Forum for Western Professionals
Discussion of "Asian", Ali Jabarin and misleading information [#11413]
This page defines its members as "non-Asian players that have received professional ranks from Asian (or non-Asian) professional go associations".
This is, no doubt, due to the apparent American taboo on the word "Oriental", which is the appropriate term.
The page also expresses the widespread unspoken pretence that Israel is a European country. Israel is neither wholly nor partially in Europe. It is entirely in Western Asia. Israeli players, even if affiliated to the European Go Federation, are Asians, as much as the Kazakhstanis who are also with the EGF. That's a simple fact. They are neither Orientals / East Asians nor Europeans.
I find the identification of Israelis as "Westerners" to also be fallacious, given that the people of their neighbouring countries are not considered to be. Are the Westerners in this case the non-Muslims? In this case, are we to consider majority Christian Ethiopia a Western country as well? But this is a matter for another time.
It is incorrect to include Ali Jabarin in a list claiming to be of "non-Asian players", since he is Asian. The group exclusion referred to should be "non-Oriental", "non-East Asian" or, if we must, "non-CJK".
Also, in the same vein, to receive a rank from the Israeli Go Association is to receive it from an Asian Go association.
John F. I routinely ignore American PC usages, just as (though for somewhat different reasons) I ignore American spelling and other linguistic usages, and so often write "oriental" to mean CJK. As a Briton, I reserve Asian for people of mainly Indian and Pakistani heritage (as they do themselves). It is not that I consider the American versions wrong. It is that I am not steeped in American culture and, as a writer, I cannot imitate American idioms or usages accurately enough to stop me looking foolish, both to Americans and other Brits. I would be like a dog in a circus act, trying to walk on its hind legs. I feel justified in expecting Americans to understand my point of view. If they see something I write in go, they are very likely to see words like "centre" as well as "oriental" and so will realise I am probably British and so should make appropriate adjustments. After all, if they are making adjustments for people such as "native Americans," they should be making similar adjustments for Britons. Neither side is right or wrong here, but ne'er the twain shall meet. So if a compromise is available, that would be ideal. I think CJK could be an acceptable compromise, in a go context. (But I myself will continue to say oriental. Referring to great cultures with initials sounds too dismissive.) The situation with Israel is rather different. The modern uses of western, oriental and Asian are all based on both a geographical sense and a sense of "of western/oriental/Asian heritage". Given that, countries such as Australia and New Zealand routinely refer to themselves as western. Since Israel has a Jewish population with a very high percentage (around 80%?) of people of western heritage, through immigration, it will be no surprise if most people regard them as culturally western. A similar argument can be used of former Soviet satellites which are historically Asian but have, in modern times, been flooded with Russian settlers and western cultural ideas. Hence their appearance, along with Israel and Australia, in the Eurovision song contest. Ali Jabarin himself may or may not agree with being termed western in that sense. If he doesn't, my impression is that British people would still not refer to him as Asian. The likely term, I think, would be Middle-Eastern. The idea that Asia begins at Istanbul (as in the Orient Express) lingers on but now seems increasingly quaint (viz. Turkey's attempts to join the European Union). Unlike in go, answers cannot be stated in just black and white. I personally would not blink at seeing Ali described as non-Asian. I would recommend that usages here should all be based primarily on the heritage sense rather than the geographical usage, which I believe corresponds to implicitly agreed current usages worldwide. In the background, of course, there is a rather different debate involving political correctness. I recommend that slavish attempts to be PC or woke here should be resisted. Likewise, attempts to convert White in go into a permanent female should be resisted. This view is not based on politics. It is based on the law of unintended consequences. Calling a far-eastern person Asian can cause upset for British Asians. Calling Ali Jabarin Asian (with the implication of "not as western in outlook as us" may cause him upset. Referring to Iyama Yuta as "she" may upset him and his many fans. I might add, too, that Americans, including those of the PC variety, often ignore their obligation to follow CJK practice and to put oriental surnames first (as SL does but not all American go players do), as desired officially by said countries. This is a bit of a digression, but I include it to show that the tentacles of the law of unintended consequences can reach far and wide. Focusing on one belief or one sub-group of people easily leads to not seeing the bigger picture.
(Sorry but I can't work out how you get separate paragraphs in SL without the font changing itself.)
As I understand it from your comment, John, your objection to the American usage of the word "Asian" to refer to the people of a mere subsection (East Asia / the Far East / the Orient) of the actual continent of Asia is based on your attachment to the British usage of the same term to refer to a different subsection of the continent (South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), and a desire to balance the two usages.
I disagree with the practice in both cases, and advise that "Asian" correspond to the people, places, customs and things of the entire Asian continent, and only to it. In my opinion this is the most clear and least misleading style.
Again, to describe Ali Jabarin as a non-Asian person is false and misleading.
It also strikes me as odd to stress the "European heritage" of the Israeli people in reference to this, when the country's fundamental claim to legitimacy is based on its Asian (Levantine) cultural history. Its official language is an Asian (Semitic) language, Hebrew. Its currency is the shekel, an Asian unit. The matter of the genetic heritage of the Jewish people is not a topic anyone wishes to touch with a bargepole, but the origin of the country of Israel lies in the claim by Jews to a distinctly Asian cultural heritage.
