What about accents and dialects?
How important is a common language to political integration?
UK should set date for everyone to speak English
The government should set a target date for "everybody in the country" to speak English to encourage integration, a former official has said.
Dame Louise Casey, who wrote a report for the government on integration in 2016, said a "common language" would help to "heal rifts across Britain"…
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| Dame Louise Casey |
In her 2016 report, Dame Louise recommended providing additional funding for local government to promote English language skills, including prioritising adult skills budgets and providing community-based classes.
But she has criticised the government for not taking any action since its publication.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour, Dame Louise said that integration should be "one of the most significant priorities" for the government and that any more delays to the strategy would be "incredibly frustrating".
She called for "big, bold policies" to tackling issues around integration, including a "very significant boost" in promoting the English language…
Dame Louise said… "I don't care how we've got here, I don't care who can't speak English [and] I don't care what's going on.
"But what I do know is everybody of working age and of school age should be able to speak one language and I think the public in particular would feel some relief."…
She also called for "social-economic splits" to be addressed in the strategy, which she pointed to in her own report.
"It's not only about the tides of immigration and migration and English language, but some of this is about equalities for women, as well as equalities overall, as well as in terms of social and economic disadvantage… "
Conservative MP and former immigration minister Mark Harper… welcomed Dame Louise's recommendations and acknowledged there were concerns about areas of the UK where people cannot speak the language.
He told Westminster Hour: "I think the recommendations she has made are very powerful and I hope the government produces an ambitious strategy."
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Labels: political culture, political integration, UK
Forced national integration
The Chinese method for integrating minorities.
What It’s Like to Live in a Surveillance State
Imagine that this is your daily life: While on your way to work or on an errand, every 100 meters you pass a police blockhouse. Video cameras on street corners and lamp posts recognize your face and track your movements. At multiple checkpoints, police officers scan your ID card, your irises and the contents of your phone. At the supermarket or the bank, you are scanned again, your bags are X-rayed and an officer runs a wand over your body — at least if you are from the wrong ethnic group. Members of the main group are usually waved through.
You have had to complete a survey about your ethnicity, your religious practices and your “cultural level”; about whether you have a passport, relatives or acquaintances abroad, and whether you know anyone who has ever been arrested or is a member of what the state calls a “special population.”
This personal information, along with your biometric data, resides in a database tied to your ID number. The system crunches all of this into a composite score that ranks you as “safe,” “normal” or “unsafe.”Based on those categories, you may or may not be allowed to visit a museum, pass through certain neighborhoods, go to the mall, check into a hotel, rent an apartment, apply for a job or buy a train ticket. Or you may be detained to undergo re-education…
A science-fiction dystopia? No. This is life in northwestern China today if you are Uighur.
China… boasts gleaming bullet trains, luxury malls and cellphone-facilitated consumer life. But when it comes to indigenous Uighurs in the vast western region of Xinjiang, the Chinese Communist Party (C.C.P.) has updated its old totalitarian methods with cutting-edge technology.
The party considers Uighurs, the Turkic-speaking ethnic group native to the nominally autonomous region of Xinjiang, to be dangerous separatists. The Qing Empire conquered Xinjiang in the 18th century. The territory then slipped from Beijing’s control, until the Communists reoccupied it with Soviet help in 1949. Today, several Central Asian peoples, including Uighurs, Kazakhs and Kyrghyz, make up about half of the region’s population; the remainder are Han and Hui, who arrived from eastern China starting in the mid-20th century.
Over the past several years, small numbers of Uighurs have violently challenged the authorities, notably during riots in 2009… But the C.C.P. has since subjected the entire Uighur population of some 11 million to arbitrary arrest, draconian surveillance or systemic discrimination. Uighurs are culturally Muslim, and the government often cites the threat of foreign Islamist ideology to justify its security policies…
How does the party think that directives banning fasting during Ramadan in Xinjiang, requiring Uighur shops to sell alcohol and prohibiting Muslim parents from giving their children Islamic names will go over with governments and peoples from Pakistan to Turkey? The Chinese government may be calculating that money can buy these states’ quiet acceptance. But the thousands of Uighur refugees in Turkey and Syriaalready complicate China’s diplomacy.
Tibetans know well this hard face of China. Hong Kongers must wonder: If Uighur culture is criminalized and Xinjiang’s supposed autonomy is a sham, what will happen to their own vibrant Cantonese culture and their city’s shaky “one country, two systems” arrangement with Beijing? What might Taiwan’s reunification with a securitized mainland look like? Will the big-data police state engulf the rest of China? The rest of the world?
As China’s profile grows on the international stage, everyone would do well to ask if what happens in Xinjiang will stay in Xinjiang.
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Labels: China, cleavages, political integration, rule of law
Political integration (by name)
The government of China is making further efforts to ensure that Xinjiang remains an integral part of the country.
