Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Some bad ideas

Fred Halliday gives his list world's twelve worst ideas. One of them:
Number three: Diasporas have a legitimate role to play in national and international politics

The notion that emigrant or diaspora communities have a special insight into the problems of their homeland, or a special moral or political status in regard to them, is wholly unfounded. Emigrant ethnic communities play almost always a negative, backward, at once hysterical and obstructive, role in resolving the conflicts of their countries of origin: Armenians and Turks, Jews and Arabs, various strands of Irish, are prime examples on the inter-ethnic front, as are exiles in the United States in regard to resolving the problems of Cuba, or policymaking on Iran. English emigrants are less noted for any such political role, though their spasms of collective inebriation and conformist ghettoised lifestyles abroad do little to enhance the reputation of their home country.

I tend to agree with this and am vary of commenting on Indian problems though I am very interested. Yet, I find many articles from India opinionated and not very professional (the articles in EPW seem very good). Many articles of the kind that seem technically sound seem to be coming from Americans and Indians in U.S. universities. Some are available at http://www.esocialsciences.com/home/index.asp
If there are more such sources, I would like to know.

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