Resort Of Last Resort

Here's an example of where the bottom feeders live. People who are escaping Islam. Poverty. They are desperate to get away from the bastards who have ruined countries such as Pakistan Afghanistan and Iran. And more will come. The history of Islam tells us that Muslims kill more Muslims than any other religion. And this sad story has a long way to run. Till Muslims manage to box Islam into the civilised box rather than the shape fundamentalists have put it into. 

Ironically you see one of the sets of idiots, Saudis, who are responsible for this desecration of Islam coming to Indonesia to get their rocks off. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. The Saudis piss over their co religionists in India Bangladesh Pakistan Indonesia Egypt Lebanon and in return these guys fawn over the Saudis and lick their feet. Only place there where I faced in your face racism. Bah. 

But there you go. It's a sad view of one of the sad spots of the world. As an economist you need to consider why nations hate and love immigration. Freedom of capital is allowed generally but of labour? Nope. Think about why this is so son.

Love

Baba  

Resort Of Last Resort | The Global Mail
http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/resort-of-last-resort/585/

Fear, corruption, boredom, smugglers, extortionists, Saudi sex tourists and temporary wives: such is life in the Indonesian resort town that has become limbo for asylum seekers.

Night is enveloping the hills of Cisarua, a resort town high outside Jakarta, and the area’s evening rituals are beginning. Rainwater thunders down from nearby mountaintops along hundreds of canals and rivulets that go whooshing on into the polluted sink that is Indonesia’s capital.

Across the bowl-shaped valley, dozens of mosques begin booming the call to prayer, all merging together into an asynchronous whine. In hillside villas, groups of men from Saudi Arabia — some in traditional white thawb robes, some in baggy track pants – load up on the evening’s stock of alcohol, which is banned in their home country. On motorbikes and in cars, pimps begin ferrying in the men’s other vice — Arabic-speaking Indonesian women.

(See the photos behind the story: Barat Ali Batoor’s series from Cisarua, In Between Persecution And Asylum.)

In other rented houses, hundreds of asylum seekers sit with little to do. Many have become near-nocturnal out of sheer boredom, and are just starting their day. Over the past decade, the town has become the unofficial haven for asylum seekers heading to Australia. For some, it is a brief stopover before they jump on a smuggler’s boat. For others, it is a limbo that can last for years.

Haider — not his real name — is sitting in a living room with half-a-dozen other men who, like him, are Hazaras from the Pakistani city of Quetta. All appear drawn and exhausted. One of the men, Ghulam Reza, sits with his foot extended because of an untreated, bloody gash.

I never realised the aspect of internal brain drain

We know of the brain drain from emerging countries to the west but how about the internal brain drain aspects? fascinating angle and one which I didn't previously consider. Something to think about. I quote:

As a director of international programs at the University of Botswana for four years, I witnessed this indigenous African brain drain up close. Every year it seemed somebody from the law department was recruited to be a judge. I watched as nongovernmental organizations poached at least three of the best female academics for jobs within Botswana. For-profit universities, almost all foreign owned, regularly recruit local Ph.D.’s from the university to give them a local face. Foreign-owned businesses in Botswana are always on the lookout for faculty trained in business, science, and engineering. The government itself has not held back. It has cherry picked at least two of the university’s best administrators for top roles in education. Finally, a number of academics find that their services as consultants are so in demand that they can easily make a much better income as self-employed contractors than working at the university.

Further depleting academic staff at the university is a brain drain to South Africa. Every year at least one faculty member leaves for a very sizable pay raise to work at a university to the south. There is, however, one difference with the internal brain drain and the one to South Africa: Most of the university’s former faculty come back after a year or two. They find the social environment in South Africa much more conflicted and competitive. Also, they feel they are treated as foreigners rather than fellow Africans. And some are surprised that taxes are often higher than they expected. On the other hand, those who leave the university for jobs within Botswana almost never return to academe in any capacity.

