Dominant minority

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^[1]
• 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)
• Croats in Bosnia
• Indians in Madagascar (Despite making up less than 1% of the population, by 2000 they controlled between 50% to 60% of the economy.)^[2]
• Jews in Russia despite being an ethnic minority, in the 1990's six of the seven Russian oligarchs that controlled ~50% of the economy were Jewish.^[3]
• 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
• Muhajirs in Pakistan^[4][5]
• North Yemeni in Yemen^[6][7]
• Sunni Muslims in Bahrain^[8][9][10]
• Tigrayans in Ethiopia since 1991^[11]
• Wallons in Belgium (first constitutional reformation of 1970)

Historical

• Arab Sudanese in (pre-independence) South Sudan
• Afro-Guyanese in Guyana
• Ahom Tribe in erstwhile Ahom Kingdom now modern-day Assam, India^[12]
• Americo-Liberians in Liberia^[13][14][15]
• Anglo-Quebecers in Quebec prior and up until the Quiet Revolution
• Abyssinians in the Ethiopian Empire, Derg and People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
• Anglo-Burmese, Burmese Indians and Chinese Burmese 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
• Catholics in the Electorate of Saxony and Kingdom of Saxony (from the 1 Juny 1697)
• Catholics in Old Swiss Confederacy (from the Second War of Kappel to the Toggenburg War)
• Hoa people in Bắc thuộc Vietnam
• Chagatai in the Mughal Empire, India
• Hindu Dogras in the Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir from the early 19th to the 20th century.
• Dutch and Indo people 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
• Mainlanders 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, central Asia and various other 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 the 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
• White Americans in parts of the Southern United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries. African Americans made up a slight majority of the population in several southern states (Mississippi, South Carolina, and Louisiana), yet retained no formal political power and few legal rights.^[16]
• White Rhodesians in Rhodesia
• White South Africans in South Africa during apartheid
• White Namibians in Namibia under South African rule during apartheid
• Sri Lankan Tamils in British Ceylon
• French speakers in Belgium before World War II

See also

• Colonialism, particularly exploitation colonialism and plantation colonies
• 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

Footnotes

References

• Barzilai, Gad. Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003). ISBN 978-0-472-03079-8
• Gibson, Richard. African Liberation Movements: Contemporary Struggles against White Minority Rule (Institute of Race Relations: Oxford University Press, London, 1972). ISBN 0-19-218402-4
• Russell, Margo and Martin. Afrikaners of the Kalahari: White Minority in a Black State ( Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979). ISBN 0-521-21897-7
• Johnson, Howard and Watson, Karl (eds.). The white minority in the Caribbean (Wiener Publishing, Princeton, NJ, 1998). ISBN 976-8123-10-9, ISBN 1-55876-161-6
• Chua, Amy. World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (Doubleday, New York, 2003). ISBN 0-385-50302-4
• Haviland, William. Cultural Anthropology. (Vermont: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993). p. 250-252. ISBN 0-15-508550-6.