The Muslim world has youth, numbers and global ambitions. The West is growing old and enfeebled, and lacks the will to rebuff those who would supplant it. It's the end of the world as we've known it. An excerpt from 'America Alone'.
MARK STEYN | Oct 20, 2006
Sept. 11, 2001, was not "the day everything changed," but the day that revealed how much had already changed. On Sept. 10, how many journalists had the Council of American-Islamic Relations or the Canadian Islamic Congress or the Muslim Council of Britain in their Rolodexes? If you'd said that whether something does or does not cause offence to Muslims would be the early 21st century's principal political dynamic in Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom, most folks would have thought you were crazy. Yet on that Tuesday morning the top of the iceberg bobbed up and toppled the Twin Towers.
This is about the seven-eighths below the surface -- the larger forces at play in the developed world that have left Europe too enfeebled to resist its remorseless transformation into Eurabia and that call into question the future of much of the rest of the world. The key factors are: demographic decline; the unsustainability of the social democratic state; and civilizational exhaustion.
Let's start with demography, because everything does:
If your school has 200 guys and you're playing a school with 2,000 pupils, it doesn't mean your baseball team is definitely going to lose but it certainly gives the other fellows a big starting advantage. Likewise, if you want to launch a revolution, it's not very likely if you've only got seven revolutionaries. And they're all over 80. But, if you've got two million and seven revolutionaries and they're all under 30 you're in business.
For example, I wonder how many pontificators on the "Middle East peace process" ever run this number:
The median age in the Gaza Strip is 15.8 years.
Once you know that, all the rest is details. If you were a "moderate Palestinian" leader, would you want to try to persuade a nation -- or pseudo-nation -- of unemployed poorly educated teenage boys raised in a UN-supervised European-funded death cult to see sense? Any analysis of the "Palestinian problem" that doesn't take into account the most important determinant on the ground is a waste of time.
Likewise, the salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies. What's happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history: most of us have seen a gazillion heartwarming ethnic comedies -- My Big Fat Greek Wedding and its ilk -- in which some uptight WASPy type starts dating a gal from a vast loving fecund Mediterranean family, so abundantly endowed with sisters and cousins and uncles that you can barely get in the room. It is, in fact, the inversion of the truth. Greece has a fertility rate hovering just below 1.3 births per couple, which is what demographers call the point of "lowest-low" fertility from which no human society has ever recovered. And Greece's fertility is the healthiest in Mediterranean Europe: Italy has a fertility rate of 1.2, Spain 1.1. Insofar as any citizens of the developed world have "big" families these days, it's the anglo democracies: America's fertility rate is 2.1, New Zealand a little below. Hollywood should be making My Big Fat Uptight Protestant Wedding in which some sad Greek only child marries into a big heartwarming New Zealand family where the spouse actually has a sibling.
As I say, this isn't a projection: it's happening now. There's no need to extrapolate, and if you do it gets a little freaky, but, just for fun, here goes: by 2050, 60 per cent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. The big Italian family, with papa pouring the vino and mama spooning out the pasta down an endless table of grandparents and nieces and nephews, will be gone, no more, dead as the dinosaurs. As Noel Coward once remarked in another context, "Funiculi, funicula, funic yourself." By mid-century, Italians will have no choice in the matter.
Experts talk about root causes. But demography is the most basic root of all. A people that won't multiply can't go forth or go anywhere. Those who do will shape the age we live in.
Demographic decline and the unsustainability of the social democratic state are closely related. In America, politicians upset about the federal deficit like to complain that we're piling up debts our children and grandchildren will have to pay off. But in Europe the unaffordable entitlements are in even worse shape: there are no kids or grandkids to stick it to.
You might formulate it like this:
Age + Welfare = Disaster for you;
Youth + Will = Disaster for whoever gets in your way.
By "will," I mean the metaphorical spine of a culture. Africa, to take another example, also has plenty of young people, but it's riddled with AIDS and, for the most part, Africans don't think of themselves as Africans: as we saw in Rwanda, their primary identity is tribal, and most tribes have no global ambitions. Islam, however, has serious global ambitions, and it forms the primal, core identity of most of its adherents -- in the Middle East, South Asia and elsewhere.
Islam has youth and will, Europe has age and welfare.
We are witnessing the end of the late 20th- century progressive welfare democracy. Its fiscal bankruptcy is merely a symptom of a more fundamental bankruptcy: its insufficiency as an animating principle for society. The children and grandchildren of those fascists and republicans who waged a bitter civil war for the future of Spain now shrug when a bunch of foreigners blow up their capital. Too sedated even to sue for terms, they capitulate instantly. Over on the other side of the equation, the modern multicultural state is too watery a concept to bind huge numbers of immigrants to the land of their nominal citizenship. So they look elsewhere and find the jihad. The Western Muslim's pan-Islamic identity is merely the first great cause in a world where globalized pathologies are taking the place of old-school nationalism.
For states in demographic decline with ever more lavish social programs, the question is a simple one: can they get real? Can they grow up before they grow old? If not, then they'll end their days in societies dominated by people with a very different world view.
Which brings us to the third factor -- the enervated state of the Western world, the sense of civilizational ennui, of nations too mired in cultural relativism to understand what's at stake. As it happens, that third point is closely related to the first two. To Americans, it doesn't always seem obvious that there's any connection between the "war on terror" and the so-called "pocketbook issues" of domestic politics. But there is a correlation between the structural weaknesses of the social democratic state and the rise of a globalized Islam. The state has gradually annexed all the responsibilities of adulthood -- health care, child care, care of the elderly -- to the point where it's effectively severed its citizens from humanity's primal instincts, not least the survival instinct. In the American context, the federal "deficit" isn't the problem; it's the government programs that cause the deficit. These programs would still be wrong even if Bill Gates wrote a cheque to cover them each month. They corrode the citizen's sense of self-reliance to a potentially fatal degree. Big government is a national security threat: it increases your vulnerability to threats like Islamism, and makes it less likely you'll be able to summon the will to rebuff it. We should have learned that lesson on Sept. 11, 2001, when big government flopped big-time and the only good news of the day came from the ad hoc citizen militia of Flight 93.
There were two forces at play in the late 20th century: in the Eastern bloc, the collapse of Communism; in the West, the collapse of confidence. One of the most obvious refutations of Francis Fukuyama's famous thesis The End Of History -- written at the victory of liberal pluralist democracy over Soviet Communism -- is that the victors didn't see it as such. Americans -- or at least non-Democrat-voting Americans -- may talk about "winning" the Cold War but the French and the Belgians and Germans and Canadians don't. Very few British do. These are all formal NATO allies -- they were, technically, on the winning side against a horrible tyranny few would wish to live under themselves. In Europe, there was an initial moment of euphoria: it was hard not be moved by the crowds sweeping through the Berlin Wall, especially as so many of them were hot-looking Red babes eager to enjoy a Carlsberg or Stella Artois with even the nerdiest running dog of imperialism. But, when the moment faded, pace Fukuyama, there was no sense on the Continent that our Big Idea had beaten their Big Idea. With the best will in the world, it's hard to credit the citizens of France or Italy as having made any serious contribution to the defeat of Communism. Au contraire, millions of them voted for it, year in, year out. And, with the end of the Soviet existential threat, the enervation of the West only accelerated.
In Thomas P. M. Barnett's book Blueprint For Action, Robert D. Kaplan, a very shrewd observer of global affairs, is quoted referring to the lawless fringes of the map as "Indian territory." It's a droll joke but a misleading one. The difference between the old Indian territory and the new is this: no one had to worry about the Sioux riding down Fifth Avenue. Today, with a few hundred bucks on his ATM card, the fellow from the badlands can be in the heart of the metropolis within hours.
Here's another difference: in the old days, the white man settled the Indian territory. Now the followers of the badland's radical imams settle the metropolis.
And another difference: technology. In the old days, the Injuns had bows and arrows and the cavalry had rifles. In today's Indian territory, countries that can't feed their own people have nuclear weapons.
But beyond that the very phrase "Indian territory" presumes that inevitably these badlands will be brought within the bounds of the ordered world. In fact, a lot of today's "Indian territory" was relatively ordered a generation or two back -- West Africa, Pakistan, Bosnia. Though Eastern Europe and Latin America and parts of Asia are freer now than they were in the seventies, other swaths of the map have spiralled backwards. Which is more likely? That the parts of the world under pressure will turn into post-Communist Poland or post-Communist Yugoslavia? In Europe, the demographic pressures favour the latter.
The enemies we face in the future will look a lot like al-Qaeda: transnational, globalized, locally franchised, extensively outsourced -- but tied together through a powerful identity that leaps frontiers and continents. They won't be nation-states and they'll have no interest in becoming nation-states, though they might use the husks thereof, as they did in Afghanistan and then Somalia. The jihad may be the first, but other transnational deformities will embrace similar techniques. Sept. 10 institutions like the UN and the EU will be unlikely to provide effective responses.
We can argue about what consequences these demographic trends will have, but to say blithely they have none is ridiculous. The basic demography explains, for example, the critical difference between the "war on terror" for Americans and Europeans: in the U.S., the war is something to be fought in the treacherous sands of the Sunni Triangle and the caves of the Hindu Kush; you go to faraway places and kill foreigners. But, in Europe, it's a civil war. Neville Chamberlain dismissed Czechoslovakia as "a faraway country of which we know little." This time round, for much of western Europe it turned out the faraway country of which they knew little was their own.
Four years into the "war on terror," the Bush administration began promoting a new formulation: "the long war." Not a good sign. In a short war, put your money on tanks and bombs. In a long war, the better bet is will and manpower. The longer the long war gets, the harder it will be, because it's a race against time, against lengthening demographic, economic and geopolitical odds. By "demographic," I mean the Muslim world's high birth rate, which by mid-century will give tiny Yemen a higher population than vast empty Russia. By "economic," I mean the perfect storm the Europeans will face within this decade, because their lavish welfare states are unsustainable on their post-Christian birth rates. By "geopolitical," I mean that, if you think the United Nations and other international organizations are antipathetic to America now, wait a few years and see what kind of support you get from a semi-Islamified Europe.
Almost every geopolitical challenge in the years ahead has its roots in demography, but not every demographic crisis will play out the same way. That's what makes doing anything about it even more problematic -- because different countries' reactions to their own particular domestic circumstances are likely to play out in destabilizing ways on the international scene. In Japan, the demographic crisis exists virtually in laboratory conditions -- no complicating factors; in Russia, it will be determined by the country's relationship with a cramped neighbour -- China; and in Europe, the new owners are already in place -- like a tenant with a right-to-buy agreement.
Let's start in the most geriatric jurisdiction on the planet. In Japan, the rising sun has already passed into the next phase of its long sunset: net population loss. 2005 was the first year since records began in which the country had more deaths than births. Japan offers the chance to observe the demographic death spiral in its purest form. It's a country with no immigration, no significant minorities and no desire for any: just the Japanese, aging and dwindling.
At first it doesn't sound too bad: compared with the United States, most advanced societies are very crowded. If you're in a cramped apartment in a noisy congested city, losing a couple hundred thousand seems a fine trade-off. The difficulty, in a modern social democratic state, is managing which people to lose: already, according to the Japan Times, depopulation is "presenting the government with pressing challenges on the social and economic front, including ensuring provision of social security services and securing the labour force." For one thing, the shortage of children has led to a shortage of obstetricians. Why would any talented ambitious med school student want to go into a field in such precipitous decline? As a result, if you live in certain parts of Japan, childbirth is all in the timing. On Oki Island, try to time the contractions for Monday morning. That's when the maternity ward is open -- first day of the week, 10 a.m., when an obstetrician flies in to attend to any pregnant mothers who happen to be around. And at 5.30 p.m. she flies out. So, if you've been careless enough to time your childbirth for Tuesday through Sunday, you'll have to climb into a helicopter and zip off to give birth alone in a strange hospital unsurrounded by tiresome loved ones. Do Lamaze classes on Oki now teach you to time your breathing to the whirring of the chopper blades?
The last local obstetrician left the island in 2006 and the health service isn't expecting any more. Doubtless most of us can recall reading similar stories over the years from remote rural districts in America, Canada, Australia. After all, why would a village of a few hundred people have a great medical system? But Oki has a population of 17,000, and there are still no obstetricians: birthing is a dying business.
So what will happen? There are a couple of scenarios: whatever Japanese feelings on immigration, a country with great infrastructure won't empty out for long, any more than a state-of-the-art factory that goes belly up stays empty for long. At some point, someone else will move in to Japan's plant.
And the alternative? In The Children Of Men, P. D. James' dystopian fantasy about a barren world, there are special dolls for women whose maternal instinct has gone unfulfilled: pretend mothers take their artificial children for walks on the street or to the swings in the park. In Japan, that's no longer the stuff of dystopian fantasy. At the beginning of the century, the country's toy makers noticed they had a problem: toys are for children and Japan doesn't have many. What to do? In 2005, Tomy began marketing a new doll called Yumel -- a baby boy with a range of 1,200 phrases designed to serve as companions for the elderly. He says not just the usual things -- "I wuv you" -- but also asks the questions your grandchildren would ask if you had any: "Why do elephants have long noses?" Yumel joins his friend, the Snuggling Ifbot, a toy designed to have the conversation of a five-year old child which its makers, with the usual Japanese efficiency, have determined is just enough chit-chat to prevent the old folks going senile. It seems an appropriate final comment on the social democratic state: in a childish infantilized self-absorbed society where adults have been stripped of all responsibility, you need never stop playing with toys. We are the children we never had.
And why leave it at that? Is it likely an ever smaller number of young people will want to spend their active years looking after an ever greater number of old people? Or will it be simpler to put all that cutting-edge Japanese technology to good use and take a flier on Mister Roboto and the post-human future? After all, what's easier for the governing class? Weaning a pampered population off the good life and re-teaching them the lost biological impulse or giving the Sony Corporation a licence to become the Cloney Corporation? If you need to justify it to yourself, you'd grab the graphs and say, well, demographic decline is universal. It's like industrialization a couple of centuries back; everyone will get to it eventually, but the first to do so will have huge advantages: the relevant comparison is not with England's early 19th century population surge but with England's Industrial Revolution. In the industrial age, manpower was critical. In the new technological age, manpower will be optional -- and indeed, if most of the available manpower's Muslim, it's actually a disadvantage. As the most advanced society with the most advanced demographic crisis, Japan seems likely to be the first jurisdiction to embrace robots and cloning and embark on the slippery slope to transhumanism.
Demographic origin need not be the final word. In 1775, Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to Joseph Priestly suggesting a mutual English friend might like to apply his mind to the conundrum the Crown faced:
Britain, at the expense of three millions, has killed 150 Yankees this campaign, which is £20000 a head... During the same time, 60000 children have been born in America. From these data his mathematical head will easily calculate the time and the expense necessary to kill us all.