Most discouraging is that those leaving are often among the best and brightest. They are creative, ambitious, often charismatic, and almost always top leaders. The result is that the full professor ranks at the university have very few locals and a sizable proportion of expatriates, particularly from other parts of Africa. Indeed, Botswana poaches extensively for senior talent from other African countries, many of whom are quite good as instructors and scholars. These African expatriates often remain in Botswana until retirement because the salaries are much better than what they could earn at home, even in the private sector. However, they usually do not identify with Botswana personally or professionally. Many provide little service to the institution in terms of committees, are not serious about mentoring junior colleagues from Botswana, and do not contribute to the local intellectual environment. So while the university may provoke a brain drain from its sister countries in Africa, it cannot replace the best and the brightest local scholars who have the energy and vision to propel both the institution and the nation forward. Moreover, the university often ends up paying more for these senior expatriates than it would have for the talented locals.

Such a long journey

Son

Indians are frequently called as a model minority. Here is one example of how Indians fared in Trinidad. 

Fascinating story. I wonder what you will tell your daughter about how your father immigrated from India to the uk? Dadu immigrated from Bangladesh. You don't hear much from me on that but one day we will go there :)

Love 

Baba

Such a long journey
http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4670-such-a-long-journey.html

---

Cover

By Namit Arora

How and why 145,000 people migrated to a small Caribbean island.

Image: Carey L Biron

I recently visited the Indian Caribbean Museum near the town of Chaguanas in Trinidad. Set in a large hall, the museum did not have other visitors at the time. Its friendly curator, 69-year-old Saisbhan Jokhan, came out to greet me and quickly proved to be a trove of information. The museum commemorates the history of a million Indo-Caribbeans, whose ancestors came as indentured labourers from the Subcontinent between 1838 and 1917. Graphic panels at the museum include details on immigrant ships, copies of girmits (indenture agreements) and rare archival photos of life on Caribbean sugarcane plantations. Evocative objects abound: an improvised sarangi, a pair of wood slippers, a rotary sugarcane press like the ones still used in mofussil India, even a life-size model of an indentured worker’s hut. Other displays show milestones in the life of the community, such as a 1970 photo of the first ‘Indo-Trini’ policewoman; a panel on Alice Jan, the first lady of Indo-Trini culture; and Indo-Trinis winning the right to build their own schools in 1952, allowing them to replace Christian with Hindu teaching.

An update on Assyrians

I wrote about Assyrians before in an essay. Got some comments there as well. I suggest you might want to read that first if interested in the background to this fascinating community.

Was reminded of this when I read this. The Kurds, however much sympathy I have for them, are frankly a bunch of nincompoops. They should know how they have been treated and one would have expected the Kurds to welcome minorities, but no, they are behaving in the same barbaric manner as Saddam Hussein and other barbarians did in Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. I quote:

Inspired by the violent exhortations of a preacher during Friday prayers earlier this month, hundreds of young Kurdish men in the northern Iraqi town of Zakho went on a riot. Over four days, they set dozens of liquor stores alight, later threatening proprietors with further violence if they dared reopen their businesses. They also attacked an Assyrian church and homes in the neighbouring village of Mansouriyah and destroyed property including four hotels, a health club and an Assyrian social club in Dohuk.

The victims were Assyrians – an ethnically and linguistically discrete people also known as Chaldeans or Syriacs according to denomination – and Yazidis, members of two ancient communities who, like all the vulnerable elements of Iraqi society, have suffered disproportionately in the aftermath of the war.

The staggering upheaval and violence faced by Assyrians has led to a drop in their numbers from at least 800,000 in 2003 to 400,000 today. They represent 35% of Iraqi refugees since the war, as well as an enormous number of Iraq's internally displaced persons.

The sheer ethnic cleansing of Christians from much of what’s the Muslim nations is not mentioned politely but the numbers do not lie. In every country, you will see this happening. Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran, etc. etc. Maybe India should offer these Assyrians a refuge, India has a long history of offering refuge to people from the Middle East. If these nincompoops want to kick out their most productive, educated and intelligent lot, then hey, India could help no?

