This comment reflects in many ways important elements about how and why the Chinese view the Indians as they do:
… your question has answers in two periods. The second and most recent was during the cold war, shaped by Chinese elite (diplomatic) interaction with their Indian counterparts during this period who came to see Indians as unserious prevaricators. Big talkers and little doers, whether or not you agree with this assumption, it is what drives Chinese elite opinion today.
The first and older break was an earlier schism in worldview at the dawn of the 20th century when Chinese elites chose to take the path of Darwinian materialism towards national salvation. This meant radical politics and a restructuring of Chinese society towards any ends at any cost as long as it meant material prosperity and power. This left China lurching between fascism and communism. At the same time they came to view simultaneous Indian political trends, another vast nation under Western power, as being embodied by Tagore and Gandhi. That is focused towards traditionalism and eastern metaphysics as a path to revival. This is again may or may not be true but it became the default opinion. This was actually shared by elements of the Chinese elites as well, though the losing faction. The winners of the debate viewed such a policy as childish escapism verging on nihilistic passivity in the face of real threats and India, as the eidolon of such defeated views became tarred by association.
But today as many Chinese transition to post-materialism they are looking back to their own past. This is natural. But the past destroyed is not so easy to access and rebuild.
Addendum: Chinese liberals and progressives of the early 20th century adopted and modified racial theory from Europeans.
I’ve been in this game for a long time. Back in the middle of the 2000s, I observed that people of Muslim and Indian origin had sensitive and peculiar reactions to criticisms of their religion. Muslim cases are well known. Less well known is the violence and menace associated with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre play which affected Sikh sensitivities.
Five people were killed in western India today in clashes between Hindus and Muslims that started during protests over remarks by the Rev. Jerry Falwell in which he called the prophet Muhammad a terrorist, the police said.
An American preacher says something offensive about Muslims, and Hindus and Muslims start killing each other in India! Absurd. Ridiculous. Barbaric.
I may not have said it in those words but that’s what I was thinking. In contrast, in the West religious beliefs are not sacred, and we can express content and derision without worry.
Or so I thought. Over the past few years, there has been a tendency in American culture to emphasize sensitivities, hurt feelings, and emotional reactions, over reason, when it comes to offense. Indians, and Muslims, were offended at criticisms of their religions and identities because religion and identity were sacred for them. Well, it turns out that in the West we’re going back to that state of affairs as well.
It seems that human cultural forms have the lowest energy state. And that state is a sort of identitarian honor culture.
I still think your religions are dumb. But when in glass houses…
It appears that Jews, Indian and African Britons abandoned Labour in droves and voted for other political parties. Would be curious to learn who they voted for. Suspect many voted for the Liberal Democrats.
Are there any English exit polls? [Updated with this exit poll hat trip Ali Choudhury.] Do we know how Pakistani Britons, Bangladeshi Britons, Indian musiim Britons, muslim Britons in general voted?
In the above conversation it was implied that minorities and people of color in USA vote Democrat. My response is that in America Asian Americans and Latino Americans are “swing voters” not wedded to either party. Black African Americans vote overwhelmingly Democrat. However, I think President Trump will likely do a lot better with the Black African American vote in 2020 than he did in 2016.
Labour lost only nine percentage points of the BAME vote
Conservative Tories gained only one percentage point in additional BAME voters
Liberal Democrats gained only six percentage point in additional BAME voters
Other political parties gained two percentage points of additional BAME voters
Labour–if these exit polls are not contradicted by other exit polls–did FAR better in 2019 among BAME voters than I thought (and that many political commentators thought). To my surprise the Liberal Democrats only gained six percentage points of BAME voters (for 12% total) and the Conservative Tories only gained one percentage point in additional BAME voters.
My new question is why did the overwhelming vast majority of BAME Britons vote for Jeremy Corbyn? Why did so few BAME Britons vote Liberal Democrat?
Did the moderate muslim Britons almost universally vote for Jeremy Corbyn? If so, why? Would love to hear from Veedu Vidz and Rakib Ehsan.
What I would like to see more in the media is the voice of the Korean American Christian pastor and the Indian American tech-bro. They exist. And there are a lot more of them than there are post-colonial theorists.
(I was in a very liberal [pierced people] cafe in Austin once when they were talking about Indians…and I realized the conversation stopped as people looked sideways at me, so I get what the author is saying)
Rishabh Gulat–who I respect greatly has a different take on Datuk Mahathir Mohamad, Hero of Asia, than I do. Some argue that Datuk Mahathir has recently shifted his policy and allied with conservative Wahhabi (subset of Salafi, subset of Sunni) muslims, MBS, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan against India. Mr. Gulat implies that Datuk Mahathir is backing Brown Pundit favorite Dr. Zakir Naik against India:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfhVQoIvGIs
Please watch Mr. Gulat and come to your own conclusions.
