The Useless Tree

Thoughts on the first week of June, twenty years ago…

Mencius said: "The people are the most precious of all things.  Next come the gods of soil and grain.  The sovereign matters least. (14.14)

If the CCP took that sentiment to heart, it would not be so fearful of popular memory.  The Party represses because it places itself first, above and beyond the control of the people.  The only danger that might come from free and open discussion of the events of 1989 is the loss the the Party's prestige.  Indeed, through its repression, the Party has extinguished "the people," as Yu Hua points out in his NYT piece:

In China today, it seems only officials have “the people” on their
lips. New vocabulary has sprouted up — netizens, stock traders, fund
holders, celebrity fans, migrant laborers and so on — slicing into
smaller pieces the already faded concept of “the people.”

But in 1989, my 30th year, those words were not just an empty phrase.

The Party has reduced "the people" to an empty phrase, with little substance in the lived experience of many Chinese people.  Perhaps last year's nationalist-Olympic extravaganza was the swan song of "the people;" the notion is now submerged in the globalized reality of class stratification, cultural fragmentation and niche marketing, and filtered through the twitter-fearing technologies of party-state censors.

But Yu is an optimist.  He ends his piece with an image of what "the people" might be, if given the freedom to express themselves:

Thousands of people were standing guard on the bridge and the
approach roads beneath. They were singing lustily under the night sky:
“With our flesh and blood we will build a new great wall! The Chinese
people have reached the critical hour, compelled to give their final
call! Arise, arise, arise! United we stand …. ”

Although
unarmed, they stood steadfast, confident that their bodies alone could
block soldiers and ward off tanks. Packed together, they gave off a
blast of heat, as though every one of them was a blazing torch.


That night I realized that when the people stand as one, their voices
carry farther than light and their heat is carried farther still. That,
I discovered, is what “the people” means.

Their song, ironically, is the national anthem.  And perhaps that reassertion of "the people" might be possible, if Party leaders embraced the Humane governance of Mencius…

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8 responses to “Thoughts on the first week of June, twenty years ago…”

  1. isha Avatar
    isha

    Twenty ( 20 ) years = a whole generation …
    2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
    3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
    4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
    5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
    6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
    7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
    8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
    9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
    10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
    11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
    Isha

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  2. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    Very ironic Isha (using the text of the old imperialists, The Bible, against the new imperialist, which I presume you take me to be)…
    But, of course, you do not really believe the implications of your comment. You do not believe that historical events of 20 or more years ago should simply be forgotten. You do not believe that we should forget the Japanese assault on Nanjing (62 years ago) or the Opium Wars. You only want us to forget those historical events that disrupt your nationalist reveries.
    So, yes, you have found an ironic response, but an obviously insincere one as well.

