I am interested to see Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism researcher and zealous foe of Islamism, defend Rashad Hussain, the White House attorney who has been chosen as envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Hussain has been accused of being, essentially, a terrorist sympathizer. Gartenstein-Ross, who has known Hussain since 1998 (when Gartenstein-Ross was himself a Muslim), isn’t buying it. He is shocked at the attacks on his friend written by people who don’t know him — from “the proverbial view” at “50,000 feet.” He concludes that Hussain “is a Kerry-supporting Democrat rather than a bin Laden-supporting jihadist.”
I haven’t taken a close look at the case, but Gartenstein-Ross’s statement seems at first blush to be convincing — not least because it reminds me of a similar controversy in which I was involved. Back in 2008, Samantha Power, then a Kennedy School professor who was advising candidate Obama (now a NSC staffer), was accused of anti-Israel animus. I had known Power for a number of years and defended her against the charge. I, too, was shocked at how a real person had been chopped up in the Cuisinart of politics and reassembled into a caricature.
I am by no means suggesting that friends of a nominee or staffer should have the final word on their fitness for office. As Gartenstein-Ross notes, “Friendship can be a double-edged sword. It can truly illuminate for us how a person views the world, show us what he cherishes and fears, give us insight into his character. It can also have a distorting effect, causing us to be defensive when we should not be, and to overlook our friend’s flaws.” But as a general rule, I would suggest approaching these debates with some degree of humility and sympathy, and an understanding that a few statements often pulled out of context do not necessarily constitute the totality of a person.
What is “awkward and embarrassing” is any attempt to ignore the elephant in the room: Barack Obama’s skin color.
Geraldine Ferraro was exactly right when she noted that had Obama been white, he’d not be (at the time her observation was made) in serious contention for the Democratic nomination. Now that he is the presumptive nominee, we have seen enough evidence that Sen. Obama is, indeed, the “black candidate.”
As much as he and his handlers claimed that he is “post-racial,” he is nothing of the sort. He comes out of a radical black environment on Chicago’s South Side; he would not be the Dem nominee had he not been able to get 80-90% of the black vote in the primaries. He is, in short, a polarizing candidate – and the poles are black and white.
The Communist Chinese are not in any position to give us lessons on racial harmony, as the post reminds us. But neither are we in any position to ignore the evidence in front of us. We will need to see the extent of the “Bradley effect” in November.
I predict it’s going to be significant, although its effect on the outcome is unknown.
Prejudice against those who differ from others in race, language, gender, culture, religion—even taste—is the rule and not the exception. The United States is overcoming its prejudices with relative success.
Americans nowadays will not express racist sentiments to strangers. In my travels, I have often heard such instances of prejudice from people I had just met. In China, I often heard negative comments about “hei gui” (black devils). Once in 1984, my family and I were in a restaurant in Tianjin. An African man from Uganda came to our table and said he was delighted to hear our American accents and to have an opportunity to talk to people who weren’t prejudiced. He had never been to America, but he felt that Americans accepted those who differed from them. He had been a student in China for two years and spoke perfect Chinese, but he said he felt very lonely in China.
America is making progress. As we say in Chinese, “Bu pa man; jiu pa zhan” (Don’t fear slow progress; just fear no progress).
Gordon
Can you perhaps let us know a little bit about minority representation in the Chinese armed forces?
(I’m interested because the USSR incorporated ethnic minorities into their command structure which came back to haunt them with the war in Chechnya re. Maskhadov)
I think it is funny, stupid, ignorant bashing a government simply cuz its name has a word “communism” or “communist” in it.
and I dont think this Gordon Chang knows anything about China except his own agenda against anything that is “communism”.
Wahaha,
What does communism mean? It has always meant famine. The worst famine in all human history took place in China between 1959 and 1961. One of the causes was the fact that Chairman Mao had forced farmers, and everybody, to melt all their metal in backyard furnaces in order to produce steel. Farmers then lost their tools, and famine followed as the night the day. During the famine, China continued to export wheat to the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union created its own famine in order to starve the kulaks. North Korea has had recurring famines and still hasn’t quite gotten over the problem.
