SHEER NUMBERS I find many people who insist that the number of races, castes, groups are the main cause of the disunities and violence we meet with in daily news events.
There are some among us who argue that such mutiplicity is, the primary area for change if we are to build. Far too often this comes down to plans to:"throw the rascals out!"
We should know, by this time, that such a cure is hopelessly wrong. It still happens, however, and millions of people die or experience severely debased lives because of such a narrow-minded concepts.
Spend a few minutes reading the twelve page listing of worldwide "Ethnic Groups" in the "CIA World Factbook" to dispel a lot of such faulty thinking.Their statisics are, I think, you may agree, about as near truth as we are likly to find anywhere today. In those few minutes spent reading such tallies you will find there are far more divisons in some nations than you might have supposed and yet they are considered be among the more peaceable ones.
You will find the Africa nation of Chad to be among the most complex. Chad has about two hundered different ethnic . Among the long list the term "Arab" would be familiar to most of us and there are about one thousand Frenchmen living in Chad, as well. Others have a strange assortment of names and many of them sport sub-headings of small family division mainly in the northern and central areas.
Afghanistan shows: 42% Pashtun, Tajik 27%. three others at 9% and two more at 4% or less. Iraq: Arab 75-80%, Kurdish 15-20%, Turkoman , Assyrians and others at 5%. North Korea - racially homogeneous, small Chinese community and a few Japanese. South Korea": homogeneous except for 20,000 Chinese. Lebanon: Arab 95%, Armenian 4%, Others 1%.
Nigeria is another nation with a large number of ethnic groups - two hunded an fifty - and it is true that most numerous divisions have voting capabilties which can be critical. Most are said to be politically
influential. Hausa and Fulani 29%; Yoruba 21%; Igo (Ibo) 18%; Ijawq 10%; Kanuri 4%; Ibibio 3.5 and Tiv 2.5%. I'm always concerned with affairs there because of a connection I had a mail friendship with a young Nigerian lad who was "pushing camera" at a TV station there while I was writing commecials for one here. He was an "IBO" but he lived and worked in a "Hausa" area. We had an interesting exchange going, but after a time of "political unrest" in Nigeria came along and I never again had any word from O. O. Odunrow.
Andew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 11-18-06 [c450wds]
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