http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_osnos READ
First
of all, how do you categorize the Chinese nationalism? Is it civic or
traditionalistic? Secondly, what have you learned from this article, things
that strike you most? Lastly, what does democracy mean to the Chinese youth and
how do they perceive the role played by the United States?
Some contrasts between civic & ethnic nationalism
Civic Nationalists Ethnic
Nationalists
emphasize emphasize Examples
Law Common
roots ("blood") Citizenship
Choice Inheritance "born
into"
Rational attachment Emotional
attachment supreme court, flag
Unity by consent Unity
by ascription town
hall, tribe
Democratic pluralism Ethnic
majority rules CA,
Singapore
Liberty Fraternity ALCU,
homeland
Individual creates nation Nation
creates individual founding
myths
D. Civic nationalism is the more "realistic” source of
belonging
Than ethnic nationalism, Ignatieff believes
1. Common ethnicity helps people unite against ethnic others but
--it doesn't help overcome other divisions
--such
as class, gender, and scarce resources-----
Soup McGee
Professor, Seriously?
Political
Ideologies 322 Online
11/15/2013
The
article ‘Angry Youth’ displays by the aforementioned youth a modernized
traditionalistic civic nationalism. Expressed commonly by the subjects of this
in-depth work by Evan Osnos is a shared ‘frustration’ with the Westernization
of China. This is a feeling that does not revolve around either Mao and his
theme of government by Communist Revolution or the theme of National
Humiliation following the loss of the Opium Wars that Mao replaced. Instead, this
frustration revealed among the Chinese students of today patriotism that quite
frankly scares the hell out of many in the West, and concerned Chinese
government officials enough that action was taken to tamp down the sentiment.
Nationalism
is, especially when compared to the very ancient history of China, a modern
European concept that many believe developed around the time Napoleon found his
ability to marshal the French people into a unified state. Noteworthy here is
the use of two phrases by Tang, the director of the six minute video that
excited a new, yet conservative, mood of patriotism among the youth it reached;
first, a mantra of former Chairman Mao, the use of which is intended to remind
students of a more recent time when China was isolated from the rest of the
world and at apparent odds with itself, “Imperialism will never abandon its
intention to destroy us.” In this way, Tang reaches out to a traditionalistic
nationalism; however, the last phrase (“We will stand up and hold together
always as one family in harmony!”) serves to call to mind the former but as
well a call to action: Such is the way of civic nationalism, in that it is
focused on ‘all who subscribe to the political creed of a nation,’ not on
ethnicity.
These
are a people who feel ‘strategically contained’ by the ever-burgeoning west,
led by America and her capitalistic allies. They make up and belong to, both on
the internet and off, a community of equal rights bearing citizens united in
patriotic attachment to a shared set of political practices and values, which
is how our text defines nationalism. Tang made a video that, in the end, was
civic in its pursuit not of ‘liberal democracy but in defense of sovereignty
and prosperity.’
Nationalism
is, according to Moreno (also captured in our text), the most powerful of all
political ideologies, and there is a mention of how the ‘initial rhetoric’ of
the Chinese ‘national outcry’ reminded the many and the already skeptical of
‘the rise of the skinheads in Europe.’ But Tang was clear in saying that there
truly was no desire for violence, only for someone to hear their anger and
their reasons. Many people foreign to China think that people in the age range
of the director and his wife, Wu-Tang, are ‘unwise to the distortions of
censorship,’ but when you live ‘in a so-called free system you never think
about whether you are being brainwashed.’
Tang
and his like are rightfully angry at bigots like former CNN commentator Jack
Cafferty, rightfully distrusting of
outlets like CNN and MSNBC and FOX, etc., and anxious to gather as much
information about a subject as they can, be there a ‘firewall’ or no. Decades
of suspicion towards China from the West, and no doubt vice versa, has left a
bad taste in the mouths of many investors, including those from IBM and 3Com.
This separation goes both ways, maybe, but for students like Tang, there is a
feeling of victimization that has not calcified into resentment; instead, they
believe that they know well enough the history of western government…they know
the love they feel for China is a love shared by their neighbor, not a feeling
that developed ‘spontaneously.’ That much of the hullaballoo addressed by the
video was in response to the way China treated Tibet made even less sense to
the Chinese than if Mexico were to abandon the next American Olympics because
of the Alamo.
As
‘landmarks of national progress…[like] highways, supermarkets, and internet
cafes’ began to spread throughout China, so did a feeling of ‘cultural
strangulation.’ Here, the author makes sure to use the word humiliating; this
was the clue I needed. Turns out, after the Opium Wars, which China lost to
Japan (thus, humiliation), China (in the eyes of many Chinese, at least) signed
a series of more than one hundred ‘unfair treaties.’ This set the stage for the
Maoist revolution, and may have something to do with why the Chinese government
‘treated the online patriots warily,’ ‘calling for ‘rational patriotism.’ If the
Chinese government was in fear that this generation of students would rebel a
la Tiananmen Square, they need not have worried- this is a generation that
believes the Chinese government was right in putting down, in any way possible,
the Student Uprising of 1989.
While
Tang feels that his age group in China is acceptant of democracy and recognizes
the value in human rights, he speaks for a nation that understands democracy
does not mean bread on the table or coffee in your cup. There is a
‘metastasizing’ feeling of ‘strategic containment’, a coming ‘New Cold War,
waged by the West, that angers the Chinese nation as a whole; this is a people
who understand the promises of democracy but realize that their nation was not,
and likely is not, fully ready for a transition away from the communism
practiced and preached. Another voice in the article, Liu, expressed what must
be a common sentiment, that ‘democracy can really give you the good life,
that’s good. But, without democracy, if we can still have the good life, why
should we choose democracy?’ Why indeed. This is how democracy is viewed, with
suspicion and distrust—why change what clearly works?
To
conclude, there is a rising conservatism in China, a conservatism that requires
a cleaving to the ancient while adjusting to current capitalistic reality. This
is a movement that, like the conservative re-awakening in America after the
success of the civil rights movement, that is not satisfied with the status
quo; this is the demand for action part of civic nationalism that convinced me.
They know that they are Westernized, and this ‘classical revival’ among the
youth to re-visit ‘ancient China’ shows, yes, a modernized traditionalistic
civic nationalism. The role of the United States is that of foil, in that
America and China contrast, each highlighting particular qualities the other lacks.
Democracy is not seen as the all-powerful, omnipotent force that many in the
United States believe it to be, but instead a whittling down to nothing of
Chinese culture.
What
struck me the most was the idea that if my family wanted to have a second child—while
news from yesterday is that China is officially abandoning their one child
policy- my family could merely pay a fine of rice or other commodities. No one
comes and kills the ‘extra’ kid, there is no national shame on the family for
the addition…this was news to me. What I have learned is about the period of
National Humiliation, how that time came and went, leaving us with an economic
partner in China that views western interests as inevitably set to conquer
them. I cannot speak to the sense of victimhood both countries feel, and I am
no expert in the finer arguments between communism and capitalism, but as both
nations move forward, I expect this Chinese nationalism (modernized
traditionalistic civic) to continue presenting economic and other (human
rights, still, is a major issue) problems to American
interests. The question I am left with is: It would seem that capitalism has
taken root in China; will it too become ancient?
