Second Class

It is time to go into crisis mode. 12000 words are due 4 October 2008. Fight or flight? Due to my poor reading ability, I looked at the wrong deadline and assumed that February 2009 was it but so I was wrong.

Iran has either suspended or abolished the penalty of death by stoning. This brutal and gruesome, not to mention excruciatingly painful, method of execution involves burying the accused up to his neck and then pelting him with stones that are big enough to cause hurt and pain but yet not kill instantaneously. One can surmise that it would take a fairly large crowd and fairly large supply of stones before the execution can be deemed to have been successfully carried out. This decision is interesting because one of the offences to carry this penalty is adultery and most of those sentenced to be stoned are women from the lower socio-economic stratum and thus more likely not to have an effective defence mounted on their behalf.

No reason was given for this humane decision and one that would raise the standing of Iran, not by much but perhaps by a whisker, with human rights organisations like Amnesty International. And it reveals to us the depths of this country which we generally know little about but believe to be the Great Satan. Dig a little deeper and you will see the that the roots of Iranian history extend back to the Persian Empire. Now it might be spurious to draw connections between the current administration and the Persians but the idea of a cultural inheritance, the connection to a larger, older and grander tradition is one that cannot be discounted or ignored. There is really more to Iran than what CNN or the Bush (or Reagan) administrations would have you believe.

In the nation builder press over the weekend, Ooi Giok Ling, a local academic argued for the need to create islands of history in a sea of change. Her homily was guided by a simple idea, that sensitivity and care are essential in the management of historical landmarks that are threatened by the process of urban redevelopment.

While there appears to be little wrong with this safe and anodyne view that is essentially pro-development, last week’s issue of The Economist has a slightly different take that takes a closer and harder look at the key problems behind such a viewpoint. In a review of books related to Beijing’s heritage and history, the editors adopt a rather sombre, if not grave look at the impact that the Beijing Olympics have had on the city.

The Games, the editors assert, have provided the Chinese state with the perfect excuse to level the old city built by the Ming Emperor Yong Le and replace it with (post)modernist shrines to those who have restored China to its rightful position in the hierarchy of nations. The Ming Dynasty’s historical error of sealing China off from the rest of the world and thus ensuring its isolation and backwardness has been reversed by the mandarins of the Chinese Communist Party.

With this, “the Communists have also destroyed Beijing’s social fabric, cutting through rich threads of community habit, shard memory and … subversive resistance to the madder impulses of higher authority”.This obliteration of relationships, connections and memories is probably the most tragic impact of a callous attitude towards place meanings and identities. As was vividly and movingly illustrated and investigated in “Malacca: Voices from the Street”, it is the loss of these voices that render a place void of its meaning and significance. In Malacca, the quest to present the glories of the Malacca Sultanate has led to the careless and wanton treatment of buildings from the Portuguese and Dutch era.

Piecemeal conservation and preservation do nothing to retain place meanings and identities. In the same vein therefore, islands of history make no sense in the absence of a larger archipelago of place and space. Even with careful conservation and preservation, place meanings and collective memories can still be destroyed and thus irrevocably and irrecoverably lost.

[...]

On another note, I shall eulogise Solzhenitsyn in another post on a later date.

A complement to Findhorn.

Of late, because of the shift towards the war component of the course, much time has been spent on the notion of imperial overstretch. First propounded by Paul Kennedy in his seminal, and possibly much reviled work, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, imperial overstretch refers to the inability of an empire to defend and maintain its global commitments. I would surmise that this inability stems from the reach of the empire far extending beyond the raw hard power projection capability and potential of the empire in question.

Kennedy’s thesis is based on the idea of hard power. To put it simply, hard power is the use of brute force, usually overwhelming military force and economic power, to overcome your adversary. This is the traditional conception of power and it is best measured (and projected) by the numbers of soldiers, tanks, bombers and nuclear warheads you possess. This idea however underplays the importance of ideas in the whole business of empires and empire building.