The sad thing is, this pressure on minorities is not going to cease once the Christians have left. These people are cannibals, they devour their own. Once they don't have the Assyrians to go after, they will go after the Druze, the Kurds, the other minorities. When they are gone, they will go after the minority Islamic sects such as the Shia. Oh! I am sorry, they are already doing that (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc.), their behaviour towards the other minorities such as women, gays and the like is already well known. And the Arab Spring has already brought forward the Salafis to the fore.

I welcome this step actually. This Islamism and basic illiberal thought is a boil in the body of Muslims. This shouldn't be lanced before it has gotten seriously ripe and the infection has run its course. So yes, I welcome the Brotherhood and the Islamist Parties taking power and trying to rule their countries with their perverted and bizarre philosophy. Let people know what they are asking for. Let them live in that pressure cooker of religious fanatics and then know that religion is NOT an answer. At this moment, if you go to a cook in a town or a farmer in a village, they will bang their chest and say Islam is the answer because their neighbourhood Mullah has said so (see above on how the pogrom happened).

Iran provides a classic example. See how a bunch of religious morons can drive their country into a ever restrictive circle of hell (Israel provides another example). But rest of the religious sheep need to understand that religion is about you and God. Not about you and the State. When you allow religion to rule your state, then you end up taking the logical step and kicking out or killing everybody who doesn't follow an increasingly narrow interpretation.

You can see when you take the argument ad absurdum infinitum. There will be one man standing in a field filled with empty houses and dead bodies proudly claiming that they have removed all impurity from his society.

Bah!

Four Ways Brain Drain out of Africa is a good thing

A thought provoking post. Also applies to other countries which heavily rely on human capital such as India, Pakistan, Philippines, etc.

Jews in Mecca & Medina?

It didnt take long to get a reaction to the US House Resolution 185 which talked about the Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands. I quote:

It is a “ploy to give Israel a share in every Arab country” and force the Arabs to drop Palestinians’ “right to return” from their negotiations with the Israelis, Sheikh Hilal Mabrouq told the congregation during his sermon at the Najma mosque yesterday.
“It is very clear that the resolution is one step forward to strengthen Israel’s existence in the region,” he said.
“Each Arab country had a Jewish community which lived in peace with the Arabs before the establishment of Israel. I think it is only meant for finding a share for Israel in each Arab country,” he said.

But the best part was this one which I didnt not consider:

“I will not be surprised if the US Congress came up with another resolution tomorrow, claiming the right of the Jews who had left the Arab peninsula after the appearance of Islam to return to both Makkah and Al Madina and establish a Jewish community there,” he said.

Lol, well, me being evil, i can very well think, well, why not? if length of stay and presence on land is indeed the case, right of returns cuts all ways... What will Israel and the assorted Arab League countries do?

US House resolution 185 would declare Jewish, Palestinian 1948 refugees equal

This should set the cat amongst the pigeons. If equality does work, then, curious to see what will happen to the right of return and compensation.... This is a right mess.

 

April 3, 2008, 8:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

It was introduced Tuesday by Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Joseph Crowley (D-NY) and Mike Ferguson (R-NJ).

From 1948, 850,000 Jews were attacked, dispossessed and expelled from 10 Arab lands, where some Jewish communities had existed for 2,500 years. The number of Jewish refugees exceeds Arab refugees from Israel by more than 100,000 (United Nations Conciliation Commission, October 23, 1950).

All prior UN resolutions referred only to Arab refugees. The new nonbinding resolution affirms for the first time that the U.S. government must now recognize that all victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict must be treated equally. It further urges that, as a member of the Middle East Quartet, the President and U.S. officials ensure that any reference to Palestinian refugees must henceforth "also include a similarly explicit reference to the issue of Jewish refugees from Arab countries."

