Today there are reports from Xinhua, the Chinese state media agency, that at least 140 people have been killed and over 800 injured in clashes between the Uighurs (also spelt Uyghurs) and the Hans in the Xinjiang region of Western China. This news is being picked up and commented on by Western media:

· http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-07/06/content_11662490.htm

· http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8135203.stm

· http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/05/muslim-minority-riots-eru_n_225978.html

· http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/05/china-uighur-riots-xianjing

· http://en.timeturk.com/china-blames-exiles-for-uighur-riot–21996-haberi.html

What the unfortunate incident shows is that contrary to global perceptions that China is home to 1.3 billion Chinese people, it is actually home to 50+ different ethnic minorities of different religions who collectively make up China. In other words, it’s a diverse (if not entirely democratic) country and it faces similar challenges as Western democracies when it comes to ethnic and religious integration. The Han comprise about 1.1 billion of the population.

Of course, whilst no bloodshed can be condoned we also need to remember that the formations and revolutions of Western-style republics, democracies and constitutions were bloody (Protestants vs. Catholics, blacks vs. whites, landed gentry vs. peasants, and continue to be bloody as per the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).

Personally, I believe violence is fuelled by hatred, misunderstanding, dogma, ignorance and propaganda rather than perspective.

In the interests of decreasing ignorance, please let’s inform ourselves more about what’s happening and its root causes:

· http://www.uyghurcongress.org/En/home.asp

· http://www.cfr.org/publication/16870/

· http://sousuo.gov.cn/search?searchword=SEARCHVALUE%3D%24%5E%7Euighurs%24%5E%7E&channelid=6001&prepage=20&keyword=uighurs&imageField.x=0&imageField.y=0&imageField=search

Now, each municipal office of China has an ethnic affairs unit dedicated to the social integration of the various ethnic groups, for example Beijing’s:

· http://www.ebeijing.gov.cn/Government/Departments/t930029.htm

Xinjiang like other regions is known as a Special Autonomous Region which means the ethnic minority has power and influence over how the region is run. This is important because central government is logistically too far away and it puts the responsibilities into the hands of the indigenous people of the region. Still, as we can see from the riots, it’s not ideal and the system faces challenges of internal power struggles.

Will our species ever reach a state of being where we collaborate — whether it’s creating a Global Brain or building future colonies on Mars — instead of continue with our egotistical, antagonistic, nihilistic and ignorance tendencies? Who knows?

Individually, as ants, we can choose: participation in and fostering of bloodshed or education and constructivism.

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In case anyone’s interested I am a Han. My family surname, 刘, can be traced to the founder of the Han dynasty. The 刘 family number 66 Chinese emperors in Chinese history and the surname dates back to 2357 BC.

The Han dynasty is noted for its technological, education and economic advances (e.g., the invention of paper and porcelain and Silk Route trading) as well as Confucian ideals of government wherein intellectual, literary and artistic endeavors flourished and fiefdom cliques were crushed. The power was put back into the hands of the people since Liu Bang, the first Emperor of the Han Dynasty, was from the peasant class.

Yesterday whilst watching the Federer vs. Roddick Wimbledon final I was struck by how much a great mentor-coach can change someone’s self-belief, discipline, performance and achievement. Larry Stefanki is clearly such a tennis mentor-coach and deserves his fair share of the compliments for Roddick’s play this year. Roddick really made Federer WORK and have to earn his historic record of 15 Grand Slams, which means it’s even more remarkable and valuable.

Previously, Roddick had employed the services of Jimmy Connors — an amazing player in his time — but the dynamics between them had simply not worked out optimally. Unfortunately, this happens. You can have two fantastically talented individuals and the logistics of it may mean that the mentor-coach does not get the best out of the mentoree.

As readers are aware I recently attended a women in technology event: partly, to keep apace of developments in the sector and also in search of potential mentor-coaches. There’s nothing like developing good practice under the guidance of others.

For this week’s “Inspirational people” post I think it may be helpful to provide some broad guidelines on how to search out mentor-coaches and how also to be good mentorees.

(1.) Always bear in mind that you can learn something good from anyone — whether it’s your parents or someone random you meet. They can be older / younger / a different culture / religion / whatever. These are immaterial elements; the only elements that matter are their preparedness to share and your willingness to learn.

(2.) If you have a specific project to complete, try to identify the experts who are well-regarded in this project area and ask them for tips and advice.

(3.) Be respectful that mentors-coaches are busy people and discuss VERY SPECIFIC issues you need help with rather than ramble.

(4.) Always give them their due credit, publicly and privately.

(5.) Step up to the plate and develop your own mentor-coaching skills as a continuation of good practice others have imparted to you.

It’s difficult to precisely pinpoint what “IT” is for each of us as individuals that encourage us to gravitate towards our choice of mentor-coaches over and above other options. For me, it’s 8-treasures:

· integrity

· honesty

· trust

· loyalty

· tolerance

· openness

· pragmatism

· generosity of spirit

As an example, at the W-Tech event I met Jayne Chace, a former Chief Marketing Officer of LogicaCMG who has also held senior roles at Oracle, Siemens and Unisys. She outlined a check-list that all budding tech entrepreneurs should go through BEFORE they approach venture capital firms like hers.

Now, since my background is in banking (and specifically tech venture capital / private equity) I’ve sat through quite a number of similar presentations and have a fairly good idea of how due diligence and sanity-checking works. Nonetheless, the way she explained did capture those 8-treasures I list above.

And how do we spot someone it’s better not to emulate or have anything to do with?

Well, they disrespect the rights of others to have opinions that are different from theirs, they’re clueless about positive conflict resolutions and democratic channels of communication, and they abuse/steal our IP and content. This all shows they lack the 8-treasures.

Great mentor-coaches liberate us to realize our potential and transmit Enlightenment. Go in search of inspirational types who make our hearts, minds and spirits soar rather than waste time with s***.