Obviously, Franklin was oversimplifying. Not every American colonist identified himself as a rebel. After the revolution, there were massive population displacements: as United Empire Loyalists well know, large numbers of New Yorkers left the colony to resettle in what's now Ontario. Some American Negroes were so anxious to remain subjects of King George III they resettled as far as Sierra Leone. For these people, their primary identity was not as American colonists but as British subjects. For others, their new identity as Americans had supplanted their formal allegiance to the Crown. The question for today's Europe is whether the primary identity of their fastest-growing demographic is Muslim or Belgian, Muslim or Dutch, Muslim or French.
That's where civilizational confidence comes in: if "Dutchness" or "Frenchness" seems a weak attenuated thing, then the stronger identity will prevail. One notes other similarities between revolutionary America and contemporary Europe: the United Empire Loyalists were older and wealthier; the rebels were younger and poorer. In the end, the former simply lacked the latter's strength of will.
Europe, like Japan, has catastrophic birth rates and a swollen pampered elderly class determined to live in defiance of economic reality. But the difference is that on the Continent the successor population is already in place and the only question is how bloody the transfer of real estate will be.
If America's "allies" failed to grasp the significance of 9/11, it's because Europe's home-grown terrorism problems had all taken place among notably static populations, such as Ulster and the Basque country. One could make generally safe extrapolations about the likelihood of holding Northern Ireland to what cynical strategists in Her Majesty's Government used to call an "acceptable level of violence." But in the same three decades as Ulster's "Troubles," the hitherto moderate Muslim populations of south Asia were radicalized by a politicized form of Islam; previously formally un-Islamic societies such as Nigeria became semi-Islamist; and large Muslim populations settled in parts of Europe that had little or no experience of mass immigration.
On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Time for the obligatory "of courses": of course, not all Muslims are terrorists -- though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists -- though enough of them share their basic objectives(the wish to live under Islamic law in Europe and North America)to function wittingly or otherwise as the "good cop" end of an Islamic good cop/bad cop routine. But, at the very minimum, this fast-moving demographic transformation provides a huge comfort zone for the jihad to move around in. And in a more profound way it rationalizes what would otherwise be the nuttiness of the terrorists' demands. An IRA man blows up a pub in defiance of democratic reality -- because he knows that at the ballot box the Ulster Loyalists win the elections and the Irish Republicans lose. When a European jihadist blows something up, that's not in defiance of democratic reality but merely a portent of democratic reality to come. He's jumping the gun, but in every respect things are moving his way.
You may vaguely remember seeing some flaming cars on the evening news toward the end of 2005. Something going on in France, apparently. Something to do with -- what's the word? -- "youths." When I pointed out the media's strange reluctance to use the M-word vis-à-vis the rioting "youths," I received a ton of emails arguing there's no Islamist component, they're not the madrasa crowd, they may be Muslim but they're secular and Westernized and into drugs and rap and meaningless sex with no emotional commitment, and rioting and looting and torching and trashing, just like any normal healthy Western teenagers. These guys have economic concerns, it's the lack of jobs, it's conditions peculiar to France, etc. As one correspondent wrote, "You right-wing shit-for-brains think everything's about jihad."
Actually, I don't think everything's about jihad. But I do think, as I said, that a good 90 per cent of everything's about demography. Take that media characterization of those French rioters: "youths." What's the salient point about youths? They're youthful. Very few octogenarians want to go torching Renaults every night. It's not easy lobbing a Molotov cocktail into a police station and then hobbling back with your walker across the street before the searing heat of the explosion melts your hip replacement. Civil disobedience is a young man's game.
In June 2006, a 54-year-old Flemish train conductor called Guido Demoor got on the Number 23 bus in Antwerp to go to work. Six -- what's that word again? -- "youths" boarded the bus and commenced intimidating the other riders. There were some 40 passengers aboard. But the "youths" were youthful and the other passengers less so. Nonetheless, Mr. Demoor asked the lads to cut it out and so they turned on him, thumping and kicking him. Of those 40 other passengers, none intervened to help the man under attack. Instead, at the next stop, 30 of the 40 scrammed, leaving Mr. Demoor to be beaten to death. Three "youths" were arrested, and proved to be -- quelle surprise! -- of Moroccan origin. The ringleader escaped and, despite police assurances of complete confidentiality, of those 40 passengers only four came forward to speak to investigators. "You see what happens if you intervene," a fellow rail worker told the Belgian newspaper De Morgen. "If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive."
No, he wouldn't. He would be as dead as those 40 passengers are, as the Belgian state is, keeping his head down, trying not to make eye contact, cowering behind his newspaper in the corner seat and hoping just to be left alone. What future in "their" country do Mr. Demoor's two children have? My mother and grandparents came from Sint-Niklaas, a town I remember well from many childhood visits. When we stayed with great-aunts and other relatives, the upstairs floors of the row houses had no bathrooms, just chamber pots. My sister and I were left to mooch around cobbled streets with our little cousin for hours on end, wandering aimlessly past smoke-wreathed bars and cafes, occasionally buying frites with mayonnaise. With hindsight it seemed as parochially Flemish as could be imagined. Not anymore. The week before Mr. Demoor was murdered in plain sight, bus drivers in Sint-Niklaas walked off the job to protest the thuggery of the -- here it comes again -- "youths." In little more than a generation, a town has been transformed.
Of the ethnic Belgian population, some 17 per cent are under 18 years old. Of the country's Turkish and Moroccan population, 35 per cent are under 18 years old. The "youths" get ever more numerous, the non-youths get older. To avoid the ruthless arithmetic posited by Benjamin Franklin, it is necessary for those "youths" to feel more Belgian. Is that likely? Colonel Gadhafi doesn't think so:
There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe -- without swords, without guns, without conquests. The fifty million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades.
On Sept. 11, 2001, the American mainland was attacked for the first time since the War of 1812. The perpetrators were foreign -- Saudis and Egyptians. Since 9/11, Europe has seen the London Tube bombings, the French riots, Dutch murders of nationalist politicians. The perpetrators are their own citizens -- British subjects, citoyens de la République française. In Linz, Austria, Muslims are demanding that all female teachers, believers or infidels, wear head scarves in class. The Muslim Council of Britain wants Holocaust Day abolished because it focuses "only" on the Nazis'(alleged)Holocaust of the Jews and not the Israelis' ongoing Holocaust of the Palestinians.
How does the state react? In Seville, King Ferdinand III is no longer patron saint of the annual fiesta because his splendid record in fighting for Spanish independence from the Moors was felt to be insensitive to Muslims. In London, a judge agreed to the removal of Jews and Hindus from a trial jury because the Muslim defendant's counsel argued he couldn't get a fair verdict from them. The Church of England is considering removing St. George as the country's patron saint on the grounds that, according to various Anglican clergy, he's too "militaristic" and "offensive to Muslims." They wish to replace him with St. Alban, and replace St. George's cross on the revamped Union Flag, which would instead show St. Alban's cross as a thin yellow streak.
In a few years, as millions of Muslim teenagers are entering their voting booths, some European countries will not be living formally under sharia, but -- as much as parts of Nigeria, they will have reached an accommodation with their radicalized Islamic compatriots, who like many intolerant types are expert at exploiting the "tolerance" of pluralist societies. In other Continental countries, things are likely to play out in more traditional fashion, though without a significantly different ending. Wherever one's sympathies lie on Islam's multiple battle fronts the fact is the jihad has held out a long time against very tough enemies. If you're not shy about taking on the Israelis and Russians, why wouldn't you fancy your chances against the Belgians and Spaniards?
"We're the ones who will change you," the Norwegian imam Mullah Krekar told the Oslo newspaper Dagbladet in 2006. "Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children." As he summed it up: "Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."
Reprinted by permission of Regnery Publishing from America Alone © 2006 by Mark Steyn
To comment, email letters@macleans.ca
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Indian American Hindu group stirs a debate over yoga's soul
influential group behind it, the Hindu American Foundation, suggests only that people become more aware of yoga's debt to the faith's ancient traditions.
That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr Deepak Chopra, the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu — and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it.
The question at the core of the debate — who owns yoga? — has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry.
In June, it even prompted the Indian government to begin making digital copies of ancient drawings showing the provenance of more than 4,000 yoga poses, to discourage further claims by entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born yoga instructor to the stars who is based in Los Angeles. Mr Choudhury nettled Indian officials in 2007 when he copyrighted his personal style of 26 yoga poses as "Bikram Yoga."
Organizers of the Take Back Yoga effort point out that the philosophy of yoga was first described in Hinduism's seminal texts and remains at the core of Hindu teaching. Yet, because the religion has been stereotyped in the West as a polytheistic faith of "castes, cows and curry," they say, most Americans prefer to see yoga as the legacy of a more timeless, spiritual "Indian wisdom."
"In a way," said Dr Aseem Shukla, the foundation's co-founder, "our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand."
For many practitioners, including Debbie Desmond, 27, a yoga instructor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the talk of branding and ownership is bewildering.
"Nobody owns yoga," she said, sitting cross-legged in her studio, Namaste Yoga, and tilting her head as if the notion sketched an impossible yoga position she had never seen. "Yoga is not a religion. It is a way of life, a method of becoming. We were taught that the roots of yoga go back further than Hinduism itself."
Like Dr Chopra and some religious historians, Ms Desmond believes that yoga originated in the Vedic culture of Indo-Europeans who settled in India in the third millennium BC, long before the tradition now called Hinduism emerged. Other historians trace the first written description of yoga to the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu scripture believed to have been written between the fifth and second centuries BC.
The effort to "take back" yoga began quietly enough, with a scholarly essay posted in January on the Web site of the Hindu American Foundation, a Minneapolis-based group that promotes human rights for Hindu minorities worldwide. The essay lamented a perceived snub in modern yoga culture, saying that yoga magazines and studios had assiduously decoupled the practice "from the Hinduism that gave forth this immense contribution to humanity."
Dr Shukla put a sharper point on his case a few months later in a column on the On Faith blog of The Washington Post. Hinduism, he wrote, had become a victim of "overt intellectual property theft," made possible by generations of Hindu yoga teachers who had "offered up a religion's spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism."
That drew the attention of Dr Chopra, an Indian-American who has done much to popularize Indian traditions like alternative medicine and yoga. He posted a reply saying that Hinduism was too "tribal" and "self-enclosed" to claim ownership of yoga.
The fight went viral — or as viral as things can get in a narrow Web corridor frequented by yoga enthusiasts, Hindu Americans and religion scholars.
Loriliai Biernacki, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Colorado, said the debate had raised important issues about a spectrum of Hindu concepts permeating American culture, including meditation, belief in karma and reincarnation, and even cremation.
"All these ideas are Hindu in origin, and they are spreading," she said. "But they are doing it in a way that leaves behind the proper name, the box that classifies them as 'Hinduism.' "
The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country's two million Hindus, said Diana L Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans' interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity," she said.
The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country's two million Hindus, said Diana L Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans' interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity," she said.
Dr Shukla said reaction to the yoga campaign had far exceeded his expectations.
"We started this, really, for our kids," said Dr. Shukla, a urologist and a second-generation Indian-American. "When our kids go to school and say they are Hindu, nobody says, 'Oh, yeah, Hindus gave the world yoga.' They say, 'What caste are you?' Or 'Do you pray to a monkey god?' Because that's all Americans know about Hinduism."
With its tiny budget, the foundation has pressed its campaign largely by generating buzz through letters and Web postings to academic journals and yoga magazines. The September issue of Yoga Journal, which has the largest circulation in the field, alluded to the campaign, if fleetingly, in an article calling yoga's "true history a mystery."
The effort has been received most favorably by Indian-American community leaders like Dr Uma V Mysorekar, the president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, in Flushing, Queens, which helps groups across the country build temples.
A naturalized immigrant, she said Take Back Yoga represented a coming-of-age for Indians in the United States. "My generation was too busy establishing itself in business and the professions," she said. "Now, the second and third generation is looking around and finding its voice, saying, 'Our civilization has made contributions to the world, and these should be acknowledged.'"
In the basement of the society's Ganesha Temple, an hourlong yoga class ended one recent Sunday morning with a long exhalation of the sacred syllable "om." Via the lung power of 60 students, it sounded as deeply as a blast from the organ at St Patrick's Cathedral.
After the session, which began and concluded with Hindu prayers, many students said they were practicing Hindus and in complete sympathy with the yoga campaign.
Not all were, though. Shweta Parmar, 35, a community organizer and project director for a health and meditation group, said she had grown up in a Hindu household. "Yoga is part of the tradition I come from," she said.
But is yoga specifically Hindu? She paused to ponder. "My parents are Hindu," she said. But in matters of yoga, "I don't use that term."
Read more: Indian-American Hindu group stirs a debate over yoga's soul - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/indians-abroad/Indian-American-Hindu-group-stirs-a-debate-over-yogas-soul/articleshow/7004072.cms#ixzz16nOG4I6D
That suggestion, modest though it may seem, has drawn a flurry of strong reactions from figures far apart on the religious spectrum. Dr Deepak Chopra, the New Age writer, has dismissed the campaign as a jumble of faulty history and Hindu nationalism. R Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has said he agrees that yoga is Hindu — and cited that as evidence that the practice imperiled the souls of Christians who engage in it.
The question at the core of the debate — who owns yoga? — has become an enduring topic of chatter in yoga Web forums, Hindu American newspapers and journals catering to the many consumers of what is now a multibillion-dollar yoga industry.
In June, it even prompted the Indian government to begin making digital copies of ancient drawings showing the provenance of more than 4,000 yoga poses, to discourage further claims by entrepreneurs like Bikram Choudhury, an Indian-born yoga instructor to the stars who is based in Los Angeles. Mr Choudhury nettled Indian officials in 2007 when he copyrighted his personal style of 26 yoga poses as "Bikram Yoga."
Organizers of the Take Back Yoga effort point out that the philosophy of yoga was first described in Hinduism's seminal texts and remains at the core of Hindu teaching. Yet, because the religion has been stereotyped in the West as a polytheistic faith of "castes, cows and curry," they say, most Americans prefer to see yoga as the legacy of a more timeless, spiritual "Indian wisdom."
"In a way," said Dr Aseem Shukla, the foundation's co-founder, "our issue is that yoga has thrived, but Hinduism has lost control of the brand."
For many practitioners, including Debbie Desmond, 27, a yoga instructor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the talk of branding and ownership is bewildering.