Technorati Tags: Jews,Palestine,Israel,World War II

Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War

While researching my last essay here, I came across this paper. Quite an interesting paper, but I have some issues with it, the 4 categories that she comes up with are too vague. I quote:

• Dispossessive - the class of events, including both in and out-migrations, in which the principal objective is the appropriation of the territory and/or property of another group or groups, and/or the elimination of this group or groups as a threat to the ethno-political or economic dominance of the perpetrators; this includes what is commonly known as ethnic cleansing;
• Exportive - those displacements undertaken either to fortify a domestic political position -by expelling political dissidents and other domestic adversaries - or to discomfit or destabilize foreign government(s);
• Militarized - those displacements conducted, usually during active conflict, to gain military advantage against an adversary - namely, via the disruption or destruction of an opponent's command and control, logistics, or movement capabilities - or to enhance one's own force structure, via the acquisition of additional (sometimes reluctant) manpower and/or resources; and
• Coercive - the class of events in which (real or threatened) outflows are used, as a foreign policy tool, to induce (or prevent) changes in political behavior and/or to extract side-payments from the target(s); coercive use includes the propagandistic use of outflows (which are often generated by others) for their own benefit.

While there were some interesting examples, generally, the taxonomy is too vague and then the number of examples which you can move around is even worse. This inexorably leads to a very small, limited and disappointing set of public policy recommendations and discussion.

TY - JOUR
JO - Civil Wars
PB - Routledge
AU - Greenhill, Kelly M.
TI - Strategic Engineered Migration as a Weapon of War
SN - 1369-8249
PY - 2008
VL - 10
IS - 1
SP - 6
EP - 21
UR - http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/13698240701835425

Abstract

In recent years, it has been widely argued that a new and different armament - i.e., the refugee as weapon - has entered the world's arsenals. But just how new and different is this weapon? Can it only be used in wartime? And just how successful has been its exploitation? Using a combination of statistical data and case study analysis, this article tackles these questions and provides a detailed examination of the instrumental manipulation of population movements as political and military weapons of war. In addition to 'mapping the terrain' of the issue by providing a comprehensive typology of the most common means by - and desired ends for - which displaced persons have been used as political and military weapons since the end of the Cold War, the author also provides a portrait of the identities of the kinds of actors most likely to engage in this kind of exploitation. She also proposes an explanation for what motivates them to resort - and apparently increasingly so - to the use of this unconventional policy tool, despite the reputational and potential retributive costs of doing so.

Technorati Tags: Refugees,Emigration,Immigration,Genocide

Biggest brain drain from UK in 50 years

This is worrisome but not that much. Labour movement is fine as long as the reverse also happens. If you lose a doctor to New Zealand but can gain a doctor from Argentina, then assuming that the skills are fungible and a commodity, that should be fine. And at that high level of analysis, it is. I quote:

Britain is experiencing the worst "brain drain" of any country as highly qualified professionals settle abroad, an authoritative international study showed yesterday.
There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers.
No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.
Prof David Coleman, of St John's, Oxford, said the brain drain was "to do with quality of life, laws and bureaucracy, tax and all the rest of it".

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Jewish Heritage in India

I found this to be very interesting, and thanks to Aditi Bhadhuri who sent it into me! :). Some quotes:

Next to Hinduism, Judaism or Jewish religion claims the oldest history in India, as, per traditions, the first Jewish immigrants to India landed in Kodungaloor- Kerala 2000 years ago, fleeing from the second burning of the Jewish shrines in Palestine by the Romans. The third-century Bishop of Caesaria, Eusebius, writes of an Aramaic copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew which had been seen in India a hundred years before him!. The earliest settlements may even have dated from King Solomon's time, since such luxury items as ivory, peacocks and linen were imported from India during his reign.It was only in India, that the Jews, otherwise persecuted all over the world, lived for millennia in freedom and dignity, bathed in the affection of their Hindu brethren. India was the most hospitable of homes, to the Jewish nation from six distinct communities who fled to India: the ancient Cochin Jews from Palestine,, the once-forgotten Bene Israel settled in Maharashtra for the last 2000 years, Persian speaking Jews from Afghanistan and Iran who were the courtiers of the Mughal Empire, Portuguese Marranos from the Portugal of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,, the commercially and industrially prominent Baghdadis from Baghdad, the scattered Ashkenazim( refugees from Nazi Germany), and today's tribal Jews of the far northeast, whom Israel has accepted in 1995 as a Lost tribe of Israel, dating from 800 B.C.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!