The Indian Malays (7% of the population, 15% of the professional workforce, 40% of all Malaysian doctors, economic engine that moves Malaysia) are rallying the opposition to Datuk Mahatir. Mr. Gulat thinks the global Indian diaspora and global Eastern philosophy diaspora (presumably inclusive of Confucians, Toaists and Chinese) should back the Indian Malays in this.
I need to do a lot more research before proposing an alternative course of action. But here is a question. Can the Indian Malays, global Indian diaspora, global Eastern Philosophy, global Muraqabah tilted Sunnis and Shia and global liberal muslims unite and offer Datuk Mahathir Mohammed an offer he can’t refuse?:
There are many great and powerful Indian and Indonesian muslims–friends of PM Modi–who can make the offer.
As an aside, many Brown Pundits readers know Dr. Zakir Naik fanboy and heart throb Veedu Vidz. Please ask him to come on the Brown Pundits Podcast!
Mr. Rishabh Gulat is a great thought leader and expert on Indonesia, Malaysia and South East Asia more generally. He says that India and Indonesia should make a civilizational, cultural, economic and geopolitical alliance. Is there an interest in the Brown Pundits Podcast interviewing Mr. Rishabh Gulat?
Another month, another “Asian” grooming gang scandal. “Asian” usually, but not exclusively, seems to mean Pakistani British men.
A lot of the discussion around this issue centers on the perpetrators of the crimes. Their ethnoreligious distinctiveness. The cultural preconditions which allow for the development of these practices of abuse and exploitation as normative in certain circumstances and toward certain people (though the details differ, from what I know of South Asian communities, in general, there’s a fair amount of sexual abuse going on within the subculture that isn’t discovered because of norms of shame and concealment).
But, I want to focus on the victims. Whenever these stories surface the victims are invariably described as “troubled” and from “broken” homes. These were vulnerable children. Additionally, the powers that be did not see these girls as their girls. If gangs of Pakistani British men were abusing and raping the daughters of middle-class burghers, I am 100% sure that the police would pay immediate attention and follow-up on these cases no matter the sensitivities.
I think it is fine and important to highlight the subculture that fosters this sort of behavior through their assumptions about the sexual nature of non-South Asian women (e.g., I have had it explained to me by several men of Indian subcontinental origin whose tastes were toward the prurient that “our women are pure”). But these cases also illustrate stark class divides and the total lack of concern and interest by the bureaucratic and public service class toward individuals from the lower class.
The world breaks down into three major factions:
āāpost modernists (psychotic in need of urgent medical services)
āāIslamists
āāānon post modernists and non Islamistsā
Can Rwanda, the Asian Tiger of Africa, inspire and lead the global ānon post modernists and non Islamistsā? Can Rwanda inspire and lead the globalists?
[Author’s note: With the celebrations of Guru Nanak’s 550th Anniversary and the opening of the Kartarpur Corridor being in the news, this is an opportunity for discussing the importance of the Sikh message, not just from a religious perspective – for Sikhs – but for Indian history. This article places the founding of Kartarpur, and Guru Nanak’s message, in a historical context – juxtaposing it with Babur’s founding of the Mughal Empire.]
I. Turning of the Wheel: Baba Nanak and Babur
In 1519, Babur invaded India – āever since coming to Kabul we had been thinking of a Hindustan campaign, but for one reason or another it had not been possible,ā he writes in the Baburnama (translated by William Thackston, see pp 270-280). For some time his armies had been campaigning on the frontiers of the Hindu Kush, but these campaigns had yielded ānothing of consequence to the soldiersā.Ā So, he turned to Hindustan. In the next few months, despite dogged resistance by the Afghans, Gujjars and Jats of the upper reaches of the Jhelum and Chenab, northern Punjab was subjugated, and plundered, by Baburās armies. Babur himself spent most of his days inebriated, contemplating the legacy of Timur and setting poems to rhythmic metres. While his next great invasion of Punjab would come few years from then, in this interregnum, Punjab burned.
Among the towns and villages devastated was the settlement of Sayyidpur.