"Nobody owns yoga," she said, sitting cross-legged in her studio, Namaste Yoga, and tilting her head as if the notion sketched an impossible yoga position she had never seen. "Yoga is not a religion. It is a way of life, a method of becoming. We were taught that the roots of yoga go back further than Hinduism itself."
Like Dr Chopra and some religious historians, Ms Desmond believes that yoga originated in the Vedic culture of Indo-Europeans who settled in India in the third millennium BC, long before the tradition now called Hinduism emerged. Other historians trace the first written description of yoga to the Bhagavad Gita, the sacred Hindu scripture believed to have been written between the fifth and second centuries BC.
The effort to "take back" yoga began quietly enough, with a scholarly essay posted in January on the Web site of the Hindu American Foundation, a Minneapolis-based group that promotes human rights for Hindu minorities worldwide. The essay lamented a perceived snub in modern yoga culture, saying that yoga magazines and studios had assiduously decoupled the practice "from the Hinduism that gave forth this immense contribution to humanity."
Dr Shukla put a sharper point on his case a few months later in a column on the On Faith blog of The Washington Post. Hinduism, he wrote, had become a victim of "overt intellectual property theft," made possible by generations of Hindu yoga teachers who had "offered up a religion's spiritual wealth at the altar of crass commercialism."
That drew the attention of Dr Chopra, an Indian-American who has done much to popularize Indian traditions like alternative medicine and yoga. He posted a reply saying that Hinduism was too "tribal" and "self-enclosed" to claim ownership of yoga.
The fight went viral — or as viral as things can get in a narrow Web corridor frequented by yoga enthusiasts, Hindu Americans and religion scholars.
Loriliai Biernacki, a professor of Indian religions at the University of Colorado, said the debate had raised important issues about a spectrum of Hindu concepts permeating American culture, including meditation, belief in karma and reincarnation, and even cremation.
"All these ideas are Hindu in origin, and they are spreading," she said. "But they are doing it in a way that leaves behind the proper name, the box that classifies them as 'Hinduism.' "
The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country's two million Hindus, said Diana L Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans' interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity," she said.
The debate has also secured the standing of the Hindu American Foundation as the pre-eminent voice for the country's two million Hindus, said Diana L Eck, a professor of comparative religion and Indian studies at Harvard. Other groups represent Indian-Americans' interests in business and politics, but the foundation has emerged as "the first major national advocacy group looking at Hindu identity," she said.
Dr Shukla said reaction to the yoga campaign had far exceeded his expectations.
"We started this, really, for our kids," said Dr. Shukla, a urologist and a second-generation Indian-American. "When our kids go to school and say they are Hindu, nobody says, 'Oh, yeah, Hindus gave the world yoga.' They say, 'What caste are you?' Or 'Do you pray to a monkey god?' Because that's all Americans know about Hinduism."
With its tiny budget, the foundation has pressed its campaign largely by generating buzz through letters and Web postings to academic journals and yoga magazines. The September issue of Yoga Journal, which has the largest circulation in the field, alluded to the campaign, if fleetingly, in an article calling yoga's "true history a mystery."
The effort has been received most favorably by Indian-American community leaders like Dr Uma V Mysorekar, the president of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, in Flushing, Queens, which helps groups across the country build temples.
A naturalized immigrant, she said Take Back Yoga represented a coming-of-age for Indians in the United States. "My generation was too busy establishing itself in business and the professions," she said. "Now, the second and third generation is looking around and finding its voice, saying, 'Our civilization has made contributions to the world, and these should be acknowledged.'"
In the basement of the society's Ganesha Temple, an hourlong yoga class ended one recent Sunday morning with a long exhalation of the sacred syllable "om." Via the lung power of 60 students, it sounded as deeply as a blast from the organ at St Patrick's Cathedral.
After the session, which began and concluded with Hindu prayers, many students said they were practicing Hindus and in complete sympathy with the yoga campaign.
Not all were, though. Shweta Parmar, 35, a community organizer and project director for a health and meditation group, said she had grown up in a Hindu household. "Yoga is part of the tradition I come from," she said.
But is yoga specifically Hindu? She paused to ponder. "My parents are Hindu," she said. But in matters of yoga, "I don't use that term."
Read more: Indian-American Hindu group stirs a debate over yoga's soul - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/indians-abroad/Indian-American-Hindu-group-stirs-a-debate-over-yogas-soul/articleshow/7004072.cms#ixzz16nOG4I6D
Where's The Diversity Among Oscar Hopefuls?
ALLISON KEYES, host:
This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Allison Keyes. Michel Martin is away.
Coming up, cheering for science. We'll talk about professional cheerleaders doing what they do best - to encourage girls to get involved in science.
But first, the holiday season is underway and movie studios have begun to flood the multiplexes with flicks they hope will score huge profits, Oscar nominations or both.
One might yearn for plotlines that are new and diverse, but can we say the same about the characters we see on the screen and the folk in the director's chair? Do they reflect the unique backgrounds and cultures of Latino, African and Asian Americans and other communities of color in the nation?
We were curious about the role of diversity in film, particularly Oscar quality films, so we've called Jeff Yang. He writes the Asian pop column for the San Francisco Chronicle and he joins us from our studio in Culver City. Also joining the conversation is Kamal Larsuel. She's editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com, a website of film reviews. She joins us from Auburn in Washington state. Welcome to the program.
Ms. KAMAL LARSUEL (Editor-in-chief and Writer, 3blackchicks.com): Hi, thank you for having me.
Mr. JEFF YANG (Writer, San Francisco Chronicle): Thank you.
KEYES: The Hollywood Reporter just wrote that for the first time in 10 years they don't think that there will be any black nominees in any of the acting categories for the next ceremony, and they're not seeing any people of color among the early list of awards hopefuls. Jeff, if that really happens, what message does that send both to the public and to the Academy?
Mr. YANG: You know, it looks like we've kind of fallen back into the default, if you will, of having the middle market films and the art films, the films that are generally seen as having the most opportunity to contend for this sort of critical and industry acclaim, if you will, really being absent of representation of people of color.
KEYES: And when you say people of color, we're talking Asians, we're talking Latinos, not just black folk.
Mr. YANG: Yeah. And I would actually say that for Asian Americans in general, it's almost kind of a wasteland as far as the Academy Awards are concerned.
KEYES: Kamal, if the Academy Awards do turn out to be basically all white this year, do you think it sends a particular message to the film industry that that's acceptable, or do you think the message more goes to the public?
Ms. LARSUEL: I think it goes to the industry that it's more acceptable. I mean this happens over and over again, where they throw a bone one year and then just take all our toys away the next. I mean, "The Color Purple," prime example. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, won zero.
You know, as a black woman, the first thing I think about is black actors. But when I broaden my scope, what about all actors of color? We could even say, you know, Arab-Americans and Iranian Americans, there's nothing out there to represent and celebrate the citizens of this country who are of color.
One of the most disappointing things for this year was "The Last Airbender."
KEYES: Let me jump in right quick, for people that don't know, in "The Last Airbender," there were white people that were playing Asian characters, which caused, shall we say, a bit of controversy.
Mr. YANG: The one thing that we can be grateful for was that "The Last Airbender" will be nowhere near the Academy Awards ceremony next year.
Ms. LARSUEL: That's true, you know.
KEYES: Hang on a second. We're going to play a clip from that and then we're going to come back to it in just a second. Here we go.
(Soundbite of film, "The Last Airbender")
Ms. NICOLA PELTZ (Actress): (as Katara) You are the only one who can control all the elements and bring peace to our world.
Mr. NOAH RINGER (Actor): (as Aang) I will stop them.
Unidentified Man: (as Character) You may already be too late.
(Soundbite of music)
KEYES: Dun, dun, dun. Okay, Jeff, let me ask you. And I have to note, this isn't the first this director has caught some flack for this, is it?
Mr. YANG: The director himself, M. Night Shyamalan, who is himself somebody who's been nominated for Academy Awards in the past. "The Sixth Sense," his kind of opus magnus, put him in contention for a slew of awards: Best Picture, Best Director.
Ms. LARSUEL: I see dead people.
Mr. YANG: Yes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. YANG: I see dead people, but I don't see Asian people. You know, the thing is he has always seen himself as this sort of (unintelligible) maverick in Hollywood where, you know, it's his vision that matters most. And I think the real fault has to lie with the studios because the casting decisions end up being primarily around the idea of avoiding risk as much as possible.
KEYES: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're talking about diversity or the lack of it in the movies, especially those with a chance for Oscar nominations. We're speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle's Asian pop columnist Jeff Yang, and also, with editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com, Kamal Larsuel.
So, if there are talented actors and filmmakers of color, where are they if they're not in the Oscar movies?
Mr. YANG: You know, this is one of those things where it almost ends up being, like, ah, you don't want to blame your own community for this sort of thing, and you can't in some ways. I mean there are so many talented performers out there who are Asian and African-American, Latino and, you know, and there are filmmakers who are incredibly talented as well, you know.
And the question is, okay, well, so why aren't they, you know, kind of standing up and being counted? Well, you know, the fact is it's like with any other profession, you need to have the (unintelligible) team in place, you need to have people in positions of decision making power who are saying, you know, I'm going to look at a wider angle, a wider lens on what might be a potentially successful project to put my weight behind.
And at every level, you know, from the studio executives to, you know, every step along the way, you just don't have enough people of color inside who can help reach a hand outside to bring in those next generation talents, if you will.
KEYES: What do you think is going to be the next move or do you think there'll be a next move from major film companies on diversity? If all of this ends up to be an all-white Oscars year, do you think there will be another cycle? Because this is beginning to sound like a - there's a one big black movie or one movie that has actual Asians or Latinos in it, and there will be - and then the next two years there's nothing.
Mr. YANG: I think that's what we're looking at, certainly. But there are bigger trends that are happening and I think the biggest of these trends is that we are looking at more and more films being made for global audiences and for global consumption.
I'm actually here in Los Angeles right now on the press tour for a film that's coming out called "The Warrior's Way," which is an international production. It stars a superstar in Korea, a guy named Jang Dong-gun. Alongside him is Kate Bosworth, Danny Huston and Academy-Award nominated actor Geoffrey Rush.
So, you have this desire here, I think, for more people to say, we're not going to play the straight Hollywood game now. You know, we're going to put our money, and this is not a small budget film. It's, you know, a nicely budgeted film and we're going to see whether or not we can't get butts in seats on both sides of the Pacific.
KEYES: Kamal, from your point of view, do you see color on the horizon?
Ms. LARSUEL: It'll be a whitewash Oscar and we will stand up and protest and yell and scream and bring the spotlight back on people of color. And so the Oscars of 2012 will probably have a nice array of people of color and then we'll go back into the commonplace and get comfortable again until we have to scream. And I just wish we would get to a day where we don't have to scream.
KEYES: Kamal Larsuel is the editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com. She joined us from Auburn, a town in Washington state. Jeff Yang writes the Asian pop column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He joined us from our studio in Culver City. Thank you both for an interesting conversation.
Ms. LARSUEL: Thank you.
Mr. YANG: Thank you, Allison.
This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Allison Keyes. Michel Martin is away.
Coming up, cheering for science. We'll talk about professional cheerleaders doing what they do best - to encourage girls to get involved in science.
But first, the holiday season is underway and movie studios have begun to flood the multiplexes with flicks they hope will score huge profits, Oscar nominations or both.
One might yearn for plotlines that are new and diverse, but can we say the same about the characters we see on the screen and the folk in the director's chair? Do they reflect the unique backgrounds and cultures of Latino, African and Asian Americans and other communities of color in the nation?
We were curious about the role of diversity in film, particularly Oscar quality films, so we've called Jeff Yang. He writes the Asian pop column for the San Francisco Chronicle and he joins us from our studio in Culver City. Also joining the conversation is Kamal Larsuel. She's editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com, a website of film reviews. She joins us from Auburn in Washington state. Welcome to the program.
Ms. KAMAL LARSUEL (Editor-in-chief and Writer, 3blackchicks.com): Hi, thank you for having me.
Mr. JEFF YANG (Writer, San Francisco Chronicle): Thank you.
KEYES: The Hollywood Reporter just wrote that for the first time in 10 years they don't think that there will be any black nominees in any of the acting categories for the next ceremony, and they're not seeing any people of color among the early list of awards hopefuls. Jeff, if that really happens, what message does that send both to the public and to the Academy?
Mr. YANG: You know, it looks like we've kind of fallen back into the default, if you will, of having the middle market films and the art films, the films that are generally seen as having the most opportunity to contend for this sort of critical and industry acclaim, if you will, really being absent of representation of people of color.
KEYES: And when you say people of color, we're talking Asians, we're talking Latinos, not just black folk.
Mr. YANG: Yeah. And I would actually say that for Asian Americans in general, it's almost kind of a wasteland as far as the Academy Awards are concerned.
KEYES: Kamal, if the Academy Awards do turn out to be basically all white this year, do you think it sends a particular message to the film industry that that's acceptable, or do you think the message more goes to the public?
Ms. LARSUEL: I think it goes to the industry that it's more acceptable. I mean this happens over and over again, where they throw a bone one year and then just take all our toys away the next. I mean, "The Color Purple," prime example. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards, won zero.
You know, as a black woman, the first thing I think about is black actors. But when I broaden my scope, what about all actors of color? We could even say, you know, Arab-Americans and Iranian Americans, there's nothing out there to represent and celebrate the citizens of this country who are of color.
One of the most disappointing things for this year was "The Last Airbender."
KEYES: Let me jump in right quick, for people that don't know, in "The Last Airbender," there were white people that were playing Asian characters, which caused, shall we say, a bit of controversy.
Mr. YANG: The one thing that we can be grateful for was that "The Last Airbender" will be nowhere near the Academy Awards ceremony next year.
Ms. LARSUEL: That's true, you know.
KEYES: Hang on a second. We're going to play a clip from that and then we're going to come back to it in just a second. Here we go.
(Soundbite of film, "The Last Airbender")
Ms. NICOLA PELTZ (Actress): (as Katara) You are the only one who can control all the elements and bring peace to our world.
Mr. NOAH RINGER (Actor): (as Aang) I will stop them.
Unidentified Man: (as Character) You may already be too late.
(Soundbite of music)
KEYES: Dun, dun, dun. Okay, Jeff, let me ask you. And I have to note, this isn't the first this director has caught some flack for this, is it?
Mr. YANG: The director himself, M. Night Shyamalan, who is himself somebody who's been nominated for Academy Awards in the past. "The Sixth Sense," his kind of opus magnus, put him in contention for a slew of awards: Best Picture, Best Director.
Ms. LARSUEL: I see dead people.
