Early Years (1910–1938)

Abstract

When I reflect what influence family origins and early background had on subsequent work, I would say that a position of identifying with groups that are oppressed or discriminated against, and with ‘under-dog’ minorities, has been strongly impressed and bred into me by early experiences. Let me anticipate one point immediately: it will rightly be said that the cause of the Third World is not exactly a minority cause since the inhabitants of the Third World represent the majority of mankind. Statistically this is correct, but in actual fact, at least until very recently, the developing countries represented a minority influence even in the international institutions ostensibly set up on their behalf. At any rate, I always emotionally identified with the Third World and with the poor and discriminated against within the Third World countries on the same grounds as I learned early to identify with minorities and with ‘lost causes’.