Marx looked forward to the day when all people would be exactly alike, since he thought that economic differences were the source of all other types of human variation. Marxist regimes have never understood that people are different from each other—that there is such a thing as individuality. A regime that disapproves of people the way they are will logically not care about human life, which fits in perfectly with the recurring famines of communist states.
George,
From my experience in China, the essence of communism is class struggle.
“Communism” or “Communist” is just a name now in China that no chinese care what it means . Being a a memeber of CCP is just way of filtering, or in other word, only those who accept the authoritarian system have access to political power. No one is required to explain what Marxism is or Maoism is before being promoted.
In human history, no government allowed its people against its system, even in West. For example, the McCathyism and the 2nd french revolution in 1968.
In whatever way you like to intepret “communim”, there will never be a 10 years of significant economic growth under the idealism of communism, let alone quarter of century’s economic growth.
I appreciate Gordon Chang’s defense of Chinese minorities, but he seems to forget that for the better part of three centuries China was ruled by Manchus, a non-Han minority group with their own language and native customs. The Manchus ruled from 1644 until 1911 and produced some of the most illustrious rulers in Chinese history.
Yba, I believe the Army, especially the officer corps, is more Han than society as a whole. In particular, I think the Tibetans and Uighurs are especially unrepresented.
jerry norman, thank you for making important historical points. Yet as they say, that was then and this is now. Now, China’s minority problem is that its leaders have yet to figure out how to get along with restive populations within its borders.
By the way, do you have a particular interest in Chinese history? It sounds like you do.
Gordon
Thanks – I suspected that was the case.
Gordon/Jerry
Conversely one could blame the Manchu dynasty for the significant deterioration of power in the 19/20th C’s which led to foreign intervention/domination true?
YbA,
here is a link,
http://mt.chineseembassy.org/eng/xwdt/t347333.htm
….
It turns out that in Mohammad’s unit only the company commander is Han. The other soldiers are all of the Muslim faith and members of either the Uygur, Kazak, Tajik or Hui ethnic minorities
….
Of course, it is propaganda by communist party in the eyes of some people with colored glasses.
When the Manchus conquered China and established the Qing Dynasty, little did they know that as a result, their language and culture would vanish. What used to be Manchuria is now simply Dongbei (Northeast), and linguists are hunting for isolated communities where there are still people who remember the Manchu language. These communities, more likely than not, are north of the border, in Russia.
Conquering China is a bad idea. The Mongolian language survives, even in Inner Mongolia, which is part of China, despite the fact that the Mongols establish the Yuan Dynasty. But in the big city of Hohhot (Huhehaote in Chinese), the only language you hear spoken on the street is Mandarin Chinese. In 1989, a vice-president of Inner Mongolia University said to me,
“I speak to my children in Mongolian, but they answer me in Chinese.”
As far as China’s economy is concerned, China now believes in Marxist capitalism. China loves capitalism as only a Marxist can love an economic system. Marx said that societies must go through the stages of primitive communism, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and communism. Chairman Mao made the mistake of thinking he could jump from feudalism to communism. Since, Marx can never be wrong, according to those with faith in Marxism, China must now have capitalism (without freedom, of course). Socialism and communism will come eventually, but communists pray that it will not happen during their own lifetimes.
I see, all the people here have agenda against the CURRENT chinese government, fine. But I have a question, I will appreciate if any of you can answer the question :
There are less than 50,000 monks in Tibet, there are about 2.6 million tibetans in Tibet.
Based on the reports by WEST media, there was hardly any harsh complains by ordinary tibetans, almost all the complains were made by monks.
Why ?
Also, I dont believe West politicians and west media care about the human right in China. for example, Chun Doo Khwan visited US one year after Kwangju uprising and met President Reagan.
What was going on ?
Wahaha, Reagan met Chun so that Chun would leave office after his constitutional term ended. In other words, he wanted the general to step aside peacefully. American presidents can often be criticized when it comes to the human rights situation in other nations, but not Reagan with regard to South Korea.