Mr. YANG: Yes.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. YANG: I see dead people, but I don't see Asian people. You know, the thing is he has always seen himself as this sort of (unintelligible) maverick in Hollywood where, you know, it's his vision that matters most. And I think the real fault has to lie with the studios because the casting decisions end up being primarily around the idea of avoiding risk as much as possible.
KEYES: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. We're talking about diversity or the lack of it in the movies, especially those with a chance for Oscar nominations. We're speaking with the San Francisco Chronicle's Asian pop columnist Jeff Yang, and also, with editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com, Kamal Larsuel.
So, if there are talented actors and filmmakers of color, where are they if they're not in the Oscar movies?
Mr. YANG: You know, this is one of those things where it almost ends up being, like, ah, you don't want to blame your own community for this sort of thing, and you can't in some ways. I mean there are so many talented performers out there who are Asian and African-American, Latino and, you know, and there are filmmakers who are incredibly talented as well, you know.
And the question is, okay, well, so why aren't they, you know, kind of standing up and being counted? Well, you know, the fact is it's like with any other profession, you need to have the (unintelligible) team in place, you need to have people in positions of decision making power who are saying, you know, I'm going to look at a wider angle, a wider lens on what might be a potentially successful project to put my weight behind.
And at every level, you know, from the studio executives to, you know, every step along the way, you just don't have enough people of color inside who can help reach a hand outside to bring in those next generation talents, if you will.
KEYES: What do you think is going to be the next move or do you think there'll be a next move from major film companies on diversity? If all of this ends up to be an all-white Oscars year, do you think there will be another cycle? Because this is beginning to sound like a - there's a one big black movie or one movie that has actual Asians or Latinos in it, and there will be - and then the next two years there's nothing.
Mr. YANG: I think that's what we're looking at, certainly. But there are bigger trends that are happening and I think the biggest of these trends is that we are looking at more and more films being made for global audiences and for global consumption.
I'm actually here in Los Angeles right now on the press tour for a film that's coming out called "The Warrior's Way," which is an international production. It stars a superstar in Korea, a guy named Jang Dong-gun. Alongside him is Kate Bosworth, Danny Huston and Academy-Award nominated actor Geoffrey Rush.
So, you have this desire here, I think, for more people to say, we're not going to play the straight Hollywood game now. You know, we're going to put our money, and this is not a small budget film. It's, you know, a nicely budgeted film and we're going to see whether or not we can't get butts in seats on both sides of the Pacific.
KEYES: Kamal, from your point of view, do you see color on the horizon?
Ms. LARSUEL: It'll be a whitewash Oscar and we will stand up and protest and yell and scream and bring the spotlight back on people of color. And so the Oscars of 2012 will probably have a nice array of people of color and then we'll go back into the commonplace and get comfortable again until we have to scream. And I just wish we would get to a day where we don't have to scream.
KEYES: Kamal Larsuel is the editor-in-chief and writer of 3blackchicks.com. She joined us from Auburn, a town in Washington state. Jeff Yang writes the Asian pop column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He joined us from our studio in Culver City. Thank you both for an interesting conversation.
Ms. LARSUEL: Thank you.
Mr. YANG: Thank you, Allison.
U.N. says migrants face worst racism, Arizona law cited
UNITED NATIONS | Mon Nov 1, 2010 5:23pm EDT
(Reuters) - Migrants bear the brunt of discrimination around the world, and Arizona's controversial immigration law is the kind of policy that could open the door to human rights abuses, a U.N. investigator said on Monday.
"If I have any specific group ... subject to the most insidious contemporary forms of racial discrimination, then those are migrants," said U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and xenophobia, Githu Muigai.
"In many parts of the world today, immigrants bear the brunt of xenophobic intolerance," Muigai, a Kenyan lawyer, told reporters.
"This is true of the United States, as it is of Europe, as indeed it is in many parts of the world."
He cited the example of the U.S. state of Arizona's immigration law, which would require police in the course of a lawful stop to determine the status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.
That law, the subject of a fierce legal battle in the U.S. court system, has been scrutinized and criticized around the world, partly due to concerns it would encourage racial profiling and promote discrimination.
Muigai said there was nothing barring countries from implementing "a fair, open and transparent migration policy." But the Arizona law is something different.
He said it "equips a policeman ... with such immense powers as to compromise in my point of view the very, very fundamental human rights that ought to be enjoyed in such an enlightened part of the world as Arizona."
"What I find difficult ... to reconcile to is the stigmatization, the negative stereotyping that goes with ethnic profiling," Muigai said, adding that "an immigration policy that does not respond to minimum international human rights standards is inherently ... suspect."
A U.S. federal district judge in July put on hold key parts of the state law known as SB 1070, arguing that immigration matters are the federal government's responsibility.
Arizona on Monday asked U.S. appellate judges to allow the law to go into effect while the legal battle continues.
(Reuters) - Migrants bear the brunt of discrimination around the world, and Arizona's controversial immigration law is the kind of policy that could open the door to human rights abuses, a U.N. investigator said on Monday.
"If I have any specific group ... subject to the most insidious contemporary forms of racial discrimination, then those are migrants," said U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism and xenophobia, Githu Muigai.
"In many parts of the world today, immigrants bear the brunt of xenophobic intolerance," Muigai, a Kenyan lawyer, told reporters.
"This is true of the United States, as it is of Europe, as indeed it is in many parts of the world."
He cited the example of the U.S. state of Arizona's immigration law, which would require police in the course of a lawful stop to determine the status of anyone they suspect is in the country illegally.
That law, the subject of a fierce legal battle in the U.S. court system, has been scrutinized and criticized around the world, partly due to concerns it would encourage racial profiling and promote discrimination.
Muigai said there was nothing barring countries from implementing "a fair, open and transparent migration policy." But the Arizona law is something different.
He said it "equips a policeman ... with such immense powers as to compromise in my point of view the very, very fundamental human rights that ought to be enjoyed in such an enlightened part of the world as Arizona."
"What I find difficult ... to reconcile to is the stigmatization, the negative stereotyping that goes with ethnic profiling," Muigai said, adding that "an immigration policy that does not respond to minimum international human rights standards is inherently ... suspect."
A U.S. federal district judge in July put on hold key parts of the state law known as SB 1070, arguing that immigration matters are the federal government's responsibility.
Arizona on Monday asked U.S. appellate judges to allow the law to go into effect while the legal battle continues.
Is It Where You’re From or Where You’re At? Black Demographics and Creative Economies
Mai Perkins remembers attending a concert at Central Park SummerStage with Cassanda Wilson, partly because of an observation the jazz singer made about Perkins’ new city. “She made a comment that I thought was so applicable to the city’s diversity. She said, ‘California has landscape, New York has people-scape!’” It was a sentiment that the native Angeleno could relate to.
Perkins is no different from the millions who migrate across the country for school or for a new job. She moved to Washington DC over ten years ago to attend Howard University and ended up in New York City to pursue her career as a writer.
So what makes New York a more complementary fit for her than her hometown? Maybe that has something to do with the creative economy, a concept much discussed by “urban expert” Richard Florida in his book “Who’s Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making the Place Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life,” which explored an interesting pattern of how one’s city environment influences productivity and creativity.
“I really think that being in New York and seeing people living and thriving outside of conventional standards has really benefitted my personal and professional trajectory in ways that would not have been realized had I remained in Los Angeles,” said Perkins. The Brooklyn resident and adjunct professor at City University New York believes that the high level of diversity in New York fosters creativity and comfort with one’s personal identity.
When applied to the Black experience, will analyzing the creative economies explain why cities like Brooklyn or Philadelphia produce so many musical artists or why Atlanta has such a high percentage of Black entrepreneurs? According to the social theory, location is critical whether you know it or not. It’s not only about infrastructure and city government but also about the atmosphere created by people themselves. For many Blacks, just having a presence within a city is a major element.
“A majority of Blacks have a strong racial identity. If a person has a strong racial identity, it matters whether they live in a city that has a sizable percentage of that racial group,” said Rashawn Ray, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “Cities that have a thriving Black middle class, Black political representation or politicians clearly invested in issues that affect African-Americans, stable housing prices in black neighborhoods, public spaces conducive to physical activity, and an educational system that has a track record for graduating Black youth and assisting with college attendance are positive places for Blacks to live.”
And what about the impact of living in a city where there’s not much Black representation?
Growing up in either Atlanta or Brooklyn/Harlem is a far different experience than living in a California city where Blacks only represent 6.6 percent of the state population according to the 2010 US Census Bureau Results. Although cities like Los Angeles have a Black population of nearly 12 percent (2000 Census), New York’s black population exceeds 26.6 percent (2000 Census) and Atlanta boasts a large 61.4 percent Black population (2000 Census).
Perkins, who appreciated her Los Angeles upbringing, admits that the East coast seems to be more conducive to various self-expressions. “I knew in 11th and 12th grade that I wanted to grow locks, but it wasn’t until I moved to DC and went to Howard that I figured out it was actually an option,” she said. “My mother has always had a sophisticated Afrocentric style of dress and had worn hairstyles ranging from naturals to fingerwaves. [It was] never an issue of feeling that I couldn’t express myself culturally. However, when I look at some of the African American teenagers coming up in LA right now, I don’t know how much they value styles and choices that are centered in African tradition like perhaps a lot of the youth in New York do,” she said, adding that the composition of New York cannot be ignored when discussing its impact on individuality. “The Black population in New York City is significantly more diverse than the Black population in LA. In New York, you are the minority if you are African American; when I meet people here, their first question to me is which African country or part of the Caribbean am I from.”
As Harlem, Brooklyn and Washington DC represent Black meccas of the East Coast, Atlanta is the Southern mecca, representing upward mobility, prosperity and of course, the Buppy culture.
Akiim DeShay of BlackDemographics.com, who is a native of Rochester New York, said that Atlanta made a positive impression on him after having lived there for a short time in high school. He witnessed the stable and middle class life of Atlanta that encapsulates the city’s image as a destination for many looking to start a family, take part in the burgeoning Black Hollywood, or just live in a stable African-American community. Maybe it’s unintentional but Atlanta has definitely reaped the rewards of being branded as the place to be for successful African-Americans.
“Atlanta has its problems but it also has a reputation of opportunity and prosperity,” said DeShay, who now resides outside of Dallas. “So even those who are living in poverty, high crime areas, and segregation continue to hear from others or the media about how booming the city is. They see folks from all over the country who broke their neck to move there with horror stories of places they escaped from.”
Despite the fact that Atlanta has its negatives like any other big city, much of its leverage and reputation comes from the fact that African-Americans can see themselves reflected as engines of everyday business.
“Go to any of Atlanta’s business centers and it is normal to see African Americans working in all sectors of the economy at all levels,” said DeShay. “Ask for a supervisor, manager, or even the CEO, and don’t be surprised if a Black man or woman appears. Majority Black middle class neighborhoods surround the city’s southern half. In an environment like this, how could anyone fail? Well of course it happens but don’t tell that to any of the thousands of African Americans who move there every month.” The attraction is evident; the Atlanta area gained 445,000 African Americans between 2000 and 2008 which is by far the largest Black population gain of any metropolitan area in the United States.
While the city has long been a destination for Southerners, California only began to experience Black migration in large numbers in 1940. Many Black residents of Oakland and Los Angeles will tell you that their parents or they themselves moved to California from various locations in the South for job opportunities in the aftermath of World War II. The period between 1940 and 1970 is known as the Second Great Migration, in which the state of California absorbed about 5 million blacks.
The longer history of Blacks on the East coast has dictated the dominant nature of East coast culture in music and history. Don’t we often wonder why certain cities over-represent when it comes to producing notables? “Cities such as New York and Philadelphia have historically been large markets for the culture and the arts. After all, the Harlem Renaissance and Du Bois’ classic Philadelphia Negro occurred in these cities,” said Dr. Ray. “The legacy of these triumphs still lives on. These cities have also historically had a thriving Black middle class and Black political representation. These dynamics set the tone for allowing equitable opportunities for Blacks to be productive, creative, and upwardly mobile.”
Perkins is no different from the millions who migrate across the country for school or for a new job. She moved to Washington DC over ten years ago to attend Howard University and ended up in New York City to pursue her career as a writer.
So what makes New York a more complementary fit for her than her hometown? Maybe that has something to do with the creative economy, a concept much discussed by “urban expert” Richard Florida in his book “Who’s Your City: How the Creative Economy is Making the Place Where You Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life,” which explored an interesting pattern of how one’s city environment influences productivity and creativity.
“I really think that being in New York and seeing people living and thriving outside of conventional standards has really benefitted my personal and professional trajectory in ways that would not have been realized had I remained in Los Angeles,” said Perkins. The Brooklyn resident and adjunct professor at City University New York believes that the high level of diversity in New York fosters creativity and comfort with one’s personal identity.
When applied to the Black experience, will analyzing the creative economies explain why cities like Brooklyn or Philadelphia produce so many musical artists or why Atlanta has such a high percentage of Black entrepreneurs? According to the social theory, location is critical whether you know it or not. It’s not only about infrastructure and city government but also about the atmosphere created by people themselves. For many Blacks, just having a presence within a city is a major element.
“A majority of Blacks have a strong racial identity. If a person has a strong racial identity, it matters whether they live in a city that has a sizable percentage of that racial group,” said Rashawn Ray, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Maryland. “Cities that have a thriving Black middle class, Black political representation or politicians clearly invested in issues that affect African-Americans, stable housing prices in black neighborhoods, public spaces conducive to physical activity, and an educational system that has a track record for graduating Black youth and assisting with college attendance are positive places for Blacks to live.”
And what about the impact of living in a city where there’s not much Black representation?
Growing up in either Atlanta or Brooklyn/Harlem is a far different experience than living in a California city where Blacks only represent 6.6 percent of the state population according to the 2010 US Census Bureau Results. Although cities like Los Angeles have a Black population of nearly 12 percent (2000 Census), New York’s black population exceeds 26.6 percent (2000 Census) and Atlanta boasts a large 61.4 percent Black population (2000 Census).
Perkins, who appreciated her Los Angeles upbringing, admits that the East coast seems to be more conducive to various self-expressions. “I knew in 11th and 12th grade that I wanted to grow locks, but it wasn’t until I moved to DC and went to Howard that I figured out it was actually an option,” she said. “My mother has always had a sophisticated Afrocentric style of dress and had worn hairstyles ranging from naturals to fingerwaves. [It was] never an issue of feeling that I couldn’t express myself culturally. However, when I look at some of the African American teenagers coming up in LA right now, I don’t know how much they value styles and choices that are centered in African tradition like perhaps a lot of the youth in New York do,” she said, adding that the composition of New York cannot be ignored when discussing its impact on individuality. “The Black population in New York City is significantly more diverse than the Black population in LA. In New York, you are the minority if you are African American; when I meet people here, their first question to me is which African country or part of the Caribbean am I from.”