China bans religious names for Muslim babies in Xinjiang
Many couples fret over choosing the perfect name for their newborn, but for Muslims in western China that decision has now become even more fraught: pick the wrong name and your child will be denied education and government benefits.
Officials in the western region of Xinjiang, home to roughly half of China’s 23 million Muslims, have released a list of banned baby names amid an ongoing crackdown on religion…
 |
| Xinjiang shoppers |
Names such as Islam, Quran, Saddam and Mecca, as well as references to the star and crescent moon symbol, are all unacceptable to the ruling Communist party and children with those names will be denied household registration, a crucial document that grants access to social services, healthcare and education…
China blames religious extremists for a slew of violent incidents in recent years that have left hundreds dead. It has launched a series of crackdowns in Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur minority and one of the most militarised regions in the country.
Uighur rights groups complain of severe restrictions on religion and freedom of expression, and say the attacks are isolated incidents caused by local grievances, not part of a wider coordinated campaign…
Authorities in Xinjiang passed new legislation last month expanding a host of restrictions, including allowing staff at train stations and airports to deny entry to women wearing face veils and encouraging staff to report them to the police.
The new law also prohibits “abnormal beards” and “naming of children to exaggerate religious fervour”…
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Labels: China, cleavages, political integration
All news about us is is good news
Even the most predictable news reporting in the USA is less predictable than news in China.
No news is bad news
EACH night at 7pm, many of China’s television channels beam the state broadcaster’s flagship news programme into Chinese homes: a remorseless half-hour diet of where Xi Jinping went today, how well the economy is doing and (for a few minutes at the end) a look at all those people in foreign countries killing each other. Despite China’s transformation over the past 40 years, the evening news has changed very little…
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| Xinwen Lianbo |
News Simulcast, usually known by its Chinese name, Xinwen Lianbo, has chronicled the country’s extraordinary metamorphosis with almost unremitting leadenness since it was first aired in 1978… News is chosen not for its importance or human interest but for its political value in bolstering the Communist Party. It is translated into eight minority languages…
A popular rhyming ditty accurately describes the format: “The leaders are always busy, the people are perfectly healthy, the world outside China is extremely chaotic.”…
For many, the programme provides useful clues to the party’s latest thinking, and a chance to see leaders who rarely appear in public. Propagandists have used the news to try to demystify President Xi, says Chang Jiang of Renmin University in Beijing. The president is shown as a man of the people, drinking tea with villagers or kicking footballs. His voice is often heard, notes Mr Chang—perhaps because, unlike his predecessors, he speaks standard Mandarin and is therefore widely understood. Ratings apparently rise when his elegant wife, Peng Liyuan, appears. But such cosmetic innovations are as far as the party will go in tinkering with a brand they consider successful.
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Labels: China, journalism, political integration, politics
Nigeria's Youth Service Corps
Those of us outside of Nigeria don't hear much about the
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). Too bad, because it's one of the great ideas and programs for nation building in Nigeria.
Graduates of universities and polytechnics are required to serve for a year in a program that resembles a domestic version of the US Peace Corps.
During this national service year, "corpers" are assigned to work in areas far from their homes with people whose ethnicity, religion, and culture are quite different from their own.
During the last two presidential elections, "corpers" have worked for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to move election materials and man polling places.
NYSC and the 2015 Election
Against all negative predictions, the 2015 general election was conducted and concluded with relative peace. Central to the balloting was the strategic collaboration between the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). To the extent that the partnership turned out to be a huge success, these youth corps members who worked at the risk of their lives should be recognised as heroes and heroines of our democracy. And so should the NYSC management led by its Director General, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawunmi.
While 11 NYSC members were lost to the election crisis of 2011, safety of corps members was given primacy this time around and at the end, none was put in harm's way. Indeed, the sparingly-trained ad hoc staff demonstrated a high level of dedication to the system, and even where and when some logistic difficulties were encountered, they remained steadfast…
Olawunmi indeed directed senior staffers in the NYSC to go round the country to monitor the welfare of corps members before and during the electioneering period to avoid inducement from politicians or such conducts contrary to the electoral laws. The NYSC also collaborated actively with the election security committee…
At the end, all the efforts paid off with what is generally regarded as credible and relatively peaceful general election… we therefore commend the NYSC and INEC for the successful collaboration…
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Labels: cleavages, Nigeria, political culture, political integration, recruitment
Chinese ethnic history
Thanks to Max Fisher, writing in the
Washington Post, for pointing out this article at the BBC. I think that analyst Martin Jacques points out important ideas comparative students need to consider.
A Point Of View: How China sees a multicultural world
The vast majority of the Chinese population regard themselves as belonging to the same race, a stark contrast to the multiracial composition of other populous countries…
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| Click on image to enlarge |
China's population is huge.
