The Useless Tree

Nationalism, Globalization and “Three in the Morning”

 Chuang Tzu’s happy irony came to mind when I saw this story the other day:

Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.

The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.

But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the
emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong’s Ming
Pao newspaper. 

     Oops.  This only really matters, however, if you believe that nationalism can be distinguished from globalization.  I don’t think it can.  Let’s think about it in terms of contemporary China.  What China is now, what it has become in the era of economic reform, is a society and culture fundamentally different from Maoist times and imperial history.  Things that are now taken as perfectly fitting expressions of Chinese-ness – like modern Olympic athletic competition – would be reject by Mao and Confucius.  The former understood the Olympics to be a venue of the global bourgeoisie; and the latter said that "gentlemen do not contend."  But neither of those sentiments reflect the China of today.  "Opening to the world" has transformed the country.

    So what difference does it make, really, if Tibetan flags are made in China?  It simply follows the logic that has made China into world economic dynamo: find the low cost producer.  Making plastic Christmas trees and pirated DVDs and paper dolls of Elvis Presley are what China does now.  What do a few thousand Tibetan flags matter?   It only matters if you are a nationalist, bound to be frustrated by the reality of a globalized China.   Makes me think of Chuang Tzu’s little story of "three in the morning:"

To
wear yourself out illuminating the unity of all things without
realizing that they’re the same – this is called "three in the
morning."  Why "three in the morning?"  There was once a monkey trainer
who said at feeding time, "You get three in the morning and four in the
evening."  The monkeys got very angry, so he said, "Okay, I’ll give you
four in the morning and three in the evening."  At this the monkeys
were happy again.  Nothing was lost in either name or reality, but they
were angry one way and pleased the other.  This is why the sage brings
"yes this" and "no that" together and rests in heaven the equalizer.
This is called taking two paths at once.

Chuang Tzu (24)

     He seems to be saying: Chill.  Take two paths at once, let nationalism and globalization merge together, and don’t worry about who is making the Tibetan flags….

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One response to “Nationalism, Globalization and “Three in the Morning””

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    “Nationalism” is arguably something akin to a characteristic group of sentiments reflecting interest or pride in either a country or region of either adoption or origin. “Globalization” is an aggregate process which may either be nationalism-driven or counter-nationalist depending on actor and context. Neither nationalism nor globalism are nuts although there are nuts advocating each, so I’m not sure how ‘zhao san mu si’ can be said to apply. Then again, I like to distinguish between “thing” and “process,” and make other similarly useful(?) distinctions so I’M not cut out to be a Taoist, anyway.
    In addition, although the modernists (including Marx) held that within each thing is the seed of its destruction, no sane state would threaten its cohesion and continued existence by deliberately manufacturing that which is opposed to that same cohesion – or worse yet be SEEN to threaten its own cohesion. So the PRC Chinese were quite understandable in their reaction and refusal to score an own goal or allow it to continue. Similarly the French are not falling over themselves printing chic banners that read “Allah is Great!” in Arabic for inciting car burning rallies. Nor are the vast majority of American citizens trying to drum up business by printing “Aztlan” T-shirts or printing “how-to” comic books on crossing the Mexico/US border. I suppose it really does make a difference if you live where you get to experience the fallout from this sort of activity.

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