Zimbabwe judge bemoans exodus

More proof is you still need it that people are voting with their feet on the great paradise republic of Zimbabwe. I quote:

HARARE - Zimbabwe’s most senior judge has bemoaned a mounting backlog of untried cases because of a staff exodus, saying the high court in Harare now only had one stenographer to keep records of proceedings.

Makarau said the delivery of justice was further hampered by a shortage of court transcribers with only one serving the high court in Harare and a second in the main southern city of Bulawayo.

She cited a case where a judge was at a loss what to do with a man accused of killing his brother after a drunken brawl.

During the the lengthy time the man was on bail awaiting trial, he assumed responsibility for his deceased’s brother’s family and fathered two additional children with the widow.

"How does society expect us to respond in such circumstances where the delay is in the system and no particular officer or office is to blame?" Makarau asked.

This is a warning, when the legal system breaks down, the society and country will break down as well!

Technorati Tags: ZImbabwe,Legal System

Increase emigration by paying people to leave?

Now this is very interesting indeed. If you are seeing people leave a region/state/country, then you might as well as pay them to leave completely. Makes economic sense, because provision of services, infrastructure, etc. becomes progressively more and more expensive as there are lesser and lesser people to fund them. So? the proposal is to empty out the place and convert the place into a forest! Makes very good sense indeed.