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  3. isha Avatar
    isha

    Sam:
    In no way I consider you as an imperialist, just an intellectual from the center of the empire and unfortunately, have your limits from your position. I can’t blame you for lecturing the barbarians, just as your can’t blame a barbarian from thinking for himself.
    I have the ultimate respect for the Bible, especially the King James Version. The fact that it has been used, in certain parts of the world, it is still been used, by the imperialists, is an unfortunately fact, but in no way it would affect the internal strength of the great book. Just like Confucius’ words, it can be misused. I quoted it because I found no literature I can remember that could better express the feeling of human vanities we all pursuing, which is part of the human condition.
    Sam, you are right, I do not believe that historical events of 20 or more years ago should simply be forgotten and I also believe that Chinese should learn a good lesson from the experience from what happened 20 years ago. From what I heard from students in China, they are learning the lesson become smart and more mature. Here is one piece from Beijing University to support my point:
    http://www.dailypaul.com/node/95025
    “Chinese assets are very safe,” Geithner said in response to a question after a speech at Peking University, where he studied Chinese as a student in the 1980s.
    His answer drew loud laughter from his student audience,
    …
    Only in South Korea, one of the closest U.S. ally, can you find reporter in greater detail:
    http://chn.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2009/06/03/20090603000020.html
    美国国债安全？盖特纳遭北大学生嘲笑
    …
    演讲看似顺利结束。但在此之后，盖特纳却多次涨红了脸。问答过程中一名提问的学生问道：“嘴上说两国是重要伙伴，但美国为何向台湾出售武器？”盖特纳回避说：“这不是我的专业领域。回国后会向有关部门转达各位的意见。”接着又有人问道：“您认为美国国债安全吗？”盖特纳坚决地回答说：“非常安全。”但就在这一瞬间，演讲场内爆发出一片笑声。他的表情也变得很尴尬。
    发表演讲后，盖特纳的老师傅民教授走上讲台，将28年前他在北京大学留学时和同班同学一起旅游时拍下的照片送给他作为礼物。
    傅民问道：“还记得吗？”盖特纳好像记不起来，半天没有回答，结果现场再次爆发出一片笑声。突然脸红的盖特纳也禁不住笑出，并一个劲儿地摇头。傅民讲述当时的情况以及同学的名字时，他还是完全记不起来，脸变得更红了。
    虽然是时隔28年首次回到母校，但北大学生们似乎还是没有忘记盖特纳1月份在美国参议院针对其任财政部长举行的提名审议听证会上所说的话，他当时表示：“我相信中国政府在操纵汇率。”一名学生在接受中国媒体采访时表示：“他说‘美国国债非常安全。希望继续信任’的时候，我真想问他‘如果您是中国政府的财政部长，会购买美国国债吗？’。”
    … Well, It is a comforting thought to see that students in Beda now is growing up, the torch has been pasted to a new generation of Chinese. Hope they are braver and smarter …

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  4. isha Avatar
    isha

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  5. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    Unfortunately, in China you can’t see that video.

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  6. isha Avatar
    isha

    yea, overthrow the Chicom gov and throw China into chaos then you can cancel the debts to the Chinese people… fortunately the students in Beda now understand this game, so does Dalai the Lama, that is the only way he can get his slavery theology regime back

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  7. Larry Engelmann Avatar
    Larry Engelmann

    Sam, how do you manage to attract so many nuts? I thought one of the conditions for releasing these people for the weekend was that they not go in the Internet. And yet, here they are, all of them. I read these postings and all I can say is that, Somebody forgot to take his medicine!

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  8. isha Avatar
    isha

    Larry:
    Poetic justice
    From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    …
    Notably, poetic justice does not merely require that vice be punished and virtue rewarded, but also that logic triumph. If, for example, a character is dominated by greed for most of a Romance or drama, he cannot become generous. The action of a play, poem, or fiction must obey the rules of logic as well as morality, and when the humour theory was dominant poetic justice was part of the justification for humor plays.
    …
    An interesting and unusual example of poetic justice is found in Dr Pradhan’s Sahitya Akademi award-winning poem Equation where the economic-sexual exploiters of poor tribals in Kalahandi, (Orissa) get paid back in their own coin when they get afflicted with various maladies and sexually transmitted diseases.
    …
    Equation (poem)
    …
    The poem is written in the story-building or narrative style with stark allusions, which is typical of Dr Pradhan’s poetry. The poem is in three parts (From Blood to Tears, From Tears to Blood, and Tears in Blood). The first part describes scenes of poverty, starvation and sexual-economic exploitation of poor illiterate people in Kalahandi symbolically through the story of a woman who sold her only child for forty rupees, and that of a man whose wife went to a far-off place to work, never to return. The second part describes the turning of fortunes for Kalahandi. With the advent of international NGOs, government subsidy and media coverage, Kalahandi now learns how to convert its tears to blood, and sell the blood for money (chops off flesh from its own thighs…). The third part shows how Kalahandi is now ready to take revenge. The exploiter has now to pay the price. He now finds that the blood he sucked is actually full of tears (retaliation in the form of misery and virus). The poem has many hidden layers of meaning, which offer food for thought to the discerning reader.

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