soul?), and then, that soul is "coincidentally" put somewhere. Correct me if you think that's strange, but the idea of "coincidence" to me only seems to make sense if the person somehow predates the location of birth. But if that's not the case, as I would guess most of us believe, then there is no coincidence here, "just" a birth that is already positioned - and your nationality, heritage, culture, language are dependent on that birth. And hence, that is the frame in which a person can only develop - after that fact. And THAT is nowhere near coincidence...
I did not read it all as you did. “Coincidence” in welshwelsh’s comment was used to indicate who is deserving of the benefits of living in place X rather than place Y, where it can be reasonably concluded that X is overall better to live in than Y.
I disagree with nhchris’s response of
> It is their inheritance, their birthright, the fruit of their ancestors' labors.
Because there is no natural law that something is “your” inheritance, birthright, or that you have claim to the fruit of your ancestors’ labor. Might makes right is how nature works, and it just so happens that you were born in a time and place where certain “rights” are being upheld, and there is not a stronger party that wants and is able to take them from you.
You can even go further and replace place X and Y with parents X and Y.
I didn't read this just materially. There's a language, customs, "ways of thinking" you inherit; also, there is an image, there are power structures and positions you're born into. Sociologists speak of different forms of capital: not just financial capital, also social capital, cultural capital, etc., that can all be "exchanged" for other things later (the relationships of your parents with other people, the ease qith which you can get an education title, etc)
and still: for the person born to "deserve" living with these benefits nebulously assumes the person, and the "deserving", were there first, and THEN you are born and by sheer chance, you got it - or not. Again, when you stop thinking this way, sort of "thinking of an abstract person" first, but rather realize that there are no abstract people, just real ones, this starts to feel weird.
I would say that if ownership of land and property are indeed a right... then being able to give that property to your descendants (or anyone else) is also a right.
The answer is: yes, people returned to many places after they were totally demolished, suffered from systematic resource drainage and were background of inhumane genocides.
TLDR: massive scale war is nothing new.
But you also have people that do not? My entire parents’ generation immigrated thousands of miles away to various places around the world and never went back (other than as tourists), and it was not even war torn or lacking in resources. They just happened to bet that they could provide a better life for themselves and their children elsewhere.
Yes, and they’re a distinct minority. Polling shows that even if they had the opportunity to go somewhere else, overwhelming majorities of people in Asia and Africa wouldn’t leave their homeland. Even in sub-Saharan Africa just a third of the population would leave if they could: https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-mi.... In east and south Asia it’s under 10%.
This is, in my view, one of the reasons america is so culturally weird. It’s generation after generation of the most antisocial families from other countries.
It is just a statement of fact that the geographic location a person is born is coincidence.