See here for an example in Germany.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - October 2, 2007, 12:33 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,509043,00.html
LOCAL FURY AT CONTROVERSIAL PROPOSAL
Cash Offer to Speed Up Eastern German Exodus
By Marie Preuss
Not everyone is celebrating German Unity Day, Oct. 3, the anniversary of reunification in 1990. Migration has left large parts of the east deserted and crumbling. A study proposes speeding up the process in worst-hit areas by paying the remaining population to leave.
People have been leaving eastern Germany in droves since reunification.
DPA
People have been leaving eastern Germany in droves since reunification.
As long as he lives, Horst Müller, 74, won't leave his home in the village of Letschin in the eastern German state of Brandenburg which surrounds Berlin. "They'll have to carry me out of here feetfirst," says the farmer who has been living in his large house for almost 40 years with "the wife," two sheep, cats, chickens and two horses.
If the Berlin Institute for Population and Development had its way, the Müllers would soon be moving out. And they'd be paid to go. The institute was commissioned by the regional parliament of Brandenburg to conduct a study on demographic change in the eastern state, and has come up with the idea of paying citizens to move away from the most deserted areas and thereby establish some sort of control over the alarming rate of depopulation that has struck the region since reunification 17 years ago sparked an economic upheaval.
Ever more schools are being closed down; housing estates and villages are becoming deserted. The study estimates that by 2030 a third of Brandenburg's population will be older than 65. That figure already stands at 20 percent. By 2030, some 470,000 will have moved out of the state compared with 2004, to jobs in the west of Germany or in more prosperous parts of the east. The region's infrastructure is already crumbling. In many areas the sewage system has fallen into chronic disrepair and there aren't enough doctors to provide emergency medical care.
A total of 173 positions for general practitioners are vacant. By 2030, many rural communities won't have a doctor, the institute warns.
Transformation into a Wilderness
It proposes massive investment in the education system and in old people's homes and to turn thinly populated areas back into a scenic wilderness. One day, wolves and foxes should prowl where Müller spent his life breeding geese, growing asparagus and planting pumpkins.
PHOTO GALLERY: MIGRATION LEAVES EASTERN GERMANY DESERTED
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Click on a picture to launch the image gallery (5 Photos)
Not surprisingly, the study has sparked controversy. "It's relatively gaga that the government should presume to take such decisions affecting people's quality of life" said Peter Hettlich, a member of the federal parliament for the opposition Green Party. Old people had a right to live out their days where they grew up, he said.
All the government has to do is make clear to them that they can't expect big-city standards of medical care if they live 30 kilometers from the nearest doctor, said Hettlich.
The emigration is hitting Letschin hard. By 2020, its population will have shrunk to 3,000 from today's 4,800, says Mayor Michael Böttcher. "At least we've still got a school though," he added, staring out of his office window at horses grazing in a paddock.
Between 1994 and 2003 a total of 149 primary schools were closed in Brandenburg, almost a quarter of the total. As a result, the commute to the nearest school is getting longer and longer.
'Like Being Driven Out of Paradise'
But Böttcher dismisses the proposed emigration premium as "forced resettlement." He said the thought of leaving his home region fills him with "inner pain." "It's like being driven out of paradise," he said clutching his chest.
Ten kilometers down the road, in the village of Gusow, baker Edeltraut Studier, 47, shares the mayor's view but is a little less emotional about it. "It's no better in the west," she says arranging plum cakes and strawberry tarts in her shop window. She has been running the bakery for the last 20 years and wants to keep on doing so for the next 20.
In Gusow, renovated homes stand alongside crumbling ruins. "There used to be great parties in the festival hall at the end of the street," she reminisced. These days the building is falling into ruin, its windows smashed and its walls daubed with Nazi swastikas.
The idea of actively depopulating large swathes of eastern Germany is meeting with stiff resistance among local people. The Berlin Institute study's assessment that agricultural areas were lying fallow is "total nonsense," said Mayor Böttcher. "I think we'll be able to manage without subsidies in 15 years' time," he said, adding that rapeseed oil cultivation could lead to an economic revival of the region.
But Berlin Institute Director Reiner Klingholz is adamant that the region is in steady decline. Moose have begun wandering around rural parts of eastern Germany, he says. Andreas Weber, one of the authors of the study, said at least 9 percent of farmland has been taken out of agricultural production with the help of EU subsidies.
Back in Letschin, Horst Müller's sheep are bleating and his black cat Morle is rubbing against his leg. "Is there anything more beautiful?" He gets up to gather up the grass he has just mown. Then it will be time for coffee. "I've already done enough in my life," he says, and walks into his garden.

Technorati Tags: Germany , Emigration , Subsidies

The Indian Diaspora is coming into its own

In 2003, my Hindustan Times editor asked me to write about the growing importance of the Indian Diaspora when the first Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Overseas Indian Day) was held. My finding at that time was the concept of the Indian diaspora was not really established as strongly as we have evidence and research on say the Irish diaspora, the Jewish diaspora, the Armenian diaspora, etc.

As it so happens, wikipedia does not even have an entry for Indian diaspora. This is more because of the fact that the country is relatively new and other identify characteristics such as Hinduism, Buddhism never made such a big link with the home nation versus the diaspora. Diaspora Indians are called as Non Resident Indians.

For a long period of time, these NRI's were considered to be almost as traitors, who abandoned the mother country while they took off to pastures anew for filthy lucre. A very simplistic view because Indians have been emigrating for donkey's years and there have been diaspora populations in countries ranging from Guyana to Fiji, Russia to Australia.

Be that as it may, given the changes in economic direction, when profit and earnings are no longer swear words, and better communications, the link between the Indian diaspora and the mother country is very strong. The Pravasi Bhartiya Divas is an attempt to turn the tide and recognise the benefits of the Indian diaspora to India.

