cc ASIATIC "
Sm,—Strix was perhaps hardly at his best in the first sentence of last week's Spectator's Notebook. " Asiatic," he held, is the fittest epithet for the Russians' unpleasant behaviour in Berlin. Unless memory errs, one higher than he, no less a personage than Britain's Labour Prime Minister, lately did likewise, dubbing the Kremlin's policy " Oriental." • Avoidance of such verdicts, disparaging by implication, might accord better with considerations of tact—and truth. As a Briton, temporarily returned, who for eighteen years has earned his living in Asia, thus perhaps becoming in part orientalised, I find that they jar. How much more may they on those—still the majority of the British Commonwealth's population—who are really Asian! Strix cites as one symptom, among several, of Russian orientalism "disingenuous explanations which nobody is expected to believe." Might not the recent official Anglo-American explanations for U.S. Superfortress air- craft arriving here be subject to the same diagnosis ? As another orientalism he adduced " multiplication of formalities to do with passes and permits." Some such multiplication, to a visitor at least, is not wholly undiscernible also in these islands.
Doubtless The Spectator and Strix—as also Mr. Attlee—actually are well aware that generalised contrasts of Asia and Europe are almost with- out meaning ; that Tamil and Turk differ more widely than Swede and Spaniard ; that in mind as in body the milky-skinned Chitrali, apple- checked Kumaoni or blue-eyed Mahsud may prove at least as English (or, if Strix prefers, Nordic) as the Basque or Sicilian. I therefore venture to plead that seemingly slighting uses of " Asiatic " and " Oriental " should cease. They cannot help understanding of Russia—or anything else.—Yours, &c., IAN STEPHENS. The White House, Stock, Essex.
[Strix writes: I agree with practically the whole of Mr. Stephens's letter except his last sentence. I still think that the epithet " Asiatic," though ideally it ought never to be used in such a connotation, does help us to understand certain aspects of Russian behaviour.]
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