As Harlem, Brooklyn and Washington DC represent Black meccas of the East Coast, Atlanta is the Southern mecca, representing upward mobility, prosperity and of course, the Buppy culture.
Akiim DeShay of BlackDemographics.com, who is a native of Rochester New York, said that Atlanta made a positive impression on him after having lived there for a short time in high school. He witnessed the stable and middle class life of Atlanta that encapsulates the city’s image as a destination for many looking to start a family, take part in the burgeoning Black Hollywood, or just live in a stable African-American community. Maybe it’s unintentional but Atlanta has definitely reaped the rewards of being branded as the place to be for successful African-Americans.
“Atlanta has its problems but it also has a reputation of opportunity and prosperity,” said DeShay, who now resides outside of Dallas. “So even those who are living in poverty, high crime areas, and segregation continue to hear from others or the media about how booming the city is. They see folks from all over the country who broke their neck to move there with horror stories of places they escaped from.”
Despite the fact that Atlanta has its negatives like any other big city, much of its leverage and reputation comes from the fact that African-Americans can see themselves reflected as engines of everyday business.
“Go to any of Atlanta’s business centers and it is normal to see African Americans working in all sectors of the economy at all levels,” said DeShay. “Ask for a supervisor, manager, or even the CEO, and don’t be surprised if a Black man or woman appears. Majority Black middle class neighborhoods surround the city’s southern half. In an environment like this, how could anyone fail? Well of course it happens but don’t tell that to any of the thousands of African Americans who move there every month.” The attraction is evident; the Atlanta area gained 445,000 African Americans between 2000 and 2008 which is by far the largest Black population gain of any metropolitan area in the United States.
While the city has long been a destination for Southerners, California only began to experience Black migration in large numbers in 1940. Many Black residents of Oakland and Los Angeles will tell you that their parents or they themselves moved to California from various locations in the South for job opportunities in the aftermath of World War II. The period between 1940 and 1970 is known as the Second Great Migration, in which the state of California absorbed about 5 million blacks.
The longer history of Blacks on the East coast has dictated the dominant nature of East coast culture in music and history. Don’t we often wonder why certain cities over-represent when it comes to producing notables? “Cities such as New York and Philadelphia have historically been large markets for the culture and the arts. After all, the Harlem Renaissance and Du Bois’ classic Philadelphia Negro occurred in these cities,” said Dr. Ray. “The legacy of these triumphs still lives on. These cities have also historically had a thriving Black middle class and Black political representation. These dynamics set the tone for allowing equitable opportunities for Blacks to be productive, creative, and upwardly mobile.”
Study: Latinas Are Economic Engine of Arizona
Prensa Hispana, News Report, Maritza Lizeth Félix, Posted: Nov 26, 2010
PHOENIX -- Latinos represent more than 30 percent of Arizona’s population and bring more than $31 billion to the state’s economy, according to a recent study by Arizona’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, reports Maritza Lizeth Félix for Prensa Hispana. The report, “Datos: Focus on Arizona’s Hispanic Market 2010,” finds that Latina women have become an economic engine in the state. The study does not include the economic impact of undocumented immigrants.
In Numbers
$31.3 billion – the buying power of Latinos in Arizona
$47.9 billion – the amount Latinos are expected to spend in 2013
$951 billion – Latino buying power in the U.S., not including Puerto Ricans, whose buying power is estimated at $50 billion
63% of Arizona’s Latino population lives in Maricopa County
42% of the residents of Phoenix are Latino
1 in 4 children born in the U.S. in 2008 was of Hispanic descent
Fun Facts
Latinos spend $128.50 a week on food, compared to the $91 that others spend.
A Latino goes to the grocery store at least 4 times a week on average.
Young Latinas are the biggest spenders on cosmetics and personal hygiene products.
Latino families continue to prefer options in Spanish, since the majority speaks Spanish at home.
Latina mothers are more likely to buy fresh food to cook, than to eat at a restaurant.
Nearly 41 percent of the Latino population plans to buy a TV or computer in the next six months.
Every two minutes, a Latino baby is born in the U.S.
PHOENIX -- Latinos represent more than 30 percent of Arizona’s population and bring more than $31 billion to the state’s economy, according to a recent study by Arizona’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, reports Maritza Lizeth Félix for Prensa Hispana. The report, “Datos: Focus on Arizona’s Hispanic Market 2010,” finds that Latina women have become an economic engine in the state. The study does not include the economic impact of undocumented immigrants.
In Numbers
$31.3 billion – the buying power of Latinos in Arizona
$47.9 billion – the amount Latinos are expected to spend in 2013
$951 billion – Latino buying power in the U.S., not including Puerto Ricans, whose buying power is estimated at $50 billion
63% of Arizona’s Latino population lives in Maricopa County
42% of the residents of Phoenix are Latino
1 in 4 children born in the U.S. in 2008 was of Hispanic descent
Fun Facts
Latinos spend $128.50 a week on food, compared to the $91 that others spend.
A Latino goes to the grocery store at least 4 times a week on average.
Young Latinas are the biggest spenders on cosmetics and personal hygiene products.
Latino families continue to prefer options in Spanish, since the majority speaks Spanish at home.
Latina mothers are more likely to buy fresh food to cook, than to eat at a restaurant.
Nearly 41 percent of the Latino population plans to buy a TV or computer in the next six months.
Every two minutes, a Latino baby is born in the U.S.
Gore Verbinski is directing The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp as Tonto.
By Scott Mendelson
hollywoodnews.com: Confirming something that has been rumored for literally years, Disney announced that Gore Verbinksi will be helming a feature-film retelling of The Lone Ranger. And yes, Johnny Depp will be playing Tonto. For what it’s worth, Johnny Depp does have is 1/4 Native American, with a Cherokee maternal grandmother and a partial-Cherokee father. As to who will be playing the actual Lone Ranger, that is still up in the air, although I’m pretty sure that perennial favorite George Clooney has outgrown the part. Jerry Bruckheimer will be producing for a planned 2012 release.
The story is pretty simple: a young Texas ranger who is the lone survivor of an ambush; nursed back to health by the mysterious Tonto. How you tell that story and what embellishments you add, well that’s what will make the movie. We haven’t had a feature film version of this story since The Legend of the Lone Ranger in 1981. That would-be epic actually had a pretty strong first two acts, which detail the backstory of ‘that masked man’. Christopher Lloyd brought a cold, clinical menace to the lead villain (longtime nemesis Maj. Bartholomew ‘Butch’ Cavendish). But the film peters in out in the finale, with most of the Lone Ranger’s heroic initial exploits being devoted to just sneaking around the villain’s compound and occasionally punching someone. Still, the structure of the film reminded me not a little of Batman Begins, and I’m willing to bet that the Nolan Batman reboot is the template that Disney will be playing off of for this new version.
hollywoodnews.com: Confirming something that has been rumored for literally years, Disney announced that Gore Verbinksi will be helming a feature-film retelling of The Lone Ranger. And yes, Johnny Depp will be playing Tonto. For what it’s worth, Johnny Depp does have is 1/4 Native American, with a Cherokee maternal grandmother and a partial-Cherokee father. As to who will be playing the actual Lone Ranger, that is still up in the air, although I’m pretty sure that perennial favorite George Clooney has outgrown the part. Jerry Bruckheimer will be producing for a planned 2012 release.
The story is pretty simple: a young Texas ranger who is the lone survivor of an ambush; nursed back to health by the mysterious Tonto. How you tell that story and what embellishments you add, well that’s what will make the movie. We haven’t had a feature film version of this story since The Legend of the Lone Ranger in 1981. That would-be epic actually had a pretty strong first two acts, which detail the backstory of ‘that masked man’. Christopher Lloyd brought a cold, clinical menace to the lead villain (longtime nemesis Maj. Bartholomew ‘Butch’ Cavendish). But the film peters in out in the finale, with most of the Lone Ranger’s heroic initial exploits being devoted to just sneaking around the villain’s compound and occasionally punching someone. Still, the structure of the film reminded me not a little of Batman Begins, and I’m willing to bet that the Nolan Batman reboot is the template that Disney will be playing off of for this new version.
They All Look the Same: How Racism Works Neurologically
By JOHN CLOUD Wednesday, November 24, 2010
You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It's detestable, but a new study shows that the racist observation happens to be true. To members of one race, members of another race are far more difficult to differentiate.
The study, written by a European team led by Luca Vizioli of the University of Glasgow and published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, begins by noting that humans are remarkably skilled at facial recognition: we can differentiate family members and friends from strangers in far less than a second. (More on Time.com: The Authentic Self: How Do You Know If You're 'Really' Racist or Sexist?)
And yet as long ago as 1914, an academic publication called the Journal of Criminal Law and Police Science published an article saying it takes us longer to tell apart members of races other than our own. "To the uninitiated American," the authors wrote, "all Asiatics look alike, while to the Asiatics, all White men look alike."
The authors of the new study set out to discover why this "perceptual illusion," as they call it, has persisted.
To study how we see others' faces, they looked at electrical signals coming from the heads of 12 people of East Asian descent and 12 people of Caucasian descent as they viewed photos of members of their own and the other race. Previous studies had looked at whites only.
The signals are measured with electroenchephalography, or EEG, and they offer a strong clue about how much neural activity is occurring when any particular picture is on the screen. (More on Time.com: I Don't Actually Hate Myself: Why Harvard Is Wrong About Bias)
The study found that, as expected, both Asian and white observers revealed what is called the "other-race effect": they took longer to recognize members of other races.
The authors controlled for differences in how the faces in the photos looked. It didn't matter whether someone was pretty or ugly, whether they were making a nice face or a rude one: it still took longer to recognize them if they were a member of another race.
What do these results mean? The authors are careful on this point. The idea that racism is built into our DNA is both unsavory and disappointing. Also, the sample is small: just 24 people. But the results suggest that we are programmed to see members of other races as, literally, different beings. The "'all-look-alike' perceptual experience," as the authors call it, is real. (More on Time.com: I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me With Facts)
These impulses are almost certainly evolutionary: we react against a member of another tribe that may be trying to annihilate us. One silver lining: understanding these impulses may help us to overcome them.
You've heard the racial epithet: All you people look the same. It's detestable, but a new study shows that the racist observation happens to be true. To members of one race, members of another race are far more difficult to differentiate.
The study, written by a European team led by Luca Vizioli of the University of Glasgow and published in a recent issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, begins by noting that humans are remarkably skilled at facial recognition: we can differentiate family members and friends from strangers in far less than a second. (More on Time.com: The Authentic Self: How Do You Know If You're 'Really' Racist or Sexist?)
And yet as long ago as 1914, an academic publication called the Journal of Criminal Law and Police Science published an article saying it takes us longer to tell apart members of races other than our own. "To the uninitiated American," the authors wrote, "all Asiatics look alike, while to the Asiatics, all White men look alike."
The authors of the new study set out to discover why this "perceptual illusion," as they call it, has persisted.
To study how we see others' faces, they looked at electrical signals coming from the heads of 12 people of East Asian descent and 12 people of Caucasian descent as they viewed photos of members of their own and the other race. Previous studies had looked at whites only.
The signals are measured with electroenchephalography, or EEG, and they offer a strong clue about how much neural activity is occurring when any particular picture is on the screen. (More on Time.com: I Don't Actually Hate Myself: Why Harvard Is Wrong About Bias)
The study found that, as expected, both Asian and white observers revealed what is called the "other-race effect": they took longer to recognize members of other races.
The authors controlled for differences in how the faces in the photos looked. It didn't matter whether someone was pretty or ugly, whether they were making a nice face or a rude one: it still took longer to recognize them if they were a member of another race.
What do these results mean? The authors are careful on this point. The idea that racism is built into our DNA is both unsavory and disappointing. Also, the sample is small: just 24 people. But the results suggest that we are programmed to see members of other races as, literally, different beings. The "'all-look-alike' perceptual experience," as the authors call it, is real. (More on Time.com: I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me With Facts)
These impulses are almost certainly evolutionary: we react against a member of another tribe that may be trying to annihilate us. One silver lining: understanding these impulses may help us to overcome them.
Merit: the best and only way to decide who gets into university
We find the trend toward race-based admissions policies in some U.S. schools to be deplorable
by macleans.ca on Thursday, November 25, 2010 10:30am - 182 Comments
Photograph by Colin O'Connor
Maclean’s annual University Rankings issue is our most popular and most discussed magazine of the year. The 2010 edition, released two weeks ago, was no exception. Alongside our comprehensive rankings of Canadian schools, we also tackled the biggest issues facing today’s university students. There were stories dealing with school stress, problem roommates, difficult school choices and sex. And when students told us race is becoming a conversation on Canadian campuses, we took a closer look at that as well.
Our reporters Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Köhler spoke to university students, professors and administrators about campus racial balance and its implications. The resulting story was titled: ”‘Too Asian?’: a term used in the U.S. to talk about racial imbalance at Ivy League schools is now being whispered on Canadian campuses—by everyone but the students themselves, who speak out loud and clear.”
The article has generated a great deal of response, a representative sample of which is included in this week’s Letters (page six). Some of the comments we have seen on the Internet and in other media have suggested that by publishing this article, Maclean’s views Canadian universities as “Too Asian,” or that we hold a negative view of Asian students.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As our story relates, the phrase “Too Asian?” is a direct quote from the title of a panel discussion at the 2006 meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling where experts examined the growing tendency among U.S. university admission officers to view Asian applicants as a homogenous group. The evidence suggests some of the most prestigious schools in the U.S. have abandoned merit as the basis for admission for more racially significant—and racist—criteria.
We find the trend toward race-based admission policies in some American schools deplorable, as do many of our readers. Our article notes that Canadian universities select students regardless of race or creed. That, in our view, is the best and only acceptable approach: merit should be the sole criteria for entrance to higher education in Canada, and universities should always give preference to our best and brightest regardless of cultural background. This position was stated clearly in the article: “Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so,” reporters Findlay and Köhler wrote.
Through hard work, talent and ambition, Asian students have been highly successful in earning places in Canada’s institutions of higher learning. They, like all of our high achievers, deserve respect and admiration. Every one of them is a source of pride to their fellow Canadians.
One final note about the headline. Although the phrase “Too Asian?” was a question and, again, a quotation from an authoritative source, it upset many people. We expected that it would be provocative, but we did not intend to cause offence.