What people aren't generally aware of, though, is that more than nine out of 10 Chinese people think of themselves as belonging to just one race, the Han. This is remarkable. It is quite different from the world's other most populous nations: India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil. All recognise themselves to be, in varying degrees, multiracial and multicultural…
China is extremely old - the longest continuously existing country in the world. The eastern half of China - where the vast majority of Chinese live now and lived then - has been more or less united ever since 211BC.
Over that extraordinarily long period - as a result of war, occupation, absorption, assimilation, ethnic cleansing and government resettlement - the sense of difference between the many races that lived in the eastern half of China was slowly eroded.
Fundamental to this process was the gradual emergence of a shared cultural identity…
Over the last two millennia, China has generally been one of the most advanced, often the most advanced, civilisation in the world. It is hardly surprising that, with a rich history like this, the Chinese have a very powerful sense of their cultural identity…
How did China evolve? It is essentially the story of the Han and the way in which over a period of two millennia they came to absorb the great majority of other ethnic groups…
If the strength of the Han identity is that it has held China together, its weakness, I would argue, has been its relative lack of respect for difference, an underlying assumption that the non-Han should become like the Han - indeed eventually be absorbed into the Han. This attitude is not difficult to understand, it is how the Han became almost, but not quite, synonymous with being Chinese, or, to put it another way, how China was created.
Ethnicity is a powerful determinant of how societies perceive others. So how is China, as a global power, likely to view the rest of the world?
Just as with the US, China will naturally tend to see the world in its own image…
The fact that China has had little experience of, or exposure to, the rest of the world until very recently - the past 30 years to be exact - has served to reinforce a tendency to see other countries through a Chinese prism…
As China becomes increasingly familiar with the world - as is now happening in such a dramatic way, from Africa to Latin America, and South Asia to Central Asia - parochial if deep-seated prejudices will come under growing pressure.
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Labels: China, cleavages, demographics, political integration
The old is new; the new is old
Russia is a huge, multi-ethnic country. What unites its people and diverse regions? Putinism?
The new Putinism: Nationalism fused with conservative Christianity
Two recent stories offer a revealing — and, to some, unsettling — view of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s emerging state ideology. The new Putinism, you might call it, seems to be a fusion of two older Russian ideas: nationalism, sometimes with an anti-Western tinge, and conservative interpretations of Orthodox Christianity…
The Financial Times’ Charles Clover… cites recent censorship of classic Russian works by Vladimir Nabokov and Sergei Rachmaninoff, as well as new law that forbids “yelping” and “stomping” at night, possibly aimed at curbing protests…
In Moscow, Claire Bigg of Radio Free Europe finds indications of a Kremlin effort to institutionalize the new emphasis on nationalism: an entirely new government agency for “promoting patriotism” and safeguarding “the spiritual and moral foundations of Russian society.” It’s hard not to be reminded of Iran’s infamous censorship body, the “Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance,” although Russia’s Directorate for Social Projects appears more about cultivating friendly public sentiments than blocking outlawed ones.
Bigg and analysts she spoke with portrayed the agency as an outgrowth of Putin’s “deepening hostility” toward foreign organizations, even comparing it to the Soviet-era propaganda department…
Russia’s search for an ideology is a big deal for the populous, ethnically diverse country. This campaign’s propagandistic and anti-liberal overtones aside, it does at least seem to address this issue… Russian nationalism has at times carried ethnic overtones. About 80 percent of the country’s citizens are ethnic Russian, and, with birth rates below replacement and the population aging, the Russian economy relies heavily on immigrating minority groups. Widespread harassment of migrant workers is already a problem in Russia.
“Putin feels the coming of a catastrophe, of the domination of liberal forces which threaten him with the fate of Muammer Gaddafi,” a far-right Russian newspaper editor told the Financial Times. “He is fighting back by restoring the balance between the various ideological groups. In this way, he supports us.”
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Labels: ideology, leadership, political integration, politics, Russia
It's not just pidgin
What do your students make of this conversation?
"How bodi?"
"Wetin? I no sabi."
"Why you dey give me wahala? Comot! Dem send you?"
"I wan chop."
"Abeg! No waste my time! Make you no vex me!"
It's the best examples I can make of pidgin English from the
"Beginners Guide to Nigerian pidgin English."
Outsiders have little chance of understanding pidgin unless they've been in the country for a long time and made efforts to learn the lingo. Pidgin is extremely popular in most parts of Africa… and has been accepted as the de-facto language of blue collar trade and merchants. Some of Lagos' most popular radio stations use pidgin exclusively. Pidgin remains the “great” equalizer.
With roughly 250 tribes speaking 521 languages and dialects, English is the country’s official business language.
