Martin Jacques Quotes
The two ethnic groups that remain fundamentally different from the Han Chinese - in terms of history, culture, language, religion and physical appearance - are the Uighurs and Tibetans. In these two groups, the Han Chinese come face to face with difference.
Jacques, Martin. When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order. Penguin Press, 2009, p. 248.
His parents were assimilated Jews and he converted to Christianity.
After the WWI Turkish massacre of Armenians and the casualties of WWII, large numbers of Armenians were outside of Armenia which was a part of the Soviet Union and many ethnic Russians were moved into Armenia thus dominating the country. The ethnic Armenians found themselves a minority in their own homeland,
Arguments against the Partition of India at the time centered around the poor economic viability of a separate Muslim state. However Iqbal and others placed the cultural issues in the forefront. They eventually prevailed.
Under his leadership most of the Muslims did not accept such a constitution. Partition ensued and with it came the deaths of tens of millions of Indians but Pakistan and Bangladesh were formed. Ironically, there are now about 200 million Muslims in India living under a “Hindu Majority Government” –more than in any country except Indonesia. Few Indian Muslims leave India for Pakistan today.
Ali was arguing that India should not be a single nation but each major ethnic group should have its own country. Pakistan was later to be separated out. However, the Akhoots, Christians, Dravidians and Sikhs did not have the same desire for separatism as the Muslims and stayed in India, and today India is a pluralistic nation which even includes about the same number of Muslims who have elected to be Indian citizens rather than Pakistani.
Russell like the rest of the Southern Congressional delegation, though members of the President’s own party were vehemently opposed to any civil rights legislation that would erode the legal racism and segregation that was prevalent in the South. The irony of Russell’s statement is that by Russell’s definition of a “mongrel race” the South was just that. And in a very real genetic sense all the great civilizations were characterized by interbreeding which is what Russell and other Southerners were paranoid about. The Southern institution of slavery was rife with the sexual abuse of the female slaves by the white masters and/or members of their family, overseers and other whites with power over the slaves. While many of the offspring were identifiable as mixed race (defined as Black by the laws at the time) many appeared to be white and light skinned enough to “pass” and did. A very large percentage of Southern white and black families had mixed blood in the family when Russell was complaining. More to the point, although it was not known at the time, we now know that every human being on earth can be genetically traced back through myocardial DNA to Blacks emanating from Africa. However, even using his narrow vision of race, his history was wanting. A number of great civilizations were of mixed race. One dramatic example was the great dynasties of Egypt. Cleopatra, herself, was from the union of Alexander the Great’s Greek General Ptolemy and the traditional line of Egyptian Pharos. Alexander’s Greek Soldiers interbred, as part of Alexander’s policy of occupation as suggested by Aristotle. All those societies thereafter were “mongrel” races at least in the ruling and upper classes. Actually the United States and the Soviet Union, the two super powers of the day both were ethnically and racially, highly diversified and both had a great deal of miscegenation. Scientists had made a very good argument that miscegenation strengthens a people—not weakens it.
Some people read this part of the declaration as saying that if Muslims are in the majority and control the nation, there is no problem with violence. But if the Muslims are in the minority, they will likely be violent. Needless to say, this alarms most Western nations.
This has been a classic dilemma for all large multi ethnic states—trying to develop a sense of unity of citizenship in the face of populations who think of themselves foremost differently. Attempts like this of banning the names of the peoples from official use, banning languages, changing people’s names, requiring common dress and other such methods have failed in most cases (Ataturk’s Turkey being the notable exception). America, Great Britain and the Soviet Union showed the world that it was possible to have a strong sense of national unity and at the same time allow peoples, cultures, and ethnicities to maintain their own ethnic identities. However, many modern governments see their situation as so unique that ethnic repression of one kind or another is required. Modern China, in particular, while not as extreme as Sun Yat-Sen still makes it very difficult for certain cultures to thrive such as the Tibetans. Note that even in the United States we have many who argue that non English language usage should be discouraged and disapprove of the concept of hyphenated Americans. For example, see Theodore Roosevelt {631377}.
He is a Greek Orthodox Christian, and he correctly observes that the Islamic world was considerably more tolerant than the Christian until the 18th century when Islam had become less tolerant in the Middle East while the Christians were modernizing and going through a cultural and intellectual enlightenment and societal modernization while the Muslims, became less tolerant than they were in earlier years leading to the modern situation.
Martin Jacques is a British journalist and academic. Jacques was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, becoming, in his own words, "a member of its Executive Committee, probably the youngest member ever at about twenty-two". He was editor of the party's journal, Marxism Today, from 1977 until its closure in 1991.
