MCLC: myths of social cohesion (4)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
Subject: myths of social cohesion (4)
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Hmm.  . . . "ruled by ethnic minorities" is actually also a misleading
misunderstanding: those rulers were not "minorities" -- which is a
modern-era concept that cannot be projected back into imperial times any
more than recent concepts such as "Han" and "nation" should be so
projected in any facile way, into past imperial times. (If you do, you
play along with the agenda of a very recently installed Chinese orthodoxy).

Jacobs actually does arrive at a more useful truth, when he suggests "the
Chinese nation" is a structure separate from and above (and which
"ordered") any ethnic-like distinctions, -- although the main term should
of course really not be "nation" but empire.

I can see how it becomes difficult in a trimmed-down newspaper article to
explain that for the general public -- especially since many readers think
of the world as a bunch of nations that have and always had their
majorities and minorities, and empires seems a thing of the past and are
unknown. However, especially for China, the heavy burden of the legacy of
the empire is a huge part of understanding China and you could say this
issue (of empire) is the key to all such explanation.

ps. My own views on this (and on how the pinnacle of the structure of
empire can be "inhabited" by various "others" -- as has happened all over,
in world history) are here: Rescuing the Empire: Chinese Nation-Building
in the Twentieth Century. European Journal of East Asian Studies 5.1
(2006), pp. 15-44. http://www.ejeas.net/index.php/ejeas

--Sincerely,

Magnus Fiskesjö