Multiculturalism, and thoughts on Nepali-Burmese.

[Note from 10-25-09: For some reason, this site gets a great deal of hits. Which is kind of a shame as it really is not indicative of most of the things I post on this site. Nothing quite makes your day like finding yourself in the middle of other people's family problems and discovering that you've been helping people who are making the lives of others miserable and lying to you at the same time. I've considered taking it down, but it sort of connects different threads and makes the blog hang together. Oh well. I hope people will take time to check out other, more deeply thought out blogs after they finish with this one.]

I'm feeling burned out at the moment. Classic case of having spent a great deal of time helping some people who, in hindsight, were not very nice people as well as finding myself involved in a domestic violence situation, something that also leaves me drained. And, yes, the two incidents are linked. Alas!

Which brings me to several asides.

First, to borrow a distinction that I first heard made by the esteemed philosopher, Marc "Animal" MacYoung, I am not a racist, I am, instead, a culturalist. In other words, I believe all races are equal, but, quite frankly, some cultures are much better than others, particularly when removed from their original environment. Those who believe that all cultures are equally good at all things, either are trying to achieve nothing or else they just don't get the very idea of what multi-culturalism means. Multi-culturalism means that different cultures do things in different ways and if you think that every possible way of doing something is just as good as any other then, well, let's just say I don't want you to be trying to fix my car's brakes or doing anything else that could possibly be important.

Which brings me to the topic of the Nepali-Burmese, the so-called "Ghorkakali" people as they are referred to in Burmese. Sometime ago, the British took over Burma and soon began using persons from South Asia to better exploit and utilize this new territory. Although not numerically significant, these included Nepalis although it is important to note that a sizeable portion of Nepalis live outside of Nepal spread throughout India, Bhutan and elsewhere. One purpose in bringing South Asians to Burma was to establish a capitalist framework in this pre-capitalist nation in the nineteenth century (Chinese were also used for this purpose.)

At this time there are a small number of Nepali-Burmese in the Capital District. (I count nine adults but have only met eight of them. The ninth one seems to have opted to keep to herself for reasons that will probably become clear shortly. Of course, there may be more.) Now out of these eight adults we have allegations of three counts of serious tax fraud, two confirmed cases of domestic violence, three people who have driven regularly without a license after failing their road test, multiple cases of working off the books while receiving as many benefits as possible, one guy who thinks it's cool to walk up to women at the bus stop and tell them how big his penis is, and multiple cases of child neglect such as leaving small children unattended, not to mention the guy who claims to be a marathon runner and yet who has never ever been seen jogging much less running. Quite frankly, this is quite a record for eight people.

People sometimes ask if when I help out refugees if they take advantage of me. So far, the only people who I feel have done this are Nepali-Burmese.

But then again, eight people is not much of a sample to generalize from and it's just possible that they are merely eight dysfunctional people. In any case, my opinion is that it's probably best to leave them alone, should one meet them.

Which brings me to the topic of domestic violence. As near as I can figure out, Nepali-Burmese consider it completely appropriate to verbally and physically abuse one's wife. At least when confronted or even arrested over this they act confused and cannot understand why anyone is objecting. They also seem to consider anyone they are lucky enough to get pregnant as their wife and do not seem to realize that in most decent societies it is expected that should one get a woman pregnant you will help take care of her instead of just stealing her money and mooching off of her like some sort of low-aspiration pimp.

Fortunately, all of the Nepali-Burmese in this area are small and wimpy and most American women could easily beat them up so the only people who need worry about this fact are those women pathetic enough to date Nepali-Burmese, in other words, other Nepali-Burmese.

Q: "Hey! What do you call a dozen Nepali-Burmese running down a hill?"

A: "A mud-slide."