Ideas Of India Summit 2023: At the second edition of ABP Network’s flagship event ‘Ideas Of India’, Academician, Author, Political Commentator and Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at Columbia University Mahmood Mamdani spoke about minorities, colonialism, racial differrence among various other things. Speaking at the summit on "The Nation and its Permanent Minorities from the US to Israel', Mahmood Mamdani said, "One of the things about being a migrant is that you are never completly an insider. You are always both an outsider and an insider."
Speaking about his earlier life experiences, Mamdani told the chair session Vinay Lal that: "I grew up in Uganda. I was third generation of Indian descent in East Africa. One of the things about being a migrant is that you are never completly an insider. You are always both an outsider and an insider. That gives u a privelage position. That privelage is to be both self-critical, and to take all insider claims with an pinch of salt. So thats what I grew up with. At the same time of course I was an Indian in East Africa."
"I have grown up during the colonial period, where East African Indians enjoyed a degree of petty privilege in comparison to the natives of the country. And so, we looked at the world through racially tinted glasses. We tended to assume that we were better off because we were smarter, and they were not because they were lazy. This is the standard racist stuff coming out of colonialism," he said.
"So one of the questions for me, as I look back, is: How does a kid coming out that kind of context develop the capacity or get the opportunity to rise above it and to see through your own act? African American say: The hardest act to understand is your own. You can critique other people but wisdom is when you begin to see what's wrong with your own claims," he stated.
'It Begins With An Establishment Of Castile Empire In Spain': Mamdani On Minorities
According to Mamdani, the concept of modernity has its roots in 1492. It came into existence with an establishment of Castile empire in Spain. The academician stated that it was only after the empire came up with "One Country, One Religion & One People" claim, Jews and Muslims were outcasted from Spain. This, as per the academician, gave rise to "Middle Eastern Jews".
Discussing the concept of majority and minority, Mamdani stated: "In political sense, majority and minority are not transhistorical. They are modern terms. But by modern, I do not mean contemporary terms. For me, modernity begins in 1492. It begins with an establishment of the Castile empire in Spain. It begins with a claim of: One Country, One Religion & One People. After the expulsion of jews and the muslims from Spain, the jews were welcomed in the Ottomon empire."
Drawaing the distinction between an "European Jew" & "Middle Eastern Jew", Mamdani said: "If you look at the Jewish experience globally, the Jewish experience in Europe is very differrent with respect to Middle East or in Asia. In Middle East and Asia, the Jews were part of society. You take the example of a Middle Eastern Jew who came into Israel known as the Misrahim. The Misrahim wrote in Arabic, spoke Arabic. Both their language and culture was Arabic, while their religion was Jewish. When they first came in the Ashkenazi leaders in Israel looked at them and said: what is this savage rubble and one of the biggest social projects in Israel was de-arabise the Misrahim, and the Misrahim then took possession and provided the muscle for the religious Zionism. And the religious Zionist parties which have today taken over Israel and for the Misrahim there were two enemies: Palestinians and also the Ashkenazi (the european Jews). And thats the fight you are witnessing in the Israel today."
'He Doesn't Have Much Of A Historical Sense': Mamdani On VS Naipaul
Speaking at the summit, Mamdani take a hit at Nobel Laurete VS Naipaul stating that in his writings especially where race was concerned, Naipaul only saw the "present" and completly ignored the "history." He later comes to a conclusion that through Naipaul's writings one can only see what is wrong as the writer only presents the "critique" without any possibility of an "alternative."
"Of course Naipaul is a writer who can not be ignored. As a writer, he had a very acute sense of the present. He can cut through it. But he doesn't have much of a historical sense. He critiques the present as if all the actors in the present had the powers to define themselves differrently," he stated.
"At last to return to Naipaul. He could crtique with a recesses edge, but he could not provide you with a glimpse of an alternative world. The real challenge is not simply to critque, its to arrive at an alternative," he concluded.
Highlighting the racial boundaries in the history of South Africa, Mamdani stated: "Now, I don't believe that we are the prisoners of the history, but, I don't that that history is unimportant. I think we are shaped by history. But there are choices. I'll give you an example. Lets say, in South Africa you had various anti-apartheid organisations. You had the African National Congress, Indian National Congress, Colored People's Congress, and you had the Congress of democrats. But the interesting thing is that all of them organised only their own particualr race. They accepted the political architecture of apartheid as natural, and that was true until the 1970s. Its only in the 1970s that Steve Biko comes with blood conciousness and he says: Black is not a color, Black is an experience, and if you are oppressed you are black. And Steve Biko breaks down the racial walls between Indians, Colored Africans, and creates a student movement that now overturns the apartheid architecture, and it is in the 70s that you begin a process which ends in the 1990s."