For citizens without easy access to higher education and white collar jobs, picking up a few words of English and mixing it with elements of their native tongues has been the default way of communicating across tribal cultures.
But, even the use of English in the media can often cause me to scratch my head and rely on interpreters like the BBC.
Take for example this article from
Leadership (Abuja), a prominent newspaper in the capital. While the words used can technically be accurate, several of them require me to think and read and translate carefully to understand the article. It's almost as though the journalist or the vice president consulted a thesaurus to find words that would offer more authoritativeness. I think of refugees when I hear "evacuation." And "arrest" to me has something to do with law enforcement. Not in this article.
This is one of my excuses for citing sources from outside of Nigeria more often than sources from within the country.
Sambo Orders Speedy Evacuation of Generated Electricity
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| Sambo |
Vice President Namadi Sambo on Friday directed the Federal Ministry of Power to ensure speedy evacuation of power generated to ensure constant electricity supply across the country…
The vice president expressed delight with the current 4,200 megawatts of electricity generated by various power plants in the country.
He, however, decried the lack of integrity and associated problems of the transmission and distribution lines to evacuate the generated power.
Sambo directed the Ministry of Power and the NDPHC to ensure speedy completion of the transmission lines and the injection substation for the delivery of constant and stable electricity to Nigerians.
Earlier, the Minister of State for Power, Mr Darius Ishaku, said the country generates more than 4,200 megawatts of electricity.
He said the transmission and distribution network had integrity issues affecting the adequate evacuation of the generated power.
Ishaku assured the meeting that the ministry was doing everything possible to arrest the issue…
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Labels: cleavages, Nigeria, pidgin, political integration
Civic unrest in Nigeria
Back in 1993, Steven Metz, then Chairman of the Regional Strategy and Planning Department and Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute, authored a book titled
The Future of Insurgency. The synopsis begins with, "Security professionals and strategists are discovering the post-cold war world is as rife with persistent, low-level violence as its predecessors."
That describes the insurgency in Nigeria very well. Google
Boko Haram or search for it in this blog. The leaders of Boko Haram have recently added the idea of secession from Nigeria to their wish list.
The questions that observers have to ask center around the ability of the Nigerian state to combat the insurgency. That, of course, involves issues of capacity, governance, legitimacy, political socialization, and political integration.
In other words, the insurgency of Boko Haram has to be a conscious part of any study of Nigerian government and politics.
25 Dead in Nigeria After Multiple Attacks by Sect
A radical Islamist sect unleashed multiple attacks in northeastern Nigeria, killing at least 25 people, authorities said Tuesday as fears swelled about the government's inability to corral rising sectarian violence…
"The terrorists are trying to show that they can't be stopped," said Yobe State police chief Patrick Egbuniwe, who said the dead included three policemen and two soldiers.
The Islamist Boko Haram sect, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language, is waging an increasingly bloody fight with Nigeria's security agencies and public. More than 580 people have been killed in violence blamed on the sect this year alone, according to an Associated Press count.
The violence came a day after Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a trio of deadly church bombings Sunday in the northern state of Kaduna, which, along with ensuing reprisal killings, left at least 70 people dead and over 100 wounded…
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Labels: capacity, legitimacy, Nigeria, political integration, political socialization, politics
Alienation and political culture
Political, social, and economic alienation threaten the basic political culture in the UK and other EU countries. What happens politically if a quarter of the adult population is unemployable?
For London Youth, Down and Out Is Way of LifeFor almost two years, Nicki Edwards has been looking for work — any type of work.
She is 19 years old, well-spoken and self-possessed. But like many young people in Britain, she could not afford to remain at her university, making it impossible to find a job…
Perhaps the most debilitating consequence of the euro zone’s economic downturn and its debt-driven austerity crusade has been the soaring rate of youth unemployment. Spain’s jobless rate for people ages 16 to 24 is approaching 50 percent. Greece’s is 48 percent, and Portugal’s and Italy’s, 30 percent. Here in Britain, the rate is 22.3 percent, the highest since such data began being collected in 1992. (The comparable rate for Americans is 18 percent.)
The lack of opportunity is feeding a mounting alienation and anger among young people across Europe — animus that threatens to poison the aspirations of a generation and has already served as a wellspring for a number of violent protests in European cities from Athens to London. And new economic data on Wednesday, showing much of Europe in the doldrums or recession, does little to bolster hopes for a better jobs picture anytime soon…
While youth unemployment has long been a chronic issue here, experts say the British government’s debt-reduction commitment to rein in social spending appears to be making the problem worse, experts say. Insufficient job training and apprenticeship programs, they argue, contribute to the large pool of permanently unemployed young people in Britain…
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Labels: political culture, political integration, UK
The revolution plods on
In this stage of the revolution, the emotional impulse is spent, but rational motivations take over. However, will the logical-sounding steps lead in the direction that the rulers wish? (Remember what happened after the White Revolution promoted by the Shah?)
