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By Root 1786 0

that even where objectionable practices by these minorities can be identified, they in no way justify or excuse the kinds of violence and human rights abuses often inflicted on them. On the other hand, it is unfortunately often the case outside the West that some members of market-dominant minorities engage in practices—such as bribery, discriminatory lending practices, and violation of workplace regulations—that not only are illegal or otherwise objectionable in themselves, but also reinforce invidious ethnic stereotypes. Although there is no guarantee that eliminating these practices would improve ethnic relations, it seems important nonetheless, given the special dangers associated with market-dominant minorities, to identify such practices and take measures to curb them as much as possible.

Corrupt relations between members of the indigenous ruling elite and members of market-dominant minorities have a long history in the developing world and invariably fuel bitter resentment among the indigenous majority. In Indonesia, for example, the intense anti-Chinese violence that erupted in May 1998 was inseparable from the association of a few Chinese magnates, such as Liem Sioe Liong and Bob Hasan, with the Suharto regime’s “crony capitalism.” As is sadly often the case, vicious popular reaction unleashed itself not on the relatively few wealthy Chinese who were actually complicit—and who used their wealth to go into hiding abroad—but rather on ordinary, struggling, middle-class Chinese Indonesians, whose shops were burned and looted.

Similarly, in post-Communist Russia, the symbiotic relationship between President Yeltsin and a tiny handful of ruthless Jewish entrepreneurs galvanized the deep anti-Semitism latent in Russian society; honest, middle-class Russian Jews pay the highest price, often in the form of violence and desecration. In Kenya, the corrupt cronyism between President Moi and a few Indian tycoons has fueled massive resentment of Kenya’s Indian community generally, who are the regular objects of ethnic brutality and looting.

But it is not only the wealthiest members of market-dominant minorities who engage in illicit practices; the problem is often more general. Throughout Southeast Asia many Chinese-controlled firms routinely violate tax laws, banking and lending laws, and laws concerning overtime regulations and worker safety. Even more disturbing in Southeast Asia is the common practice among Chinese businessmen, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, of importing tens if not hundreds of thousands of illegal workers from mainland China. As is true even in the United States, local workers fume when illegal immigrants take over jobs at lower wages.

33 Indeed, in Indonesia, where roughly 6 million working-age Indonesians (almost all pribumi) were unemployed in 1996, the violent protest that erupted when a Chinese conglomerate imported a thousand illegal workers from China seems understandable.

34

Similarly, allegations that market-dominant Western investors expose local workers to hazardous and exploitative conditions are all too familiar. In 1995–96, writes Naomi Klein in No Logo,

the Gap’s freshly scrubbed facade was further exfoliated to reveal a lawless factory in El Salvador where the manager responded to a union drive by firing 150 people and vowing that “blood will flow” if organizing continued. In May 1996, U.S. labor activists discovered that chat-show host Kathie Lee Gifford’s eponymous line of sportswear (sold exclusively at Wal-Mart) was being stitched by a ghastly combination of child laborers in Honduras and illegal sweatshop workers in New York.

In June 1996, Life magazine created more waves with photographs of Pakistani kids—looking shockingly young and paid as little as six cents an hour—hunched over soccer balls that bore the unmistakable Nike swoosh. But it wasn’t just Nike. Adidas, Reebok, Umbro, Mitre and Brine were all manufacturing balls in Pakistan where an estimated 10,000 children worked in the industry, many of them sold as indentured slave laborers