On its face, one would expect Buddhism with its call for the renunciation of desires to be a religion that is hostile to commerce and hence to merchants and their ilk. And on its face one would expect Islam, a religion founded by a businessman and which places far more of an emphasis on the here and now right down to detailed prescriptions for daily living, a religion which is as much of a ’self help’ guide as spiritual salvation to be the more worldly religion which is favourable to commerce.
Yet the Chinese shopkeeper ends up as the Buddhist.
Well one strike down for trying to infer political ideologies and ethnic conflicts from religion, Jack.

Why do the Chinese excel at Excel?
why do Malays tend to prefer the Islamic rather than other less militant creeds?

Actually Malacca, one of the earliest civilisations on the Malay peninsula, was a Hindu outpost and its brand of Hinduism, relatively diluted of the caste obsession which bedevilled its Indian predecessor, could have easily morphed into Buddhism, which incidentally, is the nominal religious belief of the Chinese. The Malays on Malaysia and Indonesia were animist/Buddhist/Hindu for a very long time. It was in fact their propensity to develop trading outposts which brought Arab merchants to their shores and led to their conversion to Islam. So I’m sorry Jack but there is no genetic propensity for Malays to prefer ‘militant’ religions like Islam. Incidentally I should also note that Fillipinos are ‘genetically’ virtually indistinguishable from Malays and they are Catholic, not Muslim. And pogroms against Chinese merchants have not been unheard of in the Phillipines and Thailand either.

The ancestors of the Malays themselves originally came from Southern China. The differences between Southern Chinese indentured labourers who ended up in South East Asian countries like Malaysia and the Malays would be too trivial, regardless of whatever ‘just so story’ you choose to make up, to allow for some genetic superiority of Chinese in commerce and Excel spreadsheets. A far more mundane but plausible story to account for the dominance of Chinese in the mercantile areas would invoke self-selection of indentured labourers from China and cultural differences between urban dwellers from China and rural farmers characteristic of Malays.

Why do Malays persecute the Chinese in SE Asia but Europeans do not persecute them in W Europe? And why do Islamics in S Asia persecute the Chinese but Hindis in India tend to leave them alone?

Perhaps, Jack, that might have something to do with the fact that Chinese shopkeepers in Western countries are emigrants from Third World countries into First World ones and who therefore on average have substantially lower average starting incomes than the native populations whereas Chinese shopkeepers in SE Asian countries with a Malay population started off more or less level with their Malay neighbours and then proceeded to rise in incomes substantially ? Of course this common sensical explanation would be far too mundane for your Sailorite propensities.

Poor Nabakov. It can’t be much fun being a politically correct spin doctor these days and in this place, can it? The London Bombings and Paris Burnings are pretty hard to spin as the result of the hateful-Howard or the Gulf War. And the new science of socio-biology has made mincemeat of politically correct myths, which are now being discarded like so many losing betting slips at Flemington.

Of course if Nabakov wants to step up to the plate and offer a convincing alternative theory then he is welcome to. I enjoy his little jests but I enjoy knocking his ideology into a cocked hat even more.

The conflict between Malays and Chinese which Huntington lumps together in his Islam‚Äôs bloody borders thesis is the classic conflict between a middleman minority and customers of a different ethnicity who feel they have been ‘ripped off‚Äô and resent the economic competition.

The *perception* of ethnic *difference* has everything to do with it in the sense that visible phenotypic differences exacerbate what is already a heated situation.

*Genetic* differences if any are trivial and obviously the fact that Malays happen to be Muslim is even more trivial

I love the ironic scare asterisks around *perception*, *difference* and *genetic*. Jason Soon has spent too much time around the Larva-Prodders and has turned into a caricature of a salt-and-pepper haired politically correct academic.

An individuals ethnicity is basicly a function of race and religion ie biology and sociology. Jason Soon explicitly rules out racial or religious causes of this ethnic clash. He says it is not caused by underlying differences in racial genetics (Sino v Malay). Nor is it caused by overt behavioural differences in religious “memetics” (~Buddhism v Islamism).

Jason Soon then wheels out Amy Chua’s Market Dominant Minorities thesis for a bit of an airing. He argues that the clash between Chinese and Malay ethnics is caused by the entirely incidental fact that Chinese in SE Asia have a social function as successful middlemen. And the Malays, instead congratulating the Chinese for their diligence and savvyness, are persecuting them for it. Much as Slavs used to persecute Jews in Eastern Europe.

Jason Soon says that the Malay natives are acting in this irrational way because of (socially constructed) malicious subjective perceptions. The greedy capitalist social stereotype is reinforced by Chinese physical phenotype. Thus Malay natives construct a malignant psychology by cobbling together some combination of primitive supersition, nasty ideology and group envy. And they peridicly use this toxic brew to whip up ethnic hostility against the Chinese ethnics.