It was not long after Baburās march of death through Punjab that Guru Nanak returned home from his western voyages – to Mecca, through Baghdad, Masshad, Khurasan, to Kabul, Peshawar, and, finally, to Sayyidpur. To the house of a humble carpenter, Bhai Lalo (Janam Sakhi Parampara by Kirpal Singh, pp 138-140). Continue reading Sangat and Society: the Sikh remaking of the North Indian Public Sphere
America has a national crisis in math capacity, competence and merit. American students sharply underperform students in many countries all over the world. Including Vietnam, which is a poorer country than India per capita. We will heavily refer to the 2018 OECD PISA report in below paragraphs, but the below chart graphic is from the 2015 OECD PISA scores report because math scores are reported for more countries in the 2015 report. Perhaps the 2018 report will be revised to add more countries in the future:
In my viewĀ a level 5 PISA score is the minimum requirement for a person to be considered a high school graduate who is literate in math, able to function in the modern global economy, or be qualified to attend college. The PISA report defines a level 5 PISA score or better as a fifteen year old that “can model complex situations mathematically, and can select, compare and evaluate appropriate problem-solving strategies for dealing with them.” How does America perform in the 2018 PISA report?:
United States: 8% of students scored at Level 5 or higher in mathematics
OECD average: 11%
Six Asian countries and economies had the largest shares of students who did so:
Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang (China): 44%
Singapore: 37%
Hong Kong (China): 29%
Macao (China): 28%
Chinese Taipei: 23%
Korea: 21%
Note that these six countries were among the poorest countries in the world in the 1950s, far poorer than poor Americans or poor Europeans or poor Chileans can even imagine. In 1979 China was unbelievably poor. Much of the population of China–perhaps as many as 100 million–had starved to death because of extreme poverty in the 1970s. Poor children around the world are outperforming American children in mathematics despite extremely low education spending per student and very low socio-economic level of their legal guardians, where socio-economic level is defined as:
income
wealth
formal education of parents
Do any American high school student subgroups perform well in Mathematics? Yes, “people of color” or “minority” Americans perform well in Mathematics. America’s “people of color” or “minority” students are orders of magnitude more likely to get an 800 on the mathematics SAT than European Americans. If we assume this is an extreme tail end distribution issue related to European Americans having a lower standard deviation and non standard distribution in mathematics performance relative to “people of color” or “minority” Americans, we can explore the breakdown of Americans who score between 750 and 800 on the Mathematics SAT. Here European Americans perform far better relative to “people of color” or “minority” Americans.Ā In 2015 16,000 European Americans scored 750 or higher. 33,000 “people of color” and “minority” Americans scored 750 or higher. We further know that 51% of SAT test takers were European Americans and 49% were “people of color” or “minority” Americans.Ā “People of color” or “minority” Americans are [33,000/16,000]*[51%/49%] or 2.15 times as likely to score 750 or higher on the mathematics SAT compared to European Americans.Ā If we examine the 107,900 test takers who got SAT math scores of 700 or higher; 59,900 are “people of color” or “minority” Americans, versus 48,000 European Americans. “People of color” or “minority” Americans are [59,900/48,000]*[51%/49%] or 1.30 times as likely to score 700 or higher on the mathematics SAT compared to European Americans. For data junkie geeks like me there is a lot more data on SAT math score distributions here and here. The Greta Anderson article’s comment section in particular has some very intelligent commentators who have studied the American SAT score distribution. This is likely to be the subject of many future blog posts and Brown Pundits Podcasts.
What about this is worrying?:
European Americans in particular are sharply under-performing both very poor children around the world and “people of color” and “minority” Americans in mathematics.
American mathematics SAT scores have fallen between 1972 and 2016. 1972 is the earliest year for which I could find comparable SAT mathematics scores. In 2017, 2018 and 2019 the SAT mathematics exam was completely restructured to make scores no longer comparable to SAT mathematics scores between 1972 and 2016.
90% or more of current jobs and businesses are likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence (AI), brain electro-therapy (meditation . . . practiced by civilizations around the world for over 5,000 years), brain sound therapy (naad or mantra yoga and their equivalents in Native American, Egyptian, Sumerian, Taoist and other civilizations around the world for over 5,000 years), bio-engineering tissue, genetic editing, and fused AI-brain interface synthesis intelligence. Almost all of these future disciplines are complementary to mathematics.
Future articles and podcasts are planned all six of these future disciplines. If you are curious about fused AI-brain interface synthesis intelligence, please watch my main man Elon Musk:
Some say that the tension and relationship challenges between America’s four big castes–European Americans, European “Latino” Americans, Black Americans and Asian American–are driving low math scores for European Americans “AND” other Americans. One example is where thought leader Mark J Perry explores the possibility that tension between the European American caste and the Asian American caste are lowering AmericanĀ mathematics performance. Excerpts of his article are reproduced below:
As I have noted before, Adam K. Webb’s Beyond the Global Culture War highlights attempts by early 20th century Asian traditionalists to coordinate. Some of the same characters appear in Mark Sedgwick’s Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. For all the influence of Fabian socialism on Nehru and the early leaders of India, nothing on the scale of what happened in China to the traditional society occurred in India.
In my viewĀ a level 5 PISA score is the minimum requirement for a person to be considered a high school graduate who is literate in math, able to function in the modern global economy, or be qualified to attend college. The PISA report defines a level 5 PISA score or better as a fifteen year old that “can model complex situations mathematically, and can select, compare and evaluate appropriate problem-solving strategies for dealing with them.”