Iran overhauls education system to erase Western influencesIran is overhauling its education system to rid it of Western influence, the latest attempt by the government to fortify Islamic values and counter the clout of the country's increasingly secularized middle class.
Starting in September, all Iranian high school students will be introduced to new courses such as "political training" and "living skills" that will warn against "perverted political movements" and encourage girls to marry at an early age, Education Ministry officials say.
In universities, the curricula of law, psychology, sociology and other studies will be drastically altered, with officials from the Science Ministry... working to strip out what they describe as Western theories and replace them with Islamic ones. Dozens of professors have already retired or been fired on the grounds that they did not sufficiently support the new policy.
The changes are aimed at offsetting the growing influence of a middle class that increasingly embraces individualism and shares modern aspirations…
Plans for an educational overhaul arose after sweeping changes in Iran's political system in recent years. Many prominent revolutionary figures have been purged, while the power wielded by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and a group of key clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders has greatly expanded since Ahmadinejad arrived on the political scene in 2003 as Tehran's mayor…
The president and his supporters are undertaking a major restructuring of the economy, raising prices of fuel, energy, bread and other products to market levels while reducing state subsidies. Officials say the move will help the poor, but the lawyers, nurses, double-shift taxi drivers and others who make up the country's broad middle classes say it will break their backs.
The reshaping of the education system, from primary schools to universities, is next on the cabinet's list. The Education Ministry's plan, titled "The Program for Fundamental Evolution in Education and Training," envisages schools becoming "neighborhood cultural bases" where teachers will provide "life" guidance, assisted by selected clerics and members of the paramilitary Basij force…
The ministry will also introduce new courses designed to help students ages 12 to 17 acquire political analysis skills and prevent them from "being trapped by perverted movements and enemy plots or be imprisoned by satellite channels, the Internet and cyberspace," according to an internal ministry document that was distributed in September…
Many educators, however, say the plans are misguided. "Such cultural engineering will not work," said Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor of political science at Tehran University and a critic of the government. "They think they can educate children in schools to be perfect beings but forget that dozens of other factors - parents, friends, satellite and Internet - shape their thoughts."…
Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor of political science at Tehran University, said the revolution illustrated the difficulty of shaping people's thinking. The uprising was joined by hundreds of thousands of students who had been immersed for years in Westernized education programs during the reign of the Western-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, but who ended up helping to topple him.
"It is not what we teach students which makes them support somebody or not," Zibakalam said. "How they act depends on how they are being treated by those in power."
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Labels: Iran, political culture, political integration
Lingua Franca
Is a "new" language a way to unite Nigeria? In a country where more than 400 languages are spoken, how can politics, education, business, or just everyday life function? How about
pidgin?
Thanks to Jeremy Weate at
Naijablog for pointing out this article.
Nigeria harnesses Pidgin English powerLong considered the language of the uneducated, Nigerian Pidgin English, with its oscillating tones and playful imagery, is now spoken by Nigerians of every age, social class and regional origin.
In a country with wide disparity in education provision, Pidgin operates as a de facto lingua franca, a bridge between social classes, ethnicities and educational levels. Public announcements and information campaigns are often made in Pidgin, which has a wider reach than standard English, the official language of this former British colony.
But while Nigerian Pidgin first emerged nearly 600 years ago, when trade with Europe was first established in the Niger Delta, and is now estimated to be used by 50 million people, and with variants spoken in Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the language still has no standard rules for spelling, grammar or an official dictionary.
As a Nigerian linguist once put it, "Na like pikin we no get papa, we no get mama" (It is like a child without a father or mother). Everyone uses Pidgin to serve their purpose, but no one looks out for it.
That is what the Naija Languej Akademi is seeking to change by creating the first reference guide for Pidgin English…
Pidgin is a definition applied to simplistic languages that are prone to die out. If, however, they evolve and acquire native speakers, they are categorised as creole languages…
The interest in Pidgin is not only intellectual but also political. Because similar forms of Pidgin are shared across west Africa's English-speaking countries, many believe it could evolve from a national lingua franca into a regional one…
See also:
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Labels: cleavages, culture, Nigeria, political integration
Nigerian Diversity
When teaching about Nigeria, I remember holding up a print out of
The Languages of Nigeria from Ethnologue. It pointed out that there were 10 official languages and a total of 527 languages used in the country. The list is huge and students were appropriately impressed. They were also stumped by my question about whether democratic government was possible in a country with such diversity.
In his
Naijablog, Jeremy Weate interviewed linguist Uwe Seibert about the languages of Nigeria. It's another illustration of the cultural diversity that is Nigeria and a reminder of how oversimplified basic political analysis can be. And you don't have to print out a 50-page list of languages.
