by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

One of my tenants stopped paying her rent. So the rental board ordered her out. Next time I saw her, she launched a paint-melting diatribe against me that included no shortage of unflattering comments on my ethnicity as an anglophone, which is an irreversible condition in my case.

The subtext of her attack was that it's no longer suitable for an English person - for generations the financial oppressors of French Quebec - to financially dominate the French majority. She apparently felt that her anglo landlord stunk of being a throwback member of Quebec's market dominant minority.

That term "market dominant minority" was recently coined by a Yale law school professor Amy Chua, whose eye-opening book World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, has opened a can of worms previously thought best left unopened.

Chua's academic analysis starts with a jarring anecdote about her wealthy Aunt Leona, a member of the rich Chinese minority of Manila. Aunt Leona would regularly insult her 20 Filipino workers to their face and would have them sleep in the overcrowded basement that stunk of sweat and urine. In a not-very Driving Miss Daisy moment, her chauffeur robbed her and slit her throat. When the police investigator filled out his crime report, he wrote, "Motive: revenge."

Police did little to try to solve the killing, not uncommon in a land where Chinese are routinely abducted or murdered by members of the Filipino majority. Chinese Filipinos, Chua concedes, form one per cent of the country's population but own 60 per cent of its wealth.

Chua doesn't know why some minorities thrive in certain countries. Sometimes it's due to colonial privilege, in other cases minorities excluded from the mainstream developed impressive entrepreneurial skills and networks.

In countries around the world one ethnic minority controls wealth far beyond its numerical proportions. As a result, these groups become the target of racism and sometimes even genocidal violence. It's a problem that thrives in democracies where demagogues can cruise to power shouting such slogans as "Eritreans out of Ethiopia," "Kenya for Kenyans," "Venezuela for Pardos," "Hutu Power," and - to get to our local angle - "Le Québec aux Québécois."

In most cases, rich minorities can usually financially persuade politicians to defer the confiscation of their wealth - a strategy that worked in these parts until Duplessis died. Most governments argue that confiscating wealth leads to disaster. In Zimbabwe, for example, Robert Mugabe has repeatedly been reelected based on promises to grab the land from the one per cent of the population that owns 70 per cent of the country's best land. Poverty blossomed in the dry sands of African disinvestment.

In Quebec, franco financial emancipation could be linked to financial decline. Although forming 24 per cent of Canada's population, Quebec still attracts only 18 per cent of investment, in spite of offering 15 times as much in corporate subsidies as Ontario.

But if our government considers it legitimate to encourage wealth distribution across class and gender lines, then it could be argued that ethnic income disparities should also be addressed. For example, why should the governments allow Montreal's low-earning Haitians to live in poverty while locals of Egyptian extraction prosper?

StatsCan once came out with a breakdown of the incomes of Montreal's ethnic minorities, but apparently it hit a raw nerve. People complained that such a study would reinforce stereotypes and inflame racism. It was the last they put out.

The extent of old-time anglo financial dominance in Quebec can be debated, but one thing is clear: it was a useful tool in the mobilization of francophones to gain prosperity. Even though demagogues like David Fennario and Pierre Falardeau still spout suggestions of ongoing anglo privilege, people like myself, who have gained nothing from such bygone good times, find such propaganda a nuisance.

The pursuit of wealth is considered a healthy impulse for most. But for Quebec anglos, the quest must come with baggage of shame or pride - depends which you choose - due to our historical legacy as alleged onetime financial dominators.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca