Dominant minority
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
"The concept of Minority and "becoming-minor" was developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus (1980) and Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature (1986). In these texts, they critique the concept of "majority" as based on a form of domination that works by naturalizing a purely numerical conception. They argue therefore, that the concept of a "dominant minority" is an oxymoron, because the term "majority" always refers to those who are in a position of dominance. To be "minor" then, is to be subjected to social and political domination, or to be a member of a subordinated group, as in Arthur Rimbaud's poem, "Bad Blood", in Une Saison en Enfer. For Deleuze and Guattari, "becoming-minoritarian" is primarily an ethical action, one of the becomings one is affected by when avoiding "becoming-fascist". They argued further that the concept of a "people", when invoked by subordinate groups or those aligned with them, always refers to a minority, whatever its numerical power might be. This has inspired some political philosophers, such as Paul Patton and William Connolly, to elaborate on the concept of "becoming-minoritarian" in order to apply it to modern democratic thought." --Sholem Stein |
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A dominant minority is a minority group that has overwhelming political, economic, or cultural dominance in a country, despite representing a small fraction of the overall population (a demographic minority). Dominant minorities are also known as alien elites if they are recent immigrants.
The term is most commonly used to refer to an ethnic group which is defined along racial, national, religious or cultural lines and that holds a disproportionate amount of power. A notable example is South Africa during the apartheid regime, where White South Africans – or Afrikaners more specifically – wielded predominant control of the country, despite never composing more than 22% of the population. African American-descended nationals in Liberia, Sunni Arabs in Ba'athist Iraq, the Alawite minority in Syria (since 1970 under the rule of the Alawite Assad family), and the Tutsi in Rwanda since the 1990s have also been cited as current or recent examples.
Examples
Current:
- Alawites in Syria
- Croats in Bosnia
- Muhajirs in Pakistan
- Khatri Hindus and Sikhs in the Indian Punjab that migrated from the Pakistani Punjab after the latter became a territory of Pakistan following the Partition of India
- Sunni Muslims in Bahrain
- Ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia (in several countries, this group makes up 15% or less of the population while owning over 60% of the economy of such countries)
- Indians in Madagascar (Despite making up less than 1% of the population, by 2000 they controlled between 50% to 60% of the economy.)
- Tigrayans in Ethiopia since 1991
Historical:
- Arab Sudanese in (pre-independence) South Sudan
- Afro-Guyanese in Guyana
- Ahom Tribe in erstwhile Ahom Kingdom now modern-day Assam, India
- Americo-Liberians in Liberia
- Anglo-Quebecers in Quebec prior and up until the Quiet Revolution
- Anglo-Burmese, Burmese Indians, Chinese Burmese and Burmese Christians in British Burma (modern-day Myanmar)
- Arabs in the Zanzibar Sultanate
- Austrians in the Austrian Empire
- Austrians and Hungarians in Austria-Hungary
- Azerbaijanis in the Safavid Iran
- Caldoches in New Caledonia
- Catholics in South Vietnam
- Ethnic Chinese in Bắc thuộc Vietnam
- Chagatai in the Mughal Empire, India
- Hindu Dogras in the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir from early 19th to 20th century.
- Dutch and Indo peopleTemplate:Citation needed in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia)
- French Lusignans in medieval Cyprus
- Baltic Germans in modern Estonia and Latvia during the crusader state era, subsequent local German states, Swedish rule in Estonia and later the Russian Empire
- Greeks in the Alexandrian Empire
- Greeks in Ptolemaic Egypt
- Greeks in the Seleucid Empire
- Greeks in the Byzantine Empire
- Hungarians in Transylvania
- Various Muslim dynasties of Turkic and Turco-Mongol origin in different parts of Medieval India, who were alien elites of foreign origin.
- Various Turkic dynasties in Medieval Iran
- Japanese in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule
- Japanese in Korea during Japanese colonial rule
- Japanese in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo
- Krios in Sierra Leone
- Mainland Chinese in Taiwan (Republic of China) during the martial law period
- Manchurians in the Qing Dynasty, China
- Mongolians in the Yuan Dynasty, China
- Norman French in the Norman Dynasty of England
- Peninsulares in the New World, modern-day Mexico, Colombia, Philippines, Cuba, and other nations of the former Spanish Empire
- Phoenicians in Ancient Carthage
- Pieds-Noirs in French Algeria
- The Protestant Ascendancy in British-ruled Ireland
- Romans in the Roman Empire
- Ethnic Russians in the Baltic Soviet Republics
- Scots-speaking Lowlanders in Scotland prior to the Highland Clearances
- Serbian people in Kosovo after the break-up of Socialist Yugoslavia
- Sikhs in Muslim-majority Punjab in the late 18th and 19th century.
- Sudanese Arabs in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (modern-day Sudan and South Sudan)
- Arab Sunni Muslims in Saddam Hussein-era Iraq
- Swedes in the Swedish Empire
- Swedes in Finland during the Swedish rule and Russian Grand Duchy period
- Turks in the Ottoman Empire
- Sri Lankan Tamils in British Ceylon
- French speakers in Belgium before World War II
See also
- Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
- Deep state
- Middleman minority
- Minoritarianism
- Model minority
- Neocolonialism
- World on Fire, a book that introduces the concept of "market-dominant minority"
- We are the 99%
- Zionist occupied government