Wahaha
What has South Korea’s internal politics got to do with China’s feelings towards minorities?
Gordon
Why are you bothering to entertain such an irrelevant comment?
_______________________________________
Also, I like to hear your opinion about the following article (and the human right fighter Medha Patkar.)
http://ia.rediff.com/money/2006/may/08spec1.htm
The commotion over the building of a dam over the Narmada River in the western Indian state of Gujarat hogged the headlines in India over the past few weeks. Medha Patkar, activist and leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada movement), went on a 20-day fast to protest the government’s failure to come to the aid of an estimated 500,000 villagers who have lost their livelihood as a consequence of the Sardar Sarovar dam, which will supply electricity to Gujarat state.
……..
India’s Narmada dam, with all its issues of federal and state permissions, environmental approvals, and equitable rehabilitation of the inhabitants, could have been a showpiece for foreign investors. Instead, it’s a disgrace: a sorry tale of a 20-year delay, cost overruns, state negligence, and bitter local resistance –
………
My question is :
What do you think a good government should do in such situation ?
Gordon,
sorry for missing the first part :
I was talking about Chun’s first visit to US, not the 2nd one.
YbA,
Gordon wrote lot about China, even books about China. So I just use this forum to ask several questions, I hope you dont mind.
“My question is :
What do you think a good government should do in such situation ?”
I don’t know. Maybe force workers to accept slave wages to build unnecessary and substandard dams that will break soon and cause untold damage and death? You know, like the Chinese government did?
Steve,
I see your logic : you are poor, why dont you stay poor ?
Like you have 1 billion people, why not have 1.5 billion people or 2 billion people ? so when earthquake happens, death toll will be 50% or 100% higher, so people like you can bash the government.
Thx for playing.
Oh, BTW, lot projects’ money are FDI from West. Maybe you should blame them for being greedy.
Wahaha, thanks for the clarification. I think we should look at the overall effect of Reagan’s diplomacy with Chun and put all of the South Korean’s trips to America in that context. When we do that, we can see that Korea is one of Reagan’s finer moments, even though this area has been overlooked by historians.
Gordon,
Exactly, we should look at the overall effect of policy, not the individual incidents. Unfortunately, West always look at the individuals when they judge the chinese policy.
Wahaha, do you have any particular instances of this in mind? I am not sure I know what you mean. Thanks in advance for the enlightenment.
Gordon,
What I mean is “result, result, result”. Let me illustrate my point by an example,
—————————-
A babysitter of a kindergarden wants to take 20 kids out for lunch. some kids want McDonald, some want pizza, some want donkin donuts and some want chinese dumplings.
Now what is the babysitter supposed to do ? The best way is for her to take those kids to a place favored by most kids. but remember, no matter where she takes those kids to, there will always be some of 20 kids who dont like the foods THE BABYSITTER CHOOSES FOR THEM.
If the babysitter can find a place with good food that 18 or 19 of 20 kids like to go, then she is a good babysitter, though one or two kids are “suppressed”, or maybe they will like the food later.
No1 should say the babysitter did a bad job because one or two kids didnt like the food, as there is no place out there that every kid likes. If the babysitter had followed the rule of democracy, she wouldve still tried to find a place 3 hours after lunch time.
( Of course, if the babysitter is very rich, she can afford hiring another babysitter, then there would be no complains. )
——————————————–
After 30 years of communism till 1978, Chinese really dont care “what we should do by textbook”. When West tries to teach chinese “the rules”, please explain what kind of results we should expect if we follow the west rules.
Yes, there are some dissidents (NOT SEPARATISTS) in China who are mistreated, I feel sorry for them, but that is better than millions of beggars on streets in big cities like in India.
Human right ? whose rights are more important, the right of hundreds of millions of people living a good and decent life, or the right of free speech for several dozens of dissidents ?
Most chinese people are willing to accept the authoritarian government NOW because they saw what happeed in other countries with west democracy and believe that it is better that democracy comes gradually. Why cant people in West respect the opinions of billion of people on the other side of earth ?