Tags: Admission Policies, Education, Race, Racial Balance, Too Asia
by macleans.ca on Thursday, November 25, 2010 10:30am - 182 Comments
Photograph by Colin O'Connor
Maclean’s annual University Rankings issue is our most popular and most discussed magazine of the year. The 2010 edition, released two weeks ago, was no exception. Alongside our comprehensive rankings of Canadian schools, we also tackled the biggest issues facing today’s university students. There were stories dealing with school stress, problem roommates, difficult school choices and sex. And when students told us race is becoming a conversation on Canadian campuses, we took a closer look at that as well.
Our reporters Stephanie Findlay and Nicholas Köhler spoke to university students, professors and administrators about campus racial balance and its implications. The resulting story was titled: ”‘Too Asian?’: a term used in the U.S. to talk about racial imbalance at Ivy League schools is now being whispered on Canadian campuses—by everyone but the students themselves, who speak out loud and clear.”
The article has generated a great deal of response, a representative sample of which is included in this week’s Letters (page six). Some of the comments we have seen on the Internet and in other media have suggested that by publishing this article, Maclean’s views Canadian universities as “Too Asian,” or that we hold a negative view of Asian students.
Nothing could be further from the truth. As our story relates, the phrase “Too Asian?” is a direct quote from the title of a panel discussion at the 2006 meeting of the National Association for College Admission Counseling where experts examined the growing tendency among U.S. university admission officers to view Asian applicants as a homogenous group. The evidence suggests some of the most prestigious schools in the U.S. have abandoned merit as the basis for admission for more racially significant—and racist—criteria.
We find the trend toward race-based admission policies in some American schools deplorable, as do many of our readers. Our article notes that Canadian universities select students regardless of race or creed. That, in our view, is the best and only acceptable approach: merit should be the sole criteria for entrance to higher education in Canada, and universities should always give preference to our best and brightest regardless of cultural background. This position was stated clearly in the article: “Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so,” reporters Findlay and Köhler wrote.
Through hard work, talent and ambition, Asian students have been highly successful in earning places in Canada’s institutions of higher learning. They, like all of our high achievers, deserve respect and admiration. Every one of them is a source of pride to their fellow Canadians.
One final note about the headline. Although the phrase “Too Asian?” was a question and, again, a quotation from an authoritative source, it upset many people. We expected that it would be provocative, but we did not intend to cause offence.
Tags: Admission Policies, Education, Race, Racial Balance, Too Asia
The enrollment controversy
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/11/10/too-asian/3/
When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”
Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.
Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”
Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.
Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”
That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.
The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.
Asian-Canadian students are far more likely to talk about and assert their ethnic identities than white students. “I’m Asian,” says 21-year-old Susie Su, a third-year student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.” That pressure helps shape more than just the way Su handles study and school assignments; it shapes the way she interacts with her colleagues. “If I feel like it’s going to be an event where it’s all white people, I probably wouldn’t want to go,” she says. “There’s a lot of just drinking. It’s not that I don’t like white people. But you tend to hang out with people of the same race.”
Catherine Costigan, a psychology assistant prof at the University of Victoria, says it’s unsurprising that Asian students are segregated from “mainstream” campus life. She cites studies that show Chinese youth are bullied more than their non-Asian peers. As a so-called “model minority,” they are more frequently targeted because of being “too smart” and “teachers’ pets.” To counter peer ostracism and resentment, Costigan says Chinese students reaffirm their ethnicity.
The value of education has been drilled into Asian students by their parents, likely for cultural and socio-economic reasons. “It’s often described that Asians are the new Jews,” says Jon Reider, director of college counselling at San Francisco University High School and a former Stanford University admissions officer. “That in the face of discrimination, what you do is you study. And there’s a long tradition in Chinese culture, for example, going back to Confucius, of social mobility based on merit.”
Demographics contribute to the high degree of academic success among Asian-Canadian students. “Our highly selective immigration process means that we get many highly educated parents, so they have similar aspirations for their children,” says Robert Sweet, a retired Lakehead University education prof who has studied the parenting styles of immigrants as they relate to education. Sweet’s latest study, “Post-high school pathways of immigrant youth,” released last month, found that more than 70 per cent of students in the Toronto District School Board who immigrated from East Asia went on to university, compared to 52 per cent of Europeans, the next highest group, and 12 per cent of Caribbean, the lowest. This is in contrast to English-speaking Toronto students born in Canada—of which just 42 per cent confirmed admission to university.
Diane Bondy, a recently retired Ottawa-area guidance counsellor, notes that by the end of her 20-year career, competition among some Asian parents had reached a fever pitch. “Asian parents do their homework and the students are going to U of T or they’re going to Queen’s,” says Bondy, who points out that “Asians get more support from their parents financially and academically.” She also observed that the focus on academics was often to the exclusion of social interaction. “The kids were getting 98 per cent but they didn’t have other skills,” she says. “Their parents would come in and write in the resumé letters that they were in clubs. But the kids weren’t able to do anything in those clubs because they were academically focused.”
Students can carry that narrow scope into university, where they risk alienating their more fun-loving peers. The division is perhaps most extreme at Waterloo, where students have dubbed the MC and DC buildings—the Mathematics & Computer Building and the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre, respectively—“mainland China” and “downtown China,” and where some students told Maclean’s they can go for days without speaking English. Writes one Waterloo mathematics graduate on an online forum: “I once had a tutorial session for the whole class where the TA got frustrated with speaking English and started giving the answer in Mandarin. A lot of the class understood his answer.”
“My dad said if you don’t go into engineering, I won’t pay your tuition,” says Jason Yin, a Taiwanese software engineering student at Waterloo. “They are very traditional. They believe school is about work, studying, go home and studying some more.” Hard-studying Waterloo lends itself particularly to those goals. “We had a problem getting students out of their bedrooms,” says Nikki Best, a former residence don who sits on Waterloo’s student government, who explains they “didn’t want to get behind in their grades because of coming out to social events.”
That’s not to say Asian students form any sort of monolithic presence on Canadian campuses. “The mainland China group tends to stick together,” says Anthony Wong, 19, a Waterloo software engineering student. “We can talk to them,” says Jonathan Ing, also 19 and in Waterloo’s software engineering program, “but we don’t mingle.” Complains Waterloo student Simon Wang, a Chinese national who is frustrated by the segregation at Waterloo: “Why bother to come to Canada and pay five times as much to speak Chinese?” Meanwhile, Calgarian Joyce Chau identifies as “completely whitewashed,” a “banana”: “I look Asian but I’m white in all other respects.” Chau, a 19-year-old UBC business student, lived in residence her first year, where she met the majority of her (white) friends. “It’s harder to integrate into a group with Asians—you may or may not get introduced,” says Chau, who accepts the segregation as just “part of the university experience.”
Such balkanization is reflected in official student organizations: there is little Asian representation on student government, campus newspapers or college radio stations. At UBC, where the student body is roughly 40 per cent Asian, not one Asian sits on the student executive. Same goes for Waterloo. Asian students do, however, participate in organizations beyond the university mainstream, and long-standing cultural clubs function as a sort of ad hoc government. “After you graduate you won’t care about student government, but you’ll care about your club,” says Stan He, president of the Dragon Seed Connection, an on-campus Chinese club with over 300 members. (His business cards feature both dragon and robot motifs.) The Dragon Seed offers its members social functions, tutoring help, volunteer opportunities, poker and mah-jong tournaments, and special holiday parties—including at Halloween and Christmas. It even has an exclusive partnership with Solid Entertainment, a promotions and events-planning company that sponsors massive fundraising events and gives Dragon Seed exclusive selling rights on campus. He says that the dozen or so Asian clubs at UBC serve well over 4,000 students and cater to the whole spectrum of cultural identification—from “whitewashed” to “Honger,” a once-pejorative term now adopted by students with Hong Kong backgrounds. The Dragon Seed lies somewhere in between—“We’re the middle ground,” He says. “We have international students, but we all speak English.”
Or take the Chinese Varsity Club. With upwards of 500 members, it’s the largest student social club at UBC. The executives say they’ve captured a niche market: Chinese commuter students from the outlying Richmond, Burnaby and North Vancouver communities who hope to find a social network at the big school. “Students from high school already hear about us from older brothers and sisters,” says Peter Yang, the 21-year-old accounting student who is the club’s VP external. “You want to break out of the cycle of studying and being lonely,” says Brian Cheung, its president.
The impact of high admissions rates for Asian students has been an issue for years in the U.S., where high school guidance counsellors have come to accept that it’s just more difficult to sell their Asian applicants to elite colleges. In 2006, at its annual meeting, the National Association for College Admission Counseling explored the issue in an expert panel discussion called “Too Asian?” One panellist, Rachel Cederberg—an Asian-American then working as an admissions official at Colorado College—described fellow admissions officers complaining of “yet another Asian student who wants to major in math and science and who plays the violin.” A Boston Globe article early this year asked, “Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?” and concluded there’s likely an “Asian ceiling” at elite U.S. universities. After California passed Proposition 209 in 1996 forbidding affirmative action in the state’s public dealings, Asians soared to 40 per cent of the population at public universities, even though they make up just 13 per cent of state residents. And U.S. studies suggest Ivy League schools have taken the issue of Asian academic prowess so seriously that they’ve operated with secret quotas for decades to maintain their WASP credentials.
In his 2009 book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, Princeton University sociologist Thomas Espenshade surveyed 10 elite U.S. universities and found that Asian applicants needed an extra 140 points on their SAT scores to be on equal footing with white applicants. Scandals over such unfair admissions practices have surfaced in recent years at Stanford, Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere. Hsu, the Oregon physicist, draws a comparison between Asian-Americans and Jewish students who began arriving at the Ivy League in the first half of the last century. “You can find well-documented internal discussions at places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton about why we shouldn’t admit these people, they’re working so hard and they’re so obviously ambitious, but we want to keep our WASP pedigree here.”
To quell the influx of Jewish students, Ivy League schools abandoned their meritocratic admissions processes in favour of one that focused on the details of an applicant’s private life—questions about race, religion, even about the maiden name of an applicant’s mother. Schools also began looking at such intangibles as character, personality and leadership potential. Canadian universities, apart from highly competitive professional programs and faculties, don’t quiz applicants the same way, and rely entirely on transcripts. Likely that is a good thing. And yet, that meritocratic process results, especially in Canada’s elite university programs, in a concentration of Asian students.
The upshot is that race is defining Canadian university campuses in a way it did not 25 years ago. Diversity has enriched these schools, but it has also put them at risk of being increasingly fractured along ethnic lines. It’s a superficial form of multiculturalism that is expressed in the main through segregated, self-selecting, discrete communities. It would behoove the leadership of our universities to recognize these issues and take them seriously. And yet, that’s exactly what’s not happening. Indeed, discussions with Canada’s top university presidents reveal for the most part that they are in a state of denial.
“This is a non-issue,” wrote U of T president David Naylor in an email. “We’ve never had a student complain about this. In fact, this is a false stereotype, as we know that Asian students are fully engaged in extracurricular activities. So the whole concept is false.”
As Cheryl Misak, the U of T’s VP and provost, puts it: “We have a properly diverse mix, with no particular group extra prominent—we’re the rainbow nation and we’ve got every sort of student and everyone is on merit.” Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur echoes a similar sentiment. “There is a great tendency in our society to learn more about other nations and other cultures,” he says. “Universities are the hotbed of these kind of activities. If you want to see more economic and political diversity, I think they star.”
These positions arguably represent a missed opportunity. Universities have the potential of establishing real cultural change. It makes sense that the head of the Canadian university with perhaps the highest number of Asian students is the most candid and the most concerned. Indeed, Stephen Toope has, since his arrival in 2006 as UBC president, made the issue central to his agenda—including outreach and newspaper op-ed pieces touting the importance of making the university campus a meeting place not only of diversity but also of dialogue.
Among Canadian universities, UBC is one of the few institutions that publishes the ethnic makeup of its student body. Toope says that the university’s Asian student population is not “widely out of whack with the community,” although the stats tell a slightly different story. According to a 2009 UBC report on direct undergraduate entrants, 43 per cent of its students self-identify as ethnically Chinese, Korean or Japanese, as compared to 38 per cent who self-identify as white. Although Vancouver is a richly diverse city, according to data from the 2006 census, just 21.5 per cent of its residents identify as a Chinese, Korean or Japanese visible minority.
Toope says drawing the various communities present on Canadian campuses into a common medium can be challenging. “Across Canada it isn’t always the case that you’re seeing as much engagement from the new communities as perhaps we should,” he says. Toope uses the experience of Turkish immigrants in Germany as a cautionary tale—“there are groups that never find a way to participate in the broader community.” Such circumstances persist precisely because the issue of race is not attacked head on. “I don’t want to pretend that just because you have people from different backgrounds they’re going to interact—they’re not,” Toope says. “We have to actually create mechanisms, programs and opportunities for people to interact. A university is one of the places that has the greatest capacity to work through demographic change.”
Toope points us in the right direction. It’s unfair to change the meritocratic entry system, so all universities can do—all they should do—is encourage groups to mingle. Though it’s true that universities—U of T and Waterloo included—do have diversity programs and policies for students, newer, fresher ways are needed to help pry the ethnic ghettos open so everyone hangs out together. Or at least they have the chance to. The white kids may not find it’s too Asian after all. Alexandra, who chose to go to Western for the party scene, found she “hated being away from home” and moved back to Toronto. In retrospect, she didn’t like the vibe. “Some people just want to drink 23 hours a day.” Alexandra says she still has friends at Western who live in an “all-blond house” and are “stick thin.” Rachel, Alexandra’s friend, says Western suits them—“they work hard, get good grades, then slap on their clubbing clothes.” But it didn’t suit Alexandra. She now studies at U of T.
When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”
Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.
Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”
Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.
Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”
That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.
The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.
Asian-Canadian students are far more likely to talk about and assert their ethnic identities than white students. “I’m Asian,” says 21-year-old Susie Su, a third-year student at UBC’s Sauder School of Business. “I do have traditional Asian parents. I feel the pressure of finding a good job and raising a good family.” That pressure helps shape more than just the way Su handles study and school assignments; it shapes the way she interacts with her colleagues. “If I feel like it’s going to be an event where it’s all white people, I probably wouldn’t want to go,” she says. “There’s a lot of just drinking. It’s not that I don’t like white people. But you tend to hang out with people of the same race.”
Catherine Costigan, a psychology assistant prof at the University of Victoria, says it’s unsurprising that Asian students are segregated from “mainstream” campus life. She cites studies that show Chinese youth are bullied more than their non-Asian peers. As a so-called “model minority,” they are more frequently targeted because of being “too smart” and “teachers’ pets.” To counter peer ostracism and resentment, Costigan says Chinese students reaffirm their ethnicity.