This discussion is by the by, though, as despite the best arguments Israel cannot be moved to the west of the Bosphorus which, in spite of its "quaintness", continues to mark the division between Asia and Europe, maintaining Israel as an Asian country and its people, Ali included, as Asians.
I suggest again that using the word "Asia" or "Asian" to refer exclusively to any particular part of the real geographic continent is a) false b) misleading c) a barrier to effective communication between British and American English (as you yourself pointed out) and d) promotional of a distorted view of that part of the world.
(As for paragraphing, I have no issue. Make sure not to begin your paragraphs with a space.)
Ali Jabarin himself may or may not agree with being termed western
Perhaps someone should simply ask him whether he considers himself "Western" and / or, more relevantly, "Asian".
I suspect that he would identify himself as Western because that label is most favourable to his career, and non-Asian because of the dominance of the American usage which is centred on the Orient. It's easy to see, by analogy, why the older generation of Arabs tended to identify themselves as white in census data.
This opens another debate, of course, of whether or not one can "identify" one's way out of (or into) being Asian, to which I say that this is not possible.
First, I don't actually object to American usages. I, as a Brit, only object to being told what to do by them. "When in Rome" is fine by me.
Numerically, probably far more English speakers use Asian in the British sense than in the American sense, but whatever the actual figures, it is clear that very large proportions of people use one as opposed to the other. That is why a compromise is needed. The Oxford English Dictionary compromises simply by pointing out the difference. It says, "In Britain Asian is used to refer to people who come from (or whose parents came from) the Indian sub-continent, while in North America it is used to people to refer to people from the Far East." So we can see that actually NOBODY there uses it to refer to where Ali Jabarin comes from. As to the use of oriental, there is a large shopping centre near me in London, composed entirely of Japanese, Korean and Chinese shops run by CJK people. It calls itself the Oriental Centre. Similar examples abound, even in official usages. One minor and partial exception is that the Foreign Office uses Asian in the British way but tends to avoid both oriental and Far East in favour of South-east Asia, but for where Ali comes from the usual term is Middle East (i.e. Asia is never used for that). This is the admittedly messy but combined view of billions of people. It is not for one country (USA) or one person (on SL) to lay down the law on what to say. It is acceptable only for one country or one person to try to find a compromise and/or (as with the OED) remind others that differences exist. And, in doing so, it is important to remember that many people emphasise cultural rather than political aspects. I don't think many people regard purely geographical aspects as of everyday importance nowadays (just as we say America for USA, disregarding Central and South America and Canada). To summarise, I would call Ali a Middle-Eastern person, with the implication that he is very different from CJK people, and closer (culturally) to people like me. I personally also see Israel as part of the Middle East, but acknowledge that many also regard it as a satellite of the "west". I also count Australia as a western satellite. After all, the majority of people of all these "western" areas, Ali included, possibly even have more DNA in common with people in Europe and the USA than with CJK people. And let's not forget the debate as to whether Britain is in or out of Europe :). Trying to impose categories on people is a very slippery road, and is bound to offend someone somewhere.
IMO just change Asian to East Asian. Eurasia is one continent. One source says 'Europe is considered a separate continent from Asia because of its distinct historical, cultural, and political identity, rather than any clear geographical demarcation.' In a way the splitting of Eurasia into Europe and Asia is pretty Eurocentric. There's more diversity in Asia than in Europe, but it's like ok this 1/5th part of this continent is Europe the rest can be Asia. When we're talking about Asian professionals we're specifically talking about pros from China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan. East Asian vs non East Asian professional is specific enough.
Yeah, I agree that "Asian" is not typically the best term, even when it's being used to refer to the entirety of Asia.
I've spoken before elsewhere about how I think that, really, we should regard West Asia and East Asia as separate cultural continents, since they're much more distinct linguistically, religiously, and genetically than, say, North and South America (indigenous cultures aside). They divide fairly cleanly at the Himalayas, like how the Urals divide West Asia from Europe.
For East Asia, we have the terms
And within East Asia, we also have South East Asia / SEA (or the dated term Indochina). That area was also included in the older definition of the continent of Australasia, which includes Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, which are now more usually called Oceania.
For West Asia, the situation is not as tidy.
We have the term ![[ext]](images/extlink.gif)
"West(ern) Asia", of course, which is adequate.
There's also "the Indosphere" of "countries and regions in Asia that have been historically influenced by the culture of India", which parallels the Sinosphere.
As John says, the main term used today is "the Middle East", which in older times was more frequently called "the Near East".
The Arab and Muslim worlds occupy large areas of West Asia, but aren't synonymous with it even if India were to be excluded, for a start because they both cover a significant part of Africa.
Several big parts of West Asia have traditional names. There is "Anatolia", or peninsular Turkey, also called "Asia Minor" (although Wiktionary calls the two terms only "mostly coterminous").
To its east is "the Levant", which contains "the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea, namely Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan and Cyprus and, historically, sometimes also Turkey and Egypt".
