How Race Continues to Shape Politics

The issue of race in politics is a modern one. The city-state of antiquity—the polis that gave us our word “politics”—was monoracial. The only multiracial states before the modern age were the big old bureaucratic-despotic empires of Egypt, Persia, China, etc. There was no politics in those states, only the whim of a strong ruler; or, in the event of a weak ruler, palace intrigues, peasant uprisings, and warlordism.

Speaking of city-states: Probably the most-quoted remark on the role of race in politics is the one made by the late Lee Kuan Yew, who was Prime Minister of Singapore through the 1960s, seventies, and eighties. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine in 2005, Lee said:

“In multiracial societies, you don’t vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion.”

Lee was one of the most intelligent and successful politicians of the last century, so his opinion is worth considering. It should be said, though, that it also needs discounting to some degree because of the peculiar nature of Singapore. The place is very small and very new. It has an unusual racial mix (three-quarters Chinese, one-eighth Malay, the balance a mix of Indian and European) and an unusually high proportion of non-citizen residents.