The value of education has been drilled into Asian students by their parents, likely for cultural and socio-economic reasons. “It’s often described that Asians are the new Jews,” says Jon Reider, director of college counselling at San Francisco University High School and a former Stanford University admissions officer. “That in the face of discrimination, what you do is you study. And there’s a long tradition in Chinese culture, for example, going back to Confucius, of social mobility based on merit.”
Demographics contribute to the high degree of academic success among Asian-Canadian students. “Our highly selective immigration process means that we get many highly educated parents, so they have similar aspirations for their children,” says Robert Sweet, a retired Lakehead University education prof who has studied the parenting styles of immigrants as they relate to education. Sweet’s latest study, “Post-high school pathways of immigrant youth,” released last month, found that more than 70 per cent of students in the Toronto District School Board who immigrated from East Asia went on to university, compared to 52 per cent of Europeans, the next highest group, and 12 per cent of Caribbean, the lowest. This is in contrast to English-speaking Toronto students born in Canada—of which just 42 per cent confirmed admission to university.
Diane Bondy, a recently retired Ottawa-area guidance counsellor, notes that by the end of her 20-year career, competition among some Asian parents had reached a fever pitch. “Asian parents do their homework and the students are going to U of T or they’re going to Queen’s,” says Bondy, who points out that “Asians get more support from their parents financially and academically.” She also observed that the focus on academics was often to the exclusion of social interaction. “The kids were getting 98 per cent but they didn’t have other skills,” she says. “Their parents would come in and write in the resumé letters that they were in clubs. But the kids weren’t able to do anything in those clubs because they were academically focused.”
Students can carry that narrow scope into university, where they risk alienating their more fun-loving peers. The division is perhaps most extreme at Waterloo, where students have dubbed the MC and DC buildings—the Mathematics & Computer Building and the William G. Davis Computer Research Centre, respectively—“mainland China” and “downtown China,” and where some students told Maclean’s they can go for days without speaking English. Writes one Waterloo mathematics graduate on an online forum: “I once had a tutorial session for the whole class where the TA got frustrated with speaking English and started giving the answer in Mandarin. A lot of the class understood his answer.”
“My dad said if you don’t go into engineering, I won’t pay your tuition,” says Jason Yin, a Taiwanese software engineering student at Waterloo. “They are very traditional. They believe school is about work, studying, go home and studying some more.” Hard-studying Waterloo lends itself particularly to those goals. “We had a problem getting students out of their bedrooms,” says Nikki Best, a former residence don who sits on Waterloo’s student government, who explains they “didn’t want to get behind in their grades because of coming out to social events.”
That’s not to say Asian students form any sort of monolithic presence on Canadian campuses. “The mainland China group tends to stick together,” says Anthony Wong, 19, a Waterloo software engineering student. “We can talk to them,” says Jonathan Ing, also 19 and in Waterloo’s software engineering program, “but we don’t mingle.” Complains Waterloo student Simon Wang, a Chinese national who is frustrated by the segregation at Waterloo: “Why bother to come to Canada and pay five times as much to speak Chinese?” Meanwhile, Calgarian Joyce Chau identifies as “completely whitewashed,” a “banana”: “I look Asian but I’m white in all other respects.” Chau, a 19-year-old UBC business student, lived in residence her first year, where she met the majority of her (white) friends. “It’s harder to integrate into a group with Asians—you may or may not get introduced,” says Chau, who accepts the segregation as just “part of the university experience.”
Such balkanization is reflected in official student organizations: there is little Asian representation on student government, campus newspapers or college radio stations. At UBC, where the student body is roughly 40 per cent Asian, not one Asian sits on the student executive. Same goes for Waterloo. Asian students do, however, participate in organizations beyond the university mainstream, and long-standing cultural clubs function as a sort of ad hoc government. “After you graduate you won’t care about student government, but you’ll care about your club,” says Stan He, president of the Dragon Seed Connection, an on-campus Chinese club with over 300 members. (His business cards feature both dragon and robot motifs.) The Dragon Seed offers its members social functions, tutoring help, volunteer opportunities, poker and mah-jong tournaments, and special holiday parties—including at Halloween and Christmas. It even has an exclusive partnership with Solid Entertainment, a promotions and events-planning company that sponsors massive fundraising events and gives Dragon Seed exclusive selling rights on campus. He says that the dozen or so Asian clubs at UBC serve well over 4,000 students and cater to the whole spectrum of cultural identification—from “whitewashed” to “Honger,” a once-pejorative term now adopted by students with Hong Kong backgrounds. The Dragon Seed lies somewhere in between—“We’re the middle ground,” He says. “We have international students, but we all speak English.”
Or take the Chinese Varsity Club. With upwards of 500 members, it’s the largest student social club at UBC. The executives say they’ve captured a niche market: Chinese commuter students from the outlying Richmond, Burnaby and North Vancouver communities who hope to find a social network at the big school. “Students from high school already hear about us from older brothers and sisters,” says Peter Yang, the 21-year-old accounting student who is the club’s VP external. “You want to break out of the cycle of studying and being lonely,” says Brian Cheung, its president.
The impact of high admissions rates for Asian students has been an issue for years in the U.S., where high school guidance counsellors have come to accept that it’s just more difficult to sell their Asian applicants to elite colleges. In 2006, at its annual meeting, the National Association for College Admission Counseling explored the issue in an expert panel discussion called “Too Asian?” One panellist, Rachel Cederberg—an Asian-American then working as an admissions official at Colorado College—described fellow admissions officers complaining of “yet another Asian student who wants to major in math and science and who plays the violin.” A Boston Globe article early this year asked, “Do colleges redline Asian-Americans?” and concluded there’s likely an “Asian ceiling” at elite U.S. universities. After California passed Proposition 209 in 1996 forbidding affirmative action in the state’s public dealings, Asians soared to 40 per cent of the population at public universities, even though they make up just 13 per cent of state residents. And U.S. studies suggest Ivy League schools have taken the issue of Asian academic prowess so seriously that they’ve operated with secret quotas for decades to maintain their WASP credentials.
In his 2009 book No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, Princeton University sociologist Thomas Espenshade surveyed 10 elite U.S. universities and found that Asian applicants needed an extra 140 points on their SAT scores to be on equal footing with white applicants. Scandals over such unfair admissions practices have surfaced in recent years at Stanford, Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and elsewhere. Hsu, the Oregon physicist, draws a comparison between Asian-Americans and Jewish students who began arriving at the Ivy League in the first half of the last century. “You can find well-documented internal discussions at places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton about why we shouldn’t admit these people, they’re working so hard and they’re so obviously ambitious, but we want to keep our WASP pedigree here.”
To quell the influx of Jewish students, Ivy League schools abandoned their meritocratic admissions processes in favour of one that focused on the details of an applicant’s private life—questions about race, religion, even about the maiden name of an applicant’s mother. Schools also began looking at such intangibles as character, personality and leadership potential. Canadian universities, apart from highly competitive professional programs and faculties, don’t quiz applicants the same way, and rely entirely on transcripts. Likely that is a good thing. And yet, that meritocratic process results, especially in Canada’s elite university programs, in a concentration of Asian students.
The upshot is that race is defining Canadian university campuses in a way it did not 25 years ago. Diversity has enriched these schools, but it has also put them at risk of being increasingly fractured along ethnic lines. It’s a superficial form of multiculturalism that is expressed in the main through segregated, self-selecting, discrete communities. It would behoove the leadership of our universities to recognize these issues and take them seriously. And yet, that’s exactly what’s not happening. Indeed, discussions with Canada’s top university presidents reveal for the most part that they are in a state of denial.
“This is a non-issue,” wrote U of T president David Naylor in an email. “We’ve never had a student complain about this. In fact, this is a false stereotype, as we know that Asian students are fully engaged in extracurricular activities. So the whole concept is false.”
As Cheryl Misak, the U of T’s VP and provost, puts it: “We have a properly diverse mix, with no particular group extra prominent—we’re the rainbow nation and we’ve got every sort of student and everyone is on merit.” Waterloo president Feridun Hamdullahpur echoes a similar sentiment. “There is a great tendency in our society to learn more about other nations and other cultures,” he says. “Universities are the hotbed of these kind of activities. If you want to see more economic and political diversity, I think they star.”
These positions arguably represent a missed opportunity. Universities have the potential of establishing real cultural change. It makes sense that the head of the Canadian university with perhaps the highest number of Asian students is the most candid and the most concerned. Indeed, Stephen Toope has, since his arrival in 2006 as UBC president, made the issue central to his agenda—including outreach and newspaper op-ed pieces touting the importance of making the university campus a meeting place not only of diversity but also of dialogue.
Among Canadian universities, UBC is one of the few institutions that publishes the ethnic makeup of its student body. Toope says that the university’s Asian student population is not “widely out of whack with the community,” although the stats tell a slightly different story. According to a 2009 UBC report on direct undergraduate entrants, 43 per cent of its students self-identify as ethnically Chinese, Korean or Japanese, as compared to 38 per cent who self-identify as white. Although Vancouver is a richly diverse city, according to data from the 2006 census, just 21.5 per cent of its residents identify as a Chinese, Korean or Japanese visible minority.
Toope says drawing the various communities present on Canadian campuses into a common medium can be challenging. “Across Canada it isn’t always the case that you’re seeing as much engagement from the new communities as perhaps we should,” he says. Toope uses the experience of Turkish immigrants in Germany as a cautionary tale—“there are groups that never find a way to participate in the broader community.” Such circumstances persist precisely because the issue of race is not attacked head on. “I don’t want to pretend that just because you have people from different backgrounds they’re going to interact—they’re not,” Toope says. “We have to actually create mechanisms, programs and opportunities for people to interact. A university is one of the places that has the greatest capacity to work through demographic change.”
Toope points us in the right direction. It’s unfair to change the meritocratic entry system, so all universities can do—all they should do—is encourage groups to mingle. Though it’s true that universities—U of T and Waterloo included—do have diversity programs and policies for students, newer, fresher ways are needed to help pry the ethnic ghettos open so everyone hangs out together. Or at least they have the chance to. The white kids may not find it’s too Asian after all. Alexandra, who chose to go to Western for the party scene, found she “hated being away from home” and moved back to Toronto. In retrospect, she didn’t like the vibe. “Some people just want to drink 23 hours a day.” Alexandra says she still has friends at Western who live in an “all-blond house” and are “stick thin.” Rachel, Alexandra’s friend, says Western suits them—“they work hard, get good grades, then slap on their clubbing clothes.” But it didn’t suit Alexandra. She now studies at U of T.
The Hobbit in racism row over woman deemed 'too brown' for role
After queuing for three hours to audition for Sir Peter Jackson's blockbuster flick, Naz Humphreys, who is in New Zealand on a working visa, said she was told she wouldn't be a suitable extra.
New Hobbit film 'hit by race row'
The 5ft-tall Brit told the Waikato Times: 'It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin.'
She added: 'The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned.'
Ms Humphreys said she would have loved to be an extra in the film as she and her husband, who she is in the Kiwi country with, are both big fans of Lord of the Rings.
She said it was a 'shame' she couldn't have a part as 'obviously hobbits are not brown or black or any other colour. They all look kind of homogenised beige and all derived from the Caucasian gene pool'.
Recently, Sir Peter said the upcoming Hobbit film might not be filmed in New Zealand after the production was embroiled in a dispute with actors in the country.
Financial backers Warner Brothers were said to be making arrangements to move away from New Zealand after issues with Actors Equity.
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/film/848893-the-hobbit-in-racism-row-over-woman-deemed-too-brown-for-role#ixzz16nByw9Lk
New Hobbit film 'hit by race row'
The 5ft-tall Brit told the Waikato Times: 'It's 2010 and I still can't believe I'm being discriminated against because I have brown skin.'
She added: 'The casting manager basically said they weren't having anybody who wasn't pale-skinned.'
Ms Humphreys said she would have loved to be an extra in the film as she and her husband, who she is in the Kiwi country with, are both big fans of Lord of the Rings.
She said it was a 'shame' she couldn't have a part as 'obviously hobbits are not brown or black or any other colour. They all look kind of homogenised beige and all derived from the Caucasian gene pool'.
Recently, Sir Peter said the upcoming Hobbit film might not be filmed in New Zealand after the production was embroiled in a dispute with actors in the country.
Financial backers Warner Brothers were said to be making arrangements to move away from New Zealand after issues with Actors Equity.
Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/film/848893-the-hobbit-in-racism-row-over-woman-deemed-too-brown-for-role#ixzz16nByw9Lk
The Simpsons' racism dig at Fox just a storm in a Tea Party cup
Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly may have been riled, but producer admits 'feud' benefits show as well as owner News Corp
Paul Harris in New York
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 16.36 GMT
The Simpsons. Fans have long wondered how the show gets away with its radical jokes while being a part of Fox, which is owned by News Corps.
To many fans of The Simpsons, it seemed that the long-running cartoon might at last have overstepped the line in poking fun at its corporate paymasters in Fox television. During a recent episode's opening credits, which often provide a platform for the show's creators to score political points, they pictured a Fox News helicopter adorned with the slogan "Fox News: Not Racist, But No 1 with Racists".
The dig at Fox, perhaps aimed at the channel's open support of the conservative Tea Party movement and its frequent criticisms of President Barack Obama, certainly worked up the temper of the notoriously prickly Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly. In his show O'Reilly showed the clip and then said of The Simpsons: "Pinheads? I believe so."
Liberal fans of The Simpsons, who have long wondered how the show gets away with its radical jokes while being part of Fox, owned by News Corp, looked forward to the show's next episode for a continuation of the fight. It duly happened when the slogan on the Fox helicopter was changed to "Unsuitable for Viewers Under 75".
But when that episode was posted on the internet via Fox and Hulu, the dig at Fox was gone. Instead there was a joke about Homer Simpson and King Kong. Many pundits wondered: had the show gone too far in mocking its owners and had Fox finally struck back? Sadly for conspiracy theorists everywhere, the answer appears to be no.
In response to a flood of concern about censorship, the executive producer of The Simpsons, Al Jean, has broken cover to explain the disappearance of the joke. Jean said the team had been so eager to get in their second anti-Fox gag that they rushed it into last Sunday's episode just in time to appear on TV in North America but too late for other master copies.
"To save money we just put it in the one master that's for the US and Canada but not into versions shown in foreign markets or on the internet," Jean told the New York Times. Indeed, Jean confessed that feuding with Fox suited not only The Simpsons but also Fox as it created headlines and interest in the show. "Both ends of it benefit the ultimate News Corp agenda. We're happy to have a little feud with Bill O'Reilly. That's a very entertaining thing for us," he said.
The fact that the programme did not, in fact, back down from feuding with Fox should not really be a surprise. It has a long history of mocking Fox and its conservative leanings as well as taking on other controversial subjects.
