21 bar rises 30.00 1mh WSW windchill 19
Waning Crescent of the Snow Moon
Ethnonationalism may seem an antique or xenophobic topic, but this article in Foreign Affairs suggests not.
Singapore made me scratch my head about an American article of faith segregation bad, integration good. Little India, Chinatown, Malaytown, Arab Street and the old English quarters exist alongside each other with little apparent friction. Apparent is a key word because speaking to Singaporeans I found Malaya’s and Indians who talked about discrimination in the larger community. There’s also the matter of the undercover police that monitor Singaporean’s daily activity.
White’s and Chinese have long been part of Singapore’s ruling elite so they tend not to have the same concerns. Even so, I noticed a vibrancy and a sense of cultural identity in the ethnically defined communities that I do not notice in similar communities in the US. Also, well after midnight, I saw women walking alone through relatively deserted city streets.
To expand on experiences from the same trip the Thai people have a wonderful sense of identity and cultural assurance based on their long experience in the same geopolitical region; likewise the Cambodians, though their situation has deep seated corruption and the legacy of the Pol Pot years that complicate their situation.
I don’t know if all this has any application in the US where our value of the melting pot has long history behind it. Even that history though has an ethnonationalistic twist. The Civil Rights law of 1964 opened immigration to countries outside western Europe, especially to Asians who had been excluded since the days of the Yellow Peril. Until 1964 our immigration policies favored Anglo-Saxon countries. Then there was the 3/4’s compromise and the resulting shame of slavery for which we paid in blood and destruction.
Part of what made me think about this was recent material I’ve seen advocating separate classrooms, even schools, for boys and girls. Are we blind to some truths about human nature, or are we visionaries, a city on the hill, lighting the way for the rest of the world when it comes to a multicutural society? God, I don’t know, but this article made me think.
