Ethnicity in Lesotho 2/17/2008

While eating my extremely unhealthy but delicious “Hungry Lion” chips yesterday I had the opportunity to do some people watching along Maseru’s central road, the Kingsway. Maseru is much more ethnically heterogeneous than I had expected. Watch the flow of people for any length of time and you will see a dash of white faces (generally doctors, missionaries, or others involved in the aid/development sector), a healthy population of Indians (some by way of South Africa and some directly from India), and few Middle Easterners. The largest immigrant ethnic group, however, is the Chinese. Originally coming over to manage the textile mills that are the largest non-governmental employers in the country (thank you Clinton administration), Chinese immigrants have expanded into mercantile businesses large and small throughout the country. Now it is not uncommon to see small Chinese-run businesses in even the smaller villages. This steady stream of immigrants has not been greeted with completely open arms. While everyone seems to agree that the Chinese have succeeded based upon hard work, the fact that they have effectively monopolized a very important non-governmental economic niche and have some non-integrationist practices has produced feelings of resentment. I am reminded in many ways of the success (and the hostility) that greeted Korean merchants in Southern California in the 1990s.

On a slightly different note, you cannot have a conversation involving China here without someone bringing up the widely held belief that China and the U.S. are currently in a struggle for the soul of Africa and that China is winning. My cab drivers are a particularly avid source of this brand of real politicks, only too willing to share their view that the flow of Chinese-government aided immigration, the aggressive acquisition of mineral rights throughout the continent, and selected aid programs are all part of a comprehensive Chinese plan to effectively control Africa’s resource base in the 21st century. Without making any potentially inflammatory comments about my thoughts on that line of reasoning, it is very interesting that people who are generally focused on merely making enough money to get by have such a depth of interest and knowledge about that particular area of international politics.