Earlier this year the show allowed British street artist Banksy to guest-create its opening sequence. Banksy took on the issue of sweatshops and factory labour and ended up showing the 20th Century Fox logo surrounded by barbed wire.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Paul Harris in New York
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 November 2010 16.36 GMT
The Simpsons. Fans have long wondered how the show gets away with its radical jokes while being a part of Fox, which is owned by News Corps.
To many fans of The Simpsons, it seemed that the long-running cartoon might at last have overstepped the line in poking fun at its corporate paymasters in Fox television. During a recent episode's opening credits, which often provide a platform for the show's creators to score political points, they pictured a Fox News helicopter adorned with the slogan "Fox News: Not Racist, But No 1 with Racists".
The dig at Fox, perhaps aimed at the channel's open support of the conservative Tea Party movement and its frequent criticisms of President Barack Obama, certainly worked up the temper of the notoriously prickly Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly. In his show O'Reilly showed the clip and then said of The Simpsons: "Pinheads? I believe so."
Liberal fans of The Simpsons, who have long wondered how the show gets away with its radical jokes while being part of Fox, owned by News Corp, looked forward to the show's next episode for a continuation of the fight. It duly happened when the slogan on the Fox helicopter was changed to "Unsuitable for Viewers Under 75".
But when that episode was posted on the internet via Fox and Hulu, the dig at Fox was gone. Instead there was a joke about Homer Simpson and King Kong. Many pundits wondered: had the show gone too far in mocking its owners and had Fox finally struck back? Sadly for conspiracy theorists everywhere, the answer appears to be no.
In response to a flood of concern about censorship, the executive producer of The Simpsons, Al Jean, has broken cover to explain the disappearance of the joke. Jean said the team had been so eager to get in their second anti-Fox gag that they rushed it into last Sunday's episode just in time to appear on TV in North America but too late for other master copies.
"To save money we just put it in the one master that's for the US and Canada but not into versions shown in foreign markets or on the internet," Jean told the New York Times. Indeed, Jean confessed that feuding with Fox suited not only The Simpsons but also Fox as it created headlines and interest in the show. "Both ends of it benefit the ultimate News Corp agenda. We're happy to have a little feud with Bill O'Reilly. That's a very entertaining thing for us," he said.
The fact that the programme did not, in fact, back down from feuding with Fox should not really be a surprise. It has a long history of mocking Fox and its conservative leanings as well as taking on other controversial subjects.
Earlier this year the show allowed British street artist Banksy to guest-create its opening sequence. Banksy took on the issue of sweatshops and factory labour and ended up showing the 20th Century Fox logo surrounded by barbed wire.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Dallas community group suggests police racism
November 24th, 2010 10:38 am CT
By Harvey Grund, Dallas City Buzz Examiner
A community group representing Dallas' African American and Latino communities, led by Rev. Derrick Bowman, want a review of Dallas Police policies on the use of excessive force and want to make sure that a person who reaches for (or appears to be) reaching for a weapon in North Dallas is shot by the police as fast as a person in South Dallas would be shot.
It's only fair I guess but it's rather meaningless and very unfair to assume (as they are very apparently doing) that Dallas Police officers protect themselves more aggressively against African American and Hispanic suspects than they do against white suspects (that is not how it is being presented of course but that's what it amounts to).
The fact that most crimes in Dallas are committed in South Dallas (see the map) might make it appear that police enforcement is more aggressive in South Dallas than it is in North Dallas but common sense dictates that there will be more police activity in high crime areas than there is in lower crime areas.
The requested excessive force "review" idea started with, according to a PBS article , the two unarmed men who were killed by police recently. Both of these men appeared to be reaching for a weapon after being stopped by police. The police are reviewing both cases and, unless there are facts that haven't been published, it would appear that neither case involved "excessive" or unnecessary force by police.
Reverend Bowman and the community group ("Concerned Citizens for Good Law Enforcement") will be hearing from Dallas Police Chief David Brown in two meeting scheduled in December. Hopefully Chief Brown (who is himself an African American) will at least be able to effectively make the point that a police officer facing a suspect who is either holding a weapon or appears to be reaching for one has a right to protect himself regardless of the race of the suspect.
By Harvey Grund, Dallas City Buzz Examiner
A community group representing Dallas' African American and Latino communities, led by Rev. Derrick Bowman, want a review of Dallas Police policies on the use of excessive force and want to make sure that a person who reaches for (or appears to be) reaching for a weapon in North Dallas is shot by the police as fast as a person in South Dallas would be shot.
It's only fair I guess but it's rather meaningless and very unfair to assume (as they are very apparently doing) that Dallas Police officers protect themselves more aggressively against African American and Hispanic suspects than they do against white suspects (that is not how it is being presented of course but that's what it amounts to).
The fact that most crimes in Dallas are committed in South Dallas (see the map) might make it appear that police enforcement is more aggressive in South Dallas than it is in North Dallas but common sense dictates that there will be more police activity in high crime areas than there is in lower crime areas.
The requested excessive force "review" idea started with, according to a PBS article , the two unarmed men who were killed by police recently. Both of these men appeared to be reaching for a weapon after being stopped by police. The police are reviewing both cases and, unless there are facts that haven't been published, it would appear that neither case involved "excessive" or unnecessary force by police.
Reverend Bowman and the community group ("Concerned Citizens for Good Law Enforcement") will be hearing from Dallas Police Chief David Brown in two meeting scheduled in December. Hopefully Chief Brown (who is himself an African American) will at least be able to effectively make the point that a police officer facing a suspect who is either holding a weapon or appears to be reaching for one has a right to protect himself regardless of the race of the suspect.
U.N. Pours Salt in America's Wounds
Fox News
By Anne Bayefsky
Published November 24, 2010 | FoxNews.com
Just when we were beginning to get into the holiday spirit, the United Nations decided that Durban III is coming to town.
Late yesterday, the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee adopted a resolution which launches another global “anti-racism” hatefest. It is intended to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the debacle held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. But this time, the UN has outdone itself: the celebration of a notorious prescription for intolerance, closely linked to Islamic extremism, is now scheduled for New York City just days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Like the Ground Zero mosque architects, the UN has decided to pour salt in the wounds of still grieving Americans. The crowds at Durban I held high their signs reading: “For the liberation of Quds, machine-guns based upon faith and Islam must be used,” and “The martyr’s blood irrigates the tree of revolution in Palestine.” The obvious connection between hate and terror, or incitement to violence and violence itself, is either irrelevant to the UN or part of the plan.
The resolution was adopted 121 states for, 19 against and 35 abstentions. States voting against included the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and most of the countries that had known Nazism at very close range: Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
The plans for Durban III contained in the document are much more explicit than a usual UN resolution and contradict a very active misinformation campaign already underway by the UN and closely-related individuals and organizations.
Most heads of government avoided Durban I and the only one to attend Durban II was the poster-boy for racism and xenophobia himself, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So for Durban III, the UN decided to ensnare most heads of state and government by scheduling the event to coincide with the annual opening of the UN General Assembly, when they are all present in New York anyway. The resolution sets the date as September 21, 2011 (“the second day of the General Debate”), and specifically designates it as a “High-Level” meeting “at the level of Heads of States and Governments.”
Contrary to some suggestions, the event will not be a quiet commemoration with minimal political design. Amendments made to the resolution late in the day decide that the meeting should “consist…of an opening plenary, consecutive round tables/thematic panels and a closing plenary meeting.” And then the meeting will adopt a final “political declaration.”
Lest anyone be delusional about which country is intended to be the first course at Durban III, the resolution pinpoints only one theme of the Declaration as the meeting’s focal point, namely, “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances: Recognition, Justice and Development.” The carefully crafted Durban Declaration lists Palestinians as “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”
Of course, as history has demonstrated time and again, the meal never ends with the Jews. The Dutch representative valiantly spelled out to the General Assembly committee a bigger picture: “The fight against racism and discrimination is of such importance that we cannot support any effort to redirect our attention towards different agendas. Unfortunately, the Durban Declaration and…Review Conference did so…by elevating the protection of religion above the protection and promotion of human rights and by placing unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of expression…”
In addition, in the resolution the UN puts out a call for help from the world of rabble-rousers who masquerade as human rights enthusiasts. Despite being fully aware of the violent extremism characterizing the NGO Forum at Durban I, the resolution asks “civil society, including NGOs” “to organize and support” 10th anniversary initiatives “with high visibility.”
The Obama administration is clearly worried about the effects of Durban III on its policy of embracing the UN and its human rights apparatus. U.S. representative John Sammis spelled out their concerns, lamenting to the UN committee that the event “risks undermining the relationship we have worked hard to strengthen over the past few years between the United States and the UN.”
Indeed it does.
The question now is which countries will ensure that their heads of state and of government will not participate in such an outrage. The United States and Israel walked out of Durban I in disgust.
Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States refused to participate in Durban II.
With 19 votes against and another 35 democracies concerned enough to abstain, it is time to send an even more powerful and permanent message to the UN about Durban and its progeny.
Last night U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Obama administration to “announce publicly, right now, that we will stay away from Durban III, deny it U.S. taxpayer dollars, and oppose all measures that seek to facilitate it. And we should encourage other responsible nations to do the same.”
Unfortunately, comments made by U.S. representative Sammis last evening suggest that the Obama administration will again refuse to take a leadership role in denying legitimacy to the Durban agenda. At Durban II, President Obama pulled out less than 48 hours before the event, ruining chances of building a larger coalition of like-minded states.
Sammis said only: “The poor choice of time and venue for the 10th anniversary commemorative event places a premium on the need for all participants to put forth genuine, good-faith efforts to ensure that this event focuses on the substantive issues at stake in the global fight against racism, and that it does not become a forum for politicization, or efforts that run counter to mutual respect and fundamental human rights.”
Ignoring the writing on the UN walls will not make it disappear. According to the resolution adopted, Durban III will end with a “political declaration aimed at mobilizing political will…for the full…implementation of the Durban Declaration…” It is irrevocably a forum for politicization that runs counter to mutual respect and fundamental rights. Ahmadinejad, who is certain to accept the invitation for a repeat performance, understands that. Why doesn’t President Obama?
Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
By Anne Bayefsky
Published November 24, 2010 | FoxNews.com
Just when we were beginning to get into the holiday spirit, the United Nations decided that Durban III is coming to town.
Late yesterday, the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee adopted a resolution which launches another global “anti-racism” hatefest. It is intended to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the debacle held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. But this time, the UN has outdone itself: the celebration of a notorious prescription for intolerance, closely linked to Islamic extremism, is now scheduled for New York City just days after the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
Like the Ground Zero mosque architects, the UN has decided to pour salt in the wounds of still grieving Americans. The crowds at Durban I held high their signs reading: “For the liberation of Quds, machine-guns based upon faith and Islam must be used,” and “The martyr’s blood irrigates the tree of revolution in Palestine.” The obvious connection between hate and terror, or incitement to violence and violence itself, is either irrelevant to the UN or part of the plan.
The resolution was adopted 121 states for, 19 against and 35 abstentions. States voting against included the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and most of the countries that had known Nazism at very close range: Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania.
The plans for Durban III contained in the document are much more explicit than a usual UN resolution and contradict a very active misinformation campaign already underway by the UN and closely-related individuals and organizations.
Most heads of government avoided Durban I and the only one to attend Durban II was the poster-boy for racism and xenophobia himself, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So for Durban III, the UN decided to ensnare most heads of state and government by scheduling the event to coincide with the annual opening of the UN General Assembly, when they are all present in New York anyway. The resolution sets the date as September 21, 2011 (“the second day of the General Debate”), and specifically designates it as a “High-Level” meeting “at the level of Heads of States and Governments.”
Contrary to some suggestions, the event will not be a quiet commemoration with minimal political design. Amendments made to the resolution late in the day decide that the meeting should “consist…of an opening plenary, consecutive round tables/thematic panels and a closing plenary meeting.” And then the meeting will adopt a final “political declaration.”
Lest anyone be delusional about which country is intended to be the first course at Durban III, the resolution pinpoints only one theme of the Declaration as the meeting’s focal point, namely, “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances: Recognition, Justice and Development.” The carefully crafted Durban Declaration lists Palestinians as “Victims of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.”
Of course, as history has demonstrated time and again, the meal never ends with the Jews. The Dutch representative valiantly spelled out to the General Assembly committee a bigger picture: “The fight against racism and discrimination is of such importance that we cannot support any effort to redirect our attention towards different agendas. Unfortunately, the Durban Declaration and…Review Conference did so…by elevating the protection of religion above the protection and promotion of human rights and by placing unnecessary restrictions on the freedom of expression…”
In addition, in the resolution the UN puts out a call for help from the world of rabble-rousers who masquerade as human rights enthusiasts. Despite being fully aware of the violent extremism characterizing the NGO Forum at Durban I, the resolution asks “civil society, including NGOs” “to organize and support” 10th anniversary initiatives “with high visibility.”
The Obama administration is clearly worried about the effects of Durban III on its policy of embracing the UN and its human rights apparatus. U.S. representative John Sammis spelled out their concerns, lamenting to the UN committee that the event “risks undermining the relationship we have worked hard to strengthen over the past few years between the United States and the UN.”
Indeed it does.
The question now is which countries will ensure that their heads of state and of government will not participate in such an outrage. The United States and Israel walked out of Durban I in disgust.
Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and the United States refused to participate in Durban II.
With 19 votes against and another 35 democracies concerned enough to abstain, it is time to send an even more powerful and permanent message to the UN about Durban and its progeny.
Last night U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Obama administration to “announce publicly, right now, that we will stay away from Durban III, deny it U.S. taxpayer dollars, and oppose all measures that seek to facilitate it. And we should encourage other responsible nations to do the same.”
Unfortunately, comments made by U.S. representative Sammis last evening suggest that the Obama administration will again refuse to take a leadership role in denying legitimacy to the Durban agenda. At Durban II, President Obama pulled out less than 48 hours before the event, ruining chances of building a larger coalition of like-minded states.
Sammis said only: “The poor choice of time and venue for the 10th anniversary commemorative event places a premium on the need for all participants to put forth genuine, good-faith efforts to ensure that this event focuses on the substantive issues at stake in the global fight against racism, and that it does not become a forum for politicization, or efforts that run counter to mutual respect and fundamental human rights.”
Ignoring the writing on the UN walls will not make it disappear. According to the resolution adopted, Durban III will end with a “political declaration aimed at mobilizing political will…for the full…implementation of the Durban Declaration…” It is irrevocably a forum for politicization that runs counter to mutual respect and fundamental rights. Ahmadinejad, who is certain to accept the invitation for a repeat performance, understands that. Why doesn’t President Obama?
Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.
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