On Nigerian LanguagesNigeria is not only rich in languages, there are also many different language groups. First of all, three of the four language macro-families of Africa are represented in Nigeria: Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan. Within the macro-families, there are subgroups, e.g. Atlantic, Benue-Congo, Chadic, Mande, and Saharan. These language groups are quite different in terms of their vocabulary and grammatical structures…
Many of the more than 500 languages of Nigeria are quite small and often only elderly people speak them really well. If their children - who still understand and speak a reduced form of these languages - fail to teach them to their children, these languages are definitely in danger of extinction. This could happen to a large percentage of Nigerian languages within the next 20 years…
I don't think that larger population languages like Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Kanuri, Fulfulde or Tiv will die out so easily...
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Labels: cleavages, culture, Nigeria, political culture, political integration
Is the government in charge?
Chinese Han mob marches for revenge against Uighurs after rampageThousands of Han Chinese roamed the streets of the western city of Urumqi today looking for vengeance after Sunday's deadly riots as China's leaders struggled to regain control of the country's only Muslim-majority region...
They were determined to attack the business heart of the Muslim Uighur minority blamed for the carnage in which 156 were killed and more than 800 injured.
The streets were lined with black-clad riot police and thousands of paramilitaries in camouflage and bulletproof vests who barred the mob's way to the central market. Occasional bursts of tear gas failed to deter the angry crowd...
Despite the heightened security, the unrest appeared to be spreading. Police dispersed about 200 people at the Id Kah mosque in the Silk Road city of Kashgar last night...
Labels: capacity, China, cleavages, political integration
Unrest in China
It's not just peasants and Tibetians who are dissatisfied with policy decisions in China. How would your students describe the causes of the unrest? How would they identify the cleavages involved? How would they evaluate the capacity of the state to deal with the dissatisfaction?
The
New York Times published this story late on 5 July 2009.
Riots in Western China Amid Ethnic TensionAt least 1,000 rioters clashed with the police on Sunday in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.
The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of... Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city...
At least 3 Han Chinese and one police officer were killed in the rioting and 20 people were injured, according to Xinhua, the official news agency. Dozens of Uighur men were led into nearby police stations with their hands behind their backs and shirts pulled over their heads, one witness said...
Many Uighurs (pronounced WEE-gers), a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s, when cities there were struck by waves of protests, riots and bombings. Last summer, attacks on security forces took place in several cities in Xinjiang; the Chinese government blamed separatist groups.,,
Uighurs are the largest ethnic group in Xinjiang but are a minority in Urumqi, where Han Chinese make up more than 70 percent of the population of two million or so. The Chinese government has encouraged Han migration to the city and other parts of Xinjiang, fueling resentment among the Uighurs. Urumqi is a deeply segregated city, with Han Chinese there rarely venturing into the Uighur quarter...
From
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency:
Death toll in Xinjiang riot rises to 140The death toll has risen to 140 following Sunday night's riot in Urumqi, capital of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the regional government said Monday...
At least 828 people were injured in the deadly violence that erupted Sunday night.
Rioters burned 261 motor vehicles, including 190 buses, at least 10 taxis and two police cars...
From
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency:
Commentary: Riot a catastrophe for XinjiangSunday's deadly riot in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region bruised the beautiful city of Urumqi and shocked the world, barely 16 months after the nightmarish Lhasa violence that still clings to many Chinese minds...
Given its unique location and demography, the northwestern Chinese region has been a target of separatist and terrorist actions, particularly in the past two years...
Police said that in the first half of 2008, five terrorist rings were busted in Xinjiang and 82 suspected terrorists detained...
Now the three forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism are at work again. An initial investigation showed a separatist group made use of the June 26 brawl involving workers from Xinjiang in a toy factory in the southern Guangdong Province to foment Sunday's unrest and sabotage the country. Behind the scheme was the separatist World Uyghur Congress led by Rebiya Kadeer.
Government investigations indicate that Sunday's unrest was controlled and instigated from abroad...
Labels: capacity, China, cleavages, political integration
National Youth Service Corps (Nigeria)
In the aftermath of Nigeria's civil war, the Gowon military government pursued several policies to reunite the country. One of those was the National Youth Service Corps.
University graduates were enrolled in NYSC and assigned to work in the national interest somewhere away from their home areas. The first part of NYSC service is still an almost-military type boot camp, and university graduates still have to have a certificate of service in NYSC in order to be hired for jobs.
Thirty-five years later, the program, according to the colourful language of Roseline Okere, Joe Adiorho, and Felix Ugwuoke, writing in
The Guardian (Lagos), is in need of rethinking, reforming, and rebuilding. Organizations and businesses to which NYSC participants are assigned have been rejecting some assignees. NYSC participants have also been asking organizations to reject them. And, like most big programs, bureaucratic problems are common.
