Americans, unusually provincial by global standards, are generally unaware of the degree to which the rest of the world watch what Americans say. My fear is that attitudes such as Mr. Eric Dyson’s will fuel and exacerbate global anti-Americanism. Mr. Eric Dyson is personifying the caricature of the “Ugly American”.
Continue reading How should we respond if someone says “mean mad asian man”?
Since BP in general lacks positively-inclined Pak-nuanced voices; I thought this was an important comment to highlight.
There was more than Jinnah involved in the ‘Pakistan Movement’ even if it was a one man show when it came to actual negotiations with the British.
Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani was instrumental in mass mobilization (using Islam khatray mein heh! naturally) and countering Congress’s anti-Jinnah propaganda campaign orchestrated by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani of the JUH. This was the so called Muttahida Qaumiat movement that held that Jinnah and Aligarh Islamic Modernism was more dangerous than an independent India dominated by the Hindus.
In a nutshell, the insurmountable problem was simply this. Jinnah and some others (non-caste Hindus) wanted absolute safeguards for minorities before independence; Congress and caste-Hindus wanted independence first and then would decide whatever safeguards the minorities would get. As a part of this, Jinnah and others wanted a weak Centre and power devolution to the provinces/groupings while Congress (Nehru and Patel but not Gandhi, who was a hopeless romantic when it came to actual politics anyway) wanted a strong Centre and the provinces to have whatever powers the Centre didn’t want.
If you look at the Cabinet Mission Plan, that is EXACTLY what is being offered: a weak Centre. Of course Congress rejected it and Jinnah embraced it.
What must always be remembered is that the Pakistan Movement meant many different things to many different people.
Please see starting 1 hour, 4 minutes in:
A serious and important question for the entire Brown Pundit community: Should we do anything if someone such as Mr. Micheal Eric Dyson calls us a:
“mean mad asian man and the viciousness is evident”?
I don’t know the answer, but the attack is coming. Already a plurality of the world’s billionaires are Asian. And soon a majority will be Asian. When I was fifteen I saw academics from American university attack “Asian fat cats”; and call Hindus/Buddhists “Nazis” and “Fascists.” Back then American academics were anti conservative muslim too (81% of American muslims voted for GW Bush in 2000).
Mr. Jordan Peterson is not an American and very likely most of his fans are not Americans. Mr. Michael Eric Dyson acknowledged knowing almost nothing about Jordan Peterson personally and launched this attack abroad, in Toronto, before a very large Jordan Peterson supportive crowd. Mr. Dyson knew the foreign crowd would boo him. He said it anyway.
If Jordan Peterson with his enormous international prestige can be attacked in this way, any of us can be attacked as a “mean mad asian man” far more easily. [Asian woman can be attacked as a “mean mad asian.”]