"Chin-Dians etc."

[Guest guest]

Sreekishen nair

 

 

Okay, there is nothing wrong with having pride in your race... fine

and dandy, but you must understand that the idea of a prisitne racial

or genetic makeup is an illusion, and has never existed as a reality

before. You see "Chin-Dians" as a new phenomenon, i can assure you it

is not. China and India have had a VERY long history together, and it

would be gullible to assume that no interethnic mixing had occured

during those thousands of years of cultural interaction. There are

Chinese paintings of the Tamil Buddhist guru Da Mo (a.k.a.

Bodhidharma, who migrated to China somewhere around 400-500 AD)

laying in the arms of a Chinese mistress (apparently celibacy was not

a priority for his order of monks)... now do you think that he

was "breaking gods laws" by sleeping with a Chinese lady? Humans have

been mixing for all sorts of reasons all throughout human history. If

you were to follow the history of your own heritage faithfully and

without bias, you would find hardly the endogamous situation which

keeps the pack to itself. Culture and race are concepts, and the

definition of these concepts have changed througout time. Your

ancestors probably mixed with a lot of different people who would

have been considered "foreign" in their own day and age, even if you

or i would not say they are now with our own view of ethnicity. That

is human nature, that is cultural nature. One cannot try to mystify

ones genetic makeup by blaming it on god, as if it were set in place

at the begining of time and remained unchangable from that point on.

Has god determined "race"? And has he set the parameters for it that

you apparently see as an abomination in crossing? I'm sorry my

friend, we are all mongrels, we always have been, we only try to

convince ourselves otherwise to compensate for some vacuuous sense of

identity which we try to fulfill (i mean all humans here, not just

Indians, particularly those obsessing over race and insisting on its

pristine nature). I have great pride in my Indian heritage, but

having pride in it also means admitting the truth about it, and not

lying to oneself about what ones heritage is. Some of those truths

may be rather unpalatable (Nairs were very cruel landlords... i have

no pride in this, but i know it is true, and accept it, however

regretably, as part of my heritage). Having pride, real pride, means

understanding how wide-spanning any heritage can be. Let me give an

example, if you look at elitist art in many cultures, you will find

several portraits of interethnic mixing. Certain Tibetan kings were

of the persuasion to take two wives in a specific interethnic

pattern, one from the far East (China) and the other from the

Southern parts of India. There is no short supply of representations

of these royal families in Tibetan art. Why was is important for a

Tibetan King to have a Chinese wife and a South Indian wife? I dont

know,... maybe trade or alliances had something to do with it. But

all the same, the Tibetan king had wives of different ethnicities and

he slept with these wives, had children by them and these children

became rulers after him. So its not new, ethnic mixing, its very

human to do so.

Although Modern South India might be viewed as a homogenous society

(which is a false view if you ask me), we know that in the ancient

world, Tamil Country was quite diversified and cosmopolitan. If you

really believe that all those different cultures could exist side by

side with no ethnic crossing, you would be fooling yourself. I have

even known contemporary situations in my fathers village where

Brahmins and Dalits have had affairs and children by these affairs

(and remember, the Indian perspective sees these two castes as

distinct races and unaccesable to one another). Will you call these

children "Mongrels" or see them as a trashing of "gods genetic

blueprint"? I'm sorry my friend, i respect your opinion and will not

try to convince you otherwise. But i can assure you that heritage and

genetics are not set in stone... It is in the nature of genes to

mix... thats how people and things reproduce. Apparently god doesnt

have a problem with it since he doesnt prevent racial mixing from

occuring... some humans have a problem with it, and may even try to

prevent it, and usually these humans blame god for their own lack of

understanding.

 

 

Also, one more thing,

As to the "insanity" of ethnic mixing or the "race"

being "diluted"... well, people arent like paints... you cant mix

them together and have a "diluted" race. Genes fit together in a very

different way... thats just biology.

Also, i think there is much more to be concerned about with respect

towards globalization as far as "insanity" goes than ethnic mixing,

which i dont see as a problem at all. The things about globalization

that scare me and several others are its neo-colonial aspects:

exploitation of the poor, military dictatorships that ensure that

those most exploited remain content with their lot, war... i think

these matters are much more insane than Indians and Chinese happily

sleeping with each other and having babies (which again, is not a new

phenomenon).

Consider how many great cultures were set up on a cosmopolitan inter-

ethnic base. Hellenic culture involved influences (both cultural and

genetic) from different parts of Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

Ibero-Celtic culture had a wide span covering the lands from

northwestern Europe, down through Spain and through northwestern

Africa. Moorish culture in Spain was likewise multiethnic. The Inca

empire was entirely cosmopolitan and Inca emporers frequently took

wives from subjected Kingdoms of entirely diffrent ethnicities... the

Inca state-religion, in fact, involved bringing the gods from the

disparate parts of South America that were either under Inca rule or

in some form of contact with the Inca, and establishing shrines for

these gods in the Coricancha. Multiculturalism is not a new or bad

thing. It is something that people do in whatever situation and for a

variety of reasons. Even our own Goddess at Madurai mixes cultures,

at least on the mythical level. While she is a Tamil goddess

intimately associated with her home city, her husband comes from a

place far to the North, where people speak a different language,

dress differently, have different habits etc... Now its just a myth,

and Shiva was probably worshipped in South India before the

establishment of the legends of Madurai, nevertheless, we do have in

our own heritage a story which talks about interethnic mixing (i dont

think the ancient world saw India as one nation as we do today). We

know that southern kings saw northern kings in an antagonistic manner

and vice-cersa,... there is no short supply of historical and

mythical threats from kings in certain parts of India condeming the

kings of "low races" or "barbaric peoples" in another. The South and

the North had such tensions and continue to have them (at least from

what i can tell in this forum about North-South relations in India).

So for all that, North India was seen as a foreign land by ancient

Tamils. Yet we have a goddess, and a very popular one at that, who is

distinctly tamil, yet whose own Sthalapurana bespeaks of her marriage

to a deity from the far north... i.e. a foreign country.