BTW, while West democracy does give people tons of freedom, it also allows all kinds of garbage into every corner of the societies, as it also gives the freedom to millions of criminals and greedy SOB.
____________________
CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF HOW DEMOCRACY HELPED IMPROVING PEOPLE’S LIVES ?
Wahaha, the choice is not prosperity versus democracy. Why can’t China have both?
In fact, China with its authoritarianism is far less prosperous than the West’s democracies, which are much younger than China. I think you will see things in a different light in China’s next economic downturn.
Gordon,
You are asking why the babysitter cant find place that EVERY kid loves the food.
That is simply impossible. As it is clearly proved by the practice of democracy in poor and developing countries.
West properity was built on cheap labor and technology breakthrough, what prosperity did American democracy bring to the country ?
I saw unions bankrupted cities; I saw criminals were treated like guests in jail; I saw that criminals destoryed beautiful communities of all the big cities in USA; I saw People were so greedy that they asked for ridiculous compensation (as result, medication is ridiculous high cuz of insurance fee.); I saw that movies and TV were full of violence and sex; I saw children never respected their teachers and show any respect to their hardworking parents.
China is still very poor compared to Ameria, how would it be like under West democracy ?
Answer : millions of beggars on streets, no infrastructure at all, 10 times more criminals,chaos and civil wars.
Wahaha, and when I was in China I didn’t see some 30 to 50 million Chinese who died because one man–Mao Zedong–adopted ludicrous policies in the Great Leap Forward. Yes, we in the United States should have access to lower-price perscriptions, but that does not compare to death on a massive scale.
“Wahaha, and when I was in China I didn’t see some 30 to 50 million Chinese who died because one man–Mao Zedong–adopted ludicrous policies in the Great Leap Forward. Yes, we in the United States should have access to lower-price perscriptions, but that does not compare to death on a massive scale.”
gordon,
your number is arguable. but the main point is not about it. and i do agree with you on Mao’s agricultural policy as ludicrous. Great Leap Forward was very stupid and naive and short-sighted. but i would be very surprised that chinese leadership circle purposely wanted to implement this policy to introduce the famine and hunger to its own people. it showed that a bad economical policy can bring to a new born nation.
cultural revolution was horrific to many chinese. but think about it, almost 20 years of constant turmoils, CCP still held the reign of the government without vast unrest. its population exploded exponentially and its people’s life extending to 70 years old. this was before ’78 open door policy. yes, comparing to US, china was miserable. but if chinese compare it with what they were before ’49, then you would understand why CCP was still in power after so-called 30 years of miserable rule after ’49.
tony zhao, as an initial matter, consensus estimates of deaths during the Great Leap fall somewhere in the 30 to 50 million range. Of course, we will never know the precise number. I am interested in these estimates and would like to hear your views on this topic.
On your main point, let me note that the primary reason why the Communist Party is still in power is not because it has done such a wonderful job over five decades but because it has instilled fear in the Chinese people.
gordon,
i am not sure it fertile to argue further on the exact number of ppl died of hunger. just think about it: when Mao came to the power, there were about 400 millions chinese. 10 years after his rule, let us say there would be 500 millions. if the number of 30-50 millions death stands, statistically almost 10% of population were gone, which also meant that you and i shall see one among every 10 persons. such number has been keeping coming up without any concrete formulation. it just does not add up. please don’t misunderstand me. there were many ppl died of hunger at the time, and i am not denying it and it is not forgivable. but concocting up a unreasonable number is not helping to soothe our angers and mitigate our despair.
none of my posts or none of my intention here glorified communist party and their deeds, nor do i like them or like them not. did they instill fear in their own people? yes, just like US does to its own citizens too. otherwise we would not be in this stupid war.
CCP is bad, but they are the least among the “baddest” for chinese. commoners do not care as long as they can live their normal lives, which could not be possible before ’49. CCP might sound right: there is no viable alternative other than them for china, at least during you and my life time.