Given the political culture, civil society, economics, and politics of Nigeria, what reforms would your students suggest?
(Thanks to the blogger at
Grandiose Parlor for referring me to this article.)
NYSC scheme: A nation's emerging nightmare"The process has commenced and the debate is on. Apparently worried by the reports of the rejection of corps members by the organizations they were posted for their primary assignments, the House of Representative has put machinery in motion to review the law establishing the scheme.
"Thirty years after, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC ) scheme has joined some of the other lofty programmes that have metamorphosed into nightmares for Nigerian youths. Not only are the monthly allowances not realistically indexed to the realities of today's living, securing a slot for primary assignments has equally become a tall dream.
"The scheme, established in 1973 by the then military regime of General Yakubu Gowon, was scripted to mobilise Nigerian youths graduating from tertiary institutions for national development through sustained mobility of middle level manpower, promotion of social integration and national unity, among others.
"Essentially, the scheme has, over the years, provided succor for university and polytechnic graduates, most of whom could have otherwise experienced immediate pangs of joblessness on graduation, due to current dwindling prospects in the nation's labour market...
"Director of the Lagos Business School, Prof. Pat Utomi, described the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme as moribund, saying the scheme does not serve the present needs of the country...
" Utomi argued that the scheme as it currently operates has lost its importance, as it does not take cognizance of the manpower and industrial development of the country and urged the federal government to overhaul it...
"A Lagos-based legal practitioner, Goddy Uwazuruike regretted that the sheme has lost focus.
"He explained that the aim of NYSC was for the Nigerian graduates to know their country, feel patriotic about their country and provide cheap labour for other areas and so on. 'You must go outside that area you are familiar with. And when you get to that place, you are posted to where your best could be maximized. For instance, if you are a medical doctor, you would be posted to local areas where your services are urgently needed...
"'Virtually, most intending corps members want to serve in Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt and any other city and no corps member wants to serve in the rural area because they believe there is no light, no water, no accommodation and the possible attack of armed robbers. So, with this trend, the purpose for which the scheme was introduced is gradually being defeated,' he lamented.
"He blamed the problem on the government which he said has not done enough to better the lots of corps members in terms of allowances it pays to corps members which he described as pittance...
"'A situation where a corps member who studied History is serving in banks whereas those who studied Account are serving in schools as teachers what type of madness?' he declared.
"'For goodness sake, corps members should be posted to places that have relationship with their course of study.'..."
See also:
Labels: Nigeria, political integration, socialization
Outlining the line
There was a "training session" for members of the Party Central Committee in Beijing. Boy, did they get an earful.
Solid leadership of Party Central Committee stressed "Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Monday urged new CPC Central Committee members to well understand and carry out the Party's policies set at its 17th National Congress.
"Hu made the remarks at the beginning of a symposium for the newly elected CPC Central Committee members and alternate members...
"Hu underlined in his speech that the Central Committee plays a very important role in undertaking various works both for the Party and the country, and thus to build it into a solid leadership is of great significance.
"Leading all Chinese people to a development path of socialism with Chinese characteristics despite interference and fear is a "solemn responsibility" of all Central Committee members and alternate members, Hu said in his speech...
"The current 17th CPC Central Committee has 204 members and 167 alternate members who were elected on 21 October at the Party's 17th National Congress..."
Hu stresses full implementation of free religious policy"Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday reiterated a policy of free religious belief while stressing law-abiding management on religious affairs and support to self-governance of religious groups.
"Hu, also the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the statement at a meeting of the members of the Political Bureau of the 17th CPC Central Committee in their study on religious issues at home and abroad..."
Chinese vice premier calls for bigger role of central SOEs in economy"Chinese Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan said Tuesday that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) administered by the central government should grow more competitive to play a larger role in the economy.
"'Centrally administered SOEs are a main force in state-owned firms and a backbone in the national economy,' Zeng said. 'They should become bigger and stronger to contribute more to the economic and social development.'...
"China currently had 152 such SOEs, all under the supervision of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC)...."
Labels: China, leadership, policy, political integration
The new PLA
The Brit who writes the blog,
liuzhou laowai offered this photo of students recruited by the PLA in the city where he lives. He notes that he doesn't think that the student soldiers wear the flowers in combat.
Labels: change, China, political culture, political integration
Diversity and affirmative action
The Economist has a good article on diversity in national legislatures.
The article asks some good questions about legitimacy, political integration/alienation, equality, ethnic/racial integration, and the prevention of terrorism. All those questions would be good ones for your students to discuss. (There are good details in the article.)
Must the rainbow turn monochrome in parliament?"THE political representation of racial minorities troubles in almost every country, rich or poor...
"Every society is composed of minorities of one sort or another, but few people believe that left-handers, redheads, homosexuals or Elvis impersonators have a claim on any particular degree of representation in elected legislatures. In so far as racial minorities are different, it is because they more often suffer discrimination.