I dont have much of a problem with this account as it stands except that it relies on explanation by ad hoc, superficial and local factors. Chinese act as middlemen and traders the wide world over. Why do Malays persecute the Chinese in SE Asia but Europeans do not persecute them in W Europe? And why do Islamics in S Asia persecute the Chinese but Hindis in India tend to leave them alone?

These questions point towards the deeper and more complicated areas of comparative racial and religious analysis ie Darwin, Weber and the other 19th C titans of social science. (In the 20th C social scicence went forward empirically, with the use of quantitative methods. But it went backwards theoretically, with the spread of the standard social science model’s empty and subjective social constructivism.)

As Roberts points out, Chua’s descriptions are true but her prescriptions are weak:

[Chua has] nothing to offer but a report on ethnic and tribal conflicts,

What is to be done? Chua is too realistic to offer pie-in-the-sky alternatives to markets and democracy. After relating examples of how “free market democracy” works against itself in countries with multi-ethnic populations, she recommends that market-dominant minorities protect themselves with image management and good works. In the last line of her book, Chua reaches the conclusion: “It is difficult to see, in any event, how a little generosity and humility could possibly hurt.”

Jason Soon and Amy Chu are polite to a fault. Why do the Chinese excel at Excel? And why do Malays tend to prefer the Islamic rather than other less militant creeds?

The Chu-Soon theory is true as far as it goes - a perversion of Darwinian ethnology is now trumping the Washington Consensus ideology in the Southern hemisphere. (Look at the chilly reception that Bush got in Latin America.) But it has nothing futher to offer beyond this except the empty platitudes of constructivist sociology and politically correct boilerplate.

So what tactics does Jason Soon suggest the Chinese should use in self-defence: harsh language? The only ways for market-dominated minorities to be safe in a globalised world is by secessionist nation state formation to reinforce their ethnic identity or by emigrating to Open Societies where they will inevitably lose their ethnic identity. The multicultural project is a chimera. Look at the Jews. Look at Jason Soon.

(I hope so)

My advice is to just gaffer tape orange smoke flares to the whirling arms and sit back to enjoy the show.

Err, no Jack, let me spell it out for you then. The conflict between Malays and Chinese which Huntington lumps together in his Islam’s bloody borders thesis is the classic conflict between a middleman minority and customers of a different ethnicity who feel they have been ‘ripped off’ and resent the economic competition. The *perception* of ethnic *difference* has everything to do with it in the sense that visible phenotypic differences exacerbate what is already a heated situation. *Genetic* differences if any are trivial and obviously the fact that Malays happen to be Muslim is even more trivial (Muslim Pakistanis end up as the middleman minority in the UK in contrast to their black customers)

[Huntington’s] Islam‚Äôs bloody borders theory is a load of balderdash since some of these bloody borders (like Malays vs Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia) are ethnic rather than religious in nature.

Ethnicity is composed of (biologically conserved) race/tribe and (sociologically constructed) religion/sect. So the distinction that can be made in theory between Southern Asian races and Islamic religion often collapses in practice. Or, as John Derbyshire might say, “they are all in it together”.

However I think Jason Soon has a point about the flaws in Huntington’s model. Although, characteristicly, he does not properly spell it out.

The take-up of more militant forms of Islamic religion by disaffected minorities may be an associated effect, rather than cause, of uncivil cultural expressions. More reactionary and militant forms of Islam may be well suited to various tribes and individuals who, for underlying socio-biological reasons, may be having teething troubles in the passage through modernity.

It may well be the case that some form of Islam makes such people “better than they otherwise might have been.” (apologies to Evelyn Waugh’s Catholic profession.)

Shorter, more candid Fyodor, to the tune of “The Singer” or “Running Scared”:

I am cracking up. Jack Strocchi’s dire predictions of the defects of multiculturalism appear to have some substance, as proven by London Bombings and Paris Burnings. Even the Manchester Guardian is now gone over to the Dry side. Blow enough smoke and maybe no one will notice long enough to laugh at me.

*going senile

There’s no doubt some of his insights are valuable, though his earlier work on democracy is more measured and empirically accurate.

*shakes head

That is exactly what happened when Khomeni issued the fatwah against Rushdie. The New Left Wets went to water in a lather of multicultural pandering whilst the New Right Wets bent over backwards to make sure oil suppliers did not get offended.

This is undoubtedly true. Did you see Geoffry Robertson’s ‘Hypothetical’ on the Rushdie affair, Jack? The left sat silent and embarrassed while the ex-Cat Stevens did his rant, the businessmen upbraided Rushdie for disrupting their trade deals with Iran, and only Fay Weldon, out of the whole sorry boiling, had the guts to defend him - indeed, walking up to the policeman on the set and demanding he arrest Yusuf Islam for threatening to murder Rushdie.