"Persia" can conservatively mean just Iran, or even a region within it, but the Persian Empire covered much of non-Indic West Asia.
"Arabia" contains "Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates" in the Arabian Peninsula, and more broadly Iraq, Palestine and the Egyptian Sinai.
"Mesopotamia" covers "most of present-day Iraq and, historically, the head of the Persian Gulf and parts of present-day Iran, Syria, and Turkey".
There's also the "Caucasus, "Transcaucasus" or "Transcaucasia", which is "A mountain range... on territory of Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan", which straddles geographic Europe and Asia.
We also can't forget about the matter of "South Asia", "the countries of the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan) and the Indian Ocean (Sri Lanka, Maldives), and sometimes Afghanistan, Myanmar and even Iran", and of whether or not the reader will interpret "West Asia" as including or excluding this region.
I have favoured the term "Indoarabia" or "Indo-Arabia" for the broad definition of West Asia, but unless I publish a book I'm guessing it won't catch on any time soon :D "Occidohimalayan" is another idea, as pedantically clear as it is practically unwieldy. South Asia not proving to be a particular rich soil for Go right now, though (not South East Asia, remember) this issue is probably not going to be very important.
You could also have fun thinking about how to refer to Taiwan. Almost everyone in the west seems to just say Taiwan informally, but even in go events non-Chinese organisers have kowtowed to the mainlanders and used Chinese Taipei. Maybe we should go back to Formosa????
I can confirm that the Middle East is not "Asian." I can also confirm that East LA is "Asian."
The geopolitical minefield is rather impossible to navigate without stepping on someone's detonator. Already talking about Taiwan - as I will do - forces one into a political choice.
Let's look at the relevance of the information to help us here. This page exists due to the fact that professional Go has usually been reserved for Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese players, thanks to favorable conditions in those countries for Go to be monetized. There are exceptions: players from countries far away who have made it to professional in one of those countries, (mostly Japan, e.g. Michael Redmond), players who have become professional in those countries who have moved abroad permanently (Guo Juan) and more recently the home grown professionals in either EGF or elsewhere (e.g. Sebastian Frelak).
Ali Jabarin is a citizen from Israel. He's a member of the EGF. Whether he would identify as a Westerner or European in the cultural sense, indeed we would have to ask him. He's not Jewish, he's Arab, which might make a difference in geo-cultural identification but we don't know. It's irrelevant though for the goal of the page. We have his nationality (Israeli) and his affiliation (EGF) to allow for any relevant categorization.
We can flex ourselves and understand "European" as "affiliated to the EGF". This would not only make Ali a European but also Guo Juan, for example. It would likewise turn Michael Redmond into a Japanese. It's probably too big a stretch, although it's not too weird for me to talk about Michael Redmond as a Japanese professional. He would probably call himself by that token.
I thought I'd talk a bit more about the idea of cultural continents.
How can we define continents culturally? By their languages and religions (not to speak of race at this point).
This would be my division:
1. Anglo-America. The dominant language is English and the dominant religion is Protestantism.
2. Latin America / Ibero-America. The dominant languages are Spanish and Portuguese, and the dominant religion is Catholicism.
3. Western Europe. The dominant languages are Romance and Germanic languages, and the dominant religions are Protestantism and Catholicism.
4. Eastern Europe / Russia / Central Asia / the Post-Soviet world. The most dominant language is Russian, with other Slavic languages in Europe. The dominant religion is Eastern Orthodoxy. This area also has a history of communism.
5. West Asian / Greater Arabia / the Middle East / the Arab-Muslim world. The dominant language is Arabic and the dominant religion is Islam.
6. Sub-Saharan Africa. There is no dominant language. The dominant religions are Christianity and Islam.
7. South Asia / the Indosphere. The dominant language is Hindi-Urdu, with other Indo-Iranian languages. This area includes Pakistan and Bangladesh, which were part of British India. The dominant religions are Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam.
8. East Asia / the Orient / the Sinosphere. The dominant language is Chinese, not just in itself but through loanwords into Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. This area currently or traditionally uses CJK characters. The dominant religion is Buddhism.
9. Oceania. The dominant language is English, and traditionally Oceanian languages like Maori. The dominant religion is (probably) Protestantism, and traditionally the various Oceanian belief systems.
The Africa that isn't Subsaharan (Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt), ie. North Africa or Mediterranean Africa, is a part of the Arab Muslim world: most people are Arabic-speaking Muslims.
Also in common with most of the modern day Arab Muslim world (South East Asia excluded), as opposed to the rest of Africa, is its ancient Greek and Roman heritage.
I talked to Ali when he was streaming last night.
The gist of what he said was that in the context of the worldwide Go community, the "East" refers to the "Big Three" of China, Japan and Korea (Taiwan was left ambiguous), and not the rest of geographic Asia (which includes Israel), or even South-East Asia.
Ali said that in this context, he "doesn't mind being considered" a Western professional, I think with the logic that the West in Go in what's west of the East.
He didn't comment on whether or not he was an Asian, or if the Israeli Go Federation should be considered an Asian organisation (which was the original matter of debate).
To me this indicates that "Western" should be paired with "Eastern", and not with "Asian".
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