"In general, minorities are indeed under-represented...
"Part of the puzzle is that people count minorities differently...
"Each group behaves differently...
"In due course, though, minorities usually want to take a full part in the political life of their country. Inevitably, the obstacles in their way depend partly on the attitude of the majority...
"The attitude to politics of the minority group itself also matters...
"Minorities' political participation is also affected by the ease or difficulty of gaining citizenship...
"The voting system can also make a difference. Andrew Reynolds of the University of North Carolina found in a survey of 31 countries that proportional representation (PR) tends to attract more minority candidates than first-past-the-post voting...
"Does any of this really matter? In an extensive study, the Minority Rights Group, a British NGO, found that, with the exception of Iraq, countries with the highest minority representation turn out to be those where minorities are pretty safe from political and military threats. That does not necessarily mean that more minority MPs will improve race relations. The causation may run the other way: minority politicians may win election when race relations are good. But promoting minority representation in legislatures is likely to reduce political alienation among minorities. That in itself can be no bad thing."
Labels: legislature, political culture, political integration
Political Integration
Often the best ideas for this blog come from readers' questions. You make me think.
(Hint, hint: Please ask. Use the "Comment" link below each entry or e-mail me directly.)A couple days ago Michael Harvey wrote from Abu Dhabi asking a question about
political integration.
The next day I was reading an
article* about Ibn Khaldun, a 14th century Arab scholar.
Caroline Stone, author of the article, wrote, "One of Ibn Khaldun's basic subjects is still being debated, and it is of the greatest relevance in the increasingly multicultural societies of today: What is social solidarity, and how does a society achieve it and maintain it? He argues that no society can achieve anything... unless there is internal consensus about its aims... it is clear that, to him, a successful society as a whole must be in agreement as to its ultimate goals."
Over 500 years ago, Ibn Khaldun was discussing political integration.
Theen and Wilson in their textbook,
Comparative Politics: An Introduction to Seven Countries (1992, Prentice-Hall, Inc.), write that
"Among the most important political effects of cultural pluralism is the threat it can pose to national unity and stability.
"Creating a sense of belonging to a single political unit among the various cultural groups that inhabit a nation is known as
political integration or
nation building.
"It is a continuing political process, involving agreement on a national language or languages, acceptance of a uniform set of political symbols that evoke emotional support for the state and feelings of patriotism (flag, national anthem, national heroes and martyrs), and the building of political loyalties that transcend the tribe, religious body, or racial group.
"In short, political integration is the process whereby loyalties and attachments to religious, linguistic, and racial groups are weakened and attachment to a broader political unit (the nation-state) is promoted as the object of the individual's ultimate political loyalty." (p. 10)
This is, in part, the logic behind the argument in the US to require English as the official language. And it helps us understand the political
disintegration in Iraq. According to media accounts I've seen, people in Iraq identify themselves as Sunni, Shia, Arab, or Kurd before they identify themselves as Iraqi. Well, except when an Iraqi singer has a chance to win on "Star Academy," the Arab world's version of "American Idol." (See
Iraqis Unite Behind Their Heroine on Arab 'Idol' -- Singer Transcends Sectarian Tensions.)
Social solidarity and internal consensus are important parts of political integration, just as Ibn Khaldun suspected.
When Chris Morris wrote in a 2005 BBC article,
The identity crisis facing Europe, " In Europe we have British Asians, German Turks... In the US the emphasis is the other way around, they are not American Poles but Polish Americans," he was comparing political integration in the U.S. to that in Europe.
As Theen and Wilson note in their text, political integration has been going on for centuries in places like the United Kingdom, but it's not complete. And the influx of immigrants means that the process will continue.
So, ask your students to know about political integration and ask them to write about it.
There are many ways to approach the topic that will help students better understand comparative politics and prepare for their exam.
- Which of the countries they've studied are most successfully integrated politically? Can they identify the challenges each of the countries face in the pursuit of political integration?
- What factors account for the relative levels of successful political integration?
- Is China's apparent high level of political integration authentic or merely the result of thousands of years of authoritarian government?
- Can a construct of imperialism, like Nigeria, whose borders ignore demographic geography, achieve a higher level of political integration? How or why not?
There are also institutional and legal aspects of political integration. Those are topics for another day.
*
Stone, Caroline, "Ibn Khaldun and the Rise and Fall of Empires," Saudi Aramco World, September/October 2006, pp. 28-39.
PS: [You might note that Ibn Khaldun would find fans among many Republicans in the USA today. He wrote, "...you must understand that the most important factor making for business prosperity is to lighten as much as possible the burden of taxation on businessmen, in order to encourage enterprise by giving assurance of greater profits."]
Labels: concepts, political integration, theory