In sharp contrast, Joseph Nye has put forward the notion of soft power, which is the influence (as opposed to the threat) you wield over your adversaries due to the skilfulness of your diplomacy, the sum of your cultural achievement and refinement as well as the reach of your language and your cultural capital. This form of power is difficult to measure or even quantify and yet fits perfectly into our asymmetrical world in which traditional instruments of power projection appear to be blunt and clumsy at best.

In the last few weeks or so, we have looked at how one of the key factors behind the outbreak of World War One was the response of the British Empire, which was already in relative decline in the late 19th century, to the rise of an aggressive and adversarial power in the form of Imperial Germany on the continent. To extend this idea further, the Second World War saw the British trying vainly to preserve its imperial status, only to see it whither away in the post-1945 world. Britain’s war with Germany was one of desperation that exposed its hopelessly overstretched empire for all to see.

Yet, it is an Anglophone world we live in today. English is the most widely spoken language and the lyricism and poetry of the Bard remain well appreciated and respected world wide. London remains a mecca for the finance industry and for anyone who wishes to be on the cutting edge of the advertising world or creative industries. The BBC remains the voice of authority and reason over the airwaves. The Union Jack represents a civilisation that has evolved to cope with its post-Imperial limitations and has carved out a niche for itself as a substantial middle rank power in the world order.

As I see it, the key to coping with overstretch and eventual decline, is to nurture enduring institutions capable of projecting the soft power of your legacy than trying in vain to retain huge swathes of physical territory. Remember, psychological and intellectual space is essentially limitless and the contest for ideas is possibly harder to fight than the contest for physical territory.

More germane would be the historical record that you have left behind - how do others remember you? What is the legacy of your empire? These are issues that all empire builders had and will have to bear in mind. As one of my favourite statesmen once put it in 1942, with a firm eye on history I believe, “I have not become the King’s First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire”. Pity he did.

I must regain that sense of wonder, of the wondrous and shake some of this tiresome weariness off my battered soul. I must get back my sense of contentment, of being joyful with what I have, no matter how much or how little my portion is. I must learn how to enjoy periods of downtime, to savour moments of idleness and to be quiet. I need to get away from connectedness, from connections and from connecting, to disconnect and just be. I have to realise that in frugality and in not wanting to have “stuff” is the basis to fulfilment and enjoyment based on intangible things and qualities. I must be firm with myself, to guard what is of value that resides within me and defend it against those who try to thumb me down and quash my spirit.

“…To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour…”

Auguries of Innocence, William Blake

This week’s issue of The Economist provides an interesting take of how Americans are perceiving their moribound and troubled economy as a sign that their country’s superpower status is being eroded and that their country has reached a tipping point as far as that goes. As usual, The Economist takes on what appears to be a contrarian position on the issues and lays out a carefully crafted and dispassionate analysis of the current situation. It has done the same for global concerns such as the credit crunch, the end of cheap food and the American presidential elections.

Dispassionate analysis and rigourous reporting aside, The Economist shines in its constant emphasis on using reason to undergird its arguments and the scrupulous deployment of evidence to support them.At times, what it says appears to fly in the face of conventional wisdom or of the editorial views taken in other newspapers. This stance however, is often always done with the intent of providing an alternative, more rational and reason based viewpoint on issues. Now, I do not always agree with what it says but I sure find less fault with it than some of the drivel that passes off for comment and reportage in the nation builder press.

The other publication that I do not get much of these days would be The London Review of Books. Literature to many is the domain of the emotional and the intuitive. This weekly publication debunks this myth entirely as it dispassionately (and sometimes acerbically or mercilessly) dissects or deconstructs literary works and representations. In short, it is rational and reasoned, showing that reason is useful and perhaps even necessary in approaching something as human as literature.

A rejoinder to Findhorn.

Readers of 1984 often focus on the brutal and oppressive nature of the state and its extensive and arbritary use of surveillance and violence as a means to police and control its population. These are gripping issues and represent a totalitarianism so total that there is no hope of salvation/redemption or well, no hope for hope itself.

Yet, it often escapes the notice of the casual reader that the dark and sinister nature of the regime conceals its ultimate instrument for the denial of the core that makes up the individual and collective identites, its control of memories.