One of the aspects that was kicked off at the first occasion was to announce and then allow dual citizenships. Previously, India did not allow dual citizenships but now given this political change, it has meant that the political factors in India are now impacting the diaspora and vice versa. There are strong political links between the large populations in the Caribbean, USA, UK, etc. and India. And given the stonkingly great growth in India, everybody wants to pile on top of this bludgeoning relationship.

A recent research paper in Political Geography addresses some facets of this fascinating area. I quote some bits from the conclusion:

The empirical case-study presented a content analysis of the discourses surrounding recent changes to India's package of dual citizenship provisions. Set against the international trend (at least, pre-9/11) toward a proliferation in dual citizenship arrangements between countries, India's 2003 Dual Citizenship (Amendment) Bill signalled a change in conditions of membership, if not rights of membership. Reading India's changing dual citizenship legislation alongside background briefing reports, political speeches, and the discourse surrounding a new annual festival, we examined the basis on which parts of the overseas population are constructed as insiders, and other parts as outsiders, and traced the structure of diaspora membership to India's engagement with colonial and post-independence times and spaces. Membership revolved around professional success through participation in global networks that connect to India, the adoption of an ecumenical Hinduism, and an embrace of multicultural incorporation. Underpinning these constructs is independence and partition as key historical moments. Pre-independence emigrants are seen as temporally distant, belonging to the ‘old’ India of British subjugation. In contrast, post-independence emigrants are seen as part of the ‘new’ India, defined by their emigration for independent economic aspirations and their ability to negotiate cultural practises in de-territorialized networks.

The more general conclusion is that the current criteria defining the ‘ideal’ NRI can be seen as a reflection of how India wants to be perceived in the world: the past is re-imagined to affirm a desired future. Overall, the discourses of diasporic membership amplify the contradictions of, and tensions between cultural nationalism and religious nationalism that pervade ongoing debates about Indianness. While our focus has been on how the Indian state constructs membership in a diaspora, we have not considered how these meanings are received, resisted, and modified by communities and power structures utilising tropes of gender, religion and ethnicity (see for example, Das Gupta, 1997), nor have we examined in depth the role of private (business) actors in circulating discourses of diaspora (for example, FICCI). Here, the growth of transnational private spheres will have significant impacts upon what forms of diaspora are possible for states and overseas populations, and the social fields they seek to re-imagine. For Corbridge and Harriss (2000), the convergence of interests of the state and private sector in any “consensual” version of nation is undermined both by political decentralisation and neoliberalism. Further work might examine the intersections between these actors, noting the role of generational transmission of values and (extended) family contexts, for example. While adding the example of South Africa to the literature on state led diasporas, we recognise the value in exploring how the contingencies of other cases – including Eastern Africa, Fiji, and Malaysia – will shed further light on how experiences of migration, return migration, and colonialism have intersected in different ways.

 

Jen Dickinson and Adrian J. Bailey, (Re)membering diaspora: Uneven geographies of Indian dual citizenship, Political Geography, Volume 26, Issue 7, September 2007, Pages 757-774.
Abstract: Although the concept of diaspora is sometimes regarded as oppositional to the interests of existing political regimes, we argue that it can become a site where the negotiation of new terms of membership embraces the transnational and de-territorialized networks of overseas populations. Drawing on work on transnational governance, we explore the uneven geographies that accompany India's recent discussions of its dual citizenship provisions. Constructions of diaspora membership are revealed by mapping the discourses contained within the Dual Citizenship legislation of 2003, the 2003 Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (Overseas India Day) campaign, and the 2001 report of the Diaspora Committee onto the case of South Africa. The results suggest that the construction of diaspora membership focuses on professional success, ecumenical Hinduism, and multicultural incorporation. We also trace how diaspora membership betrays a continuing anxiety over the terms of Indianness. The results remind us that diasporic times and spaces mediate transnational governance.
Keywords: Diaspora; Transnationalism; Citizenship; State; South Africa; India; Governmentality; Membership

Technorati Tags: India , Emigration , Diaspora