What would we be, if we could not remember what we did a moment ago, yesterday, a week back, a year ago and a decade past? Human memory serves as an important reference point, or context if you wish, that enables us to string a coherent narrative of our existence and determine the cause and effect of our actions.

Memory enables us to be human, to remember, to commemorate, to mourn and to celebrate. Of course, some might assert that in the absence of memory, we could just live in the present with no historical baggage. This might be true for some, especially if your life was given to nothing but mindless drug-assisted raves and parties on weekends.

Yet, for the rest of us, the absence of memory would render the present unlivable. With the loss of the ability to remember people, connections, places, even the simple act of walking out to buy a newspaper would be impossible. First, what is a newspaper? Second, where do I go? Third, what is money? Fourth, why are these men in blue clothing running after me? The impossibilities are indeed endless.

Memory serves to instruct and teach and if anything, remind us of our humanity and our propensity to inflict tragedy, trauma and pain upon ourselves. If Lot could not remember that his wife had been turned into a pillar of salt, would he have realised the importance of obedience to God’s word? Orpheus forgot the instructions given to him as he made his way out of Hades and his wife Eurydice, vanised forever. A twist of faith or perhaps God does make sport of us mere mortals but it is the remembrance of these myths that add to our veneer of humanity.

Indeed, the most powerful weapon in the hands of the modern state in social control and population discipline would be its control of the archive, the past and the ability to fabricate it at will. Given this therefore, should we even be surprised that the processes and products of remembering, memorials and public holidays and red letter days and such, are tightly scripted and presented in cleverly crafted secular liturgical calendars?

In 1848, a wave of revolution swept Europe and drove it to the brink of complete social and political upheaval. It was a stirring and heady time that has since been come to be known as “the springtime of the peoples”. My question for you, dear reader, is at which point in world history did the people cease to be a nameless, faceless mob and become a force of significance?

I am currently reading Lung Ying-Tai’s （龙应台） new book entitled “《目送》”。The title defies translation - a literal translation does it no justice and a dynamic translation would take so many lines as to render it crude and cumbersome. In essence, it refers to partings, farewells, departures, leavings which brings me to my next point.

There have been too many partings this year of friends and comrades-in-arms. Earlier this year, the Banana left for Sydney to study at UNSW. Then, the flight leader left, reducing this wingman to flying solo missions mostly and perhaps the occasional ground attack or escort mission. And recently, a newish comrade-in-arm, whom I was just beginning to develop a real affinity for and a great working relationship with - essentially someone who was tuned to the same wavelength - left as well.

Sometimes, as Lung Ying-Tai puts it, perhaps from the moment a relationship begins, we are slowly but surely distancing ourselves and preparing for an eventual parting. A poignant thought but intensely sorrowful and yet touchingly and movingly captured in the first essay in her book, which left me tearing on the bus ride home. She was referring to the relationship between parents and their children but I think it was applicable to friendships and relationships as well.

“我慢慢地、慢慢地了解到，所謂父女母子一場，只不過意味著，你和他的緣分就是今生今世不斷地在目送他的背影漸行漸遠。你站立在小路的這一端，看著他逐漸消失在小路轉彎的地方，而且，他用背影默默告訴你：不必追。”
龙应台，《目送》
All I can do is sigh and I suppose, sit down and sort myself out.

Today we visited an army camp in the western part of Singapore. And whilst I was there I met an old friend of mine, someone I knew some fifteen years ago. He stepped out amidst the acrid smell of rifle propellant fumes, tripflare smoke and the smell of boot polish.

When I saw him, I asked him where he had been all this while.

This guy knew how to handle a weapon, knew how to position his feet properly when firing and could tell the difference between a 5.56mm round and a 7.62mm round. He could quote King Lear and when he saw the rain, he sorta laughed and remembered his favourite rant in the storm scene. And he asked me if I remembered this mentor we once shared fifteen years ago, someone who was killed in a tragic accident some six years ago. When he looked at the kids I had brought along, he told me once upon a time, I was somewhat like them - young, idealistic, naive.

Switching topics, I asked him again where he had been all this while. He said he’d been wandering around while I went through university and started working and that he still hadn’t found what he was looking for. Looking at me, he said he hardly knew me anymore.