Written just a mile away from the Tiananmen on the 20th Anniversay of the Tiananmen Incident. As I was not able to post it on to the NYHK in Beijing (access is denied for the past months), I am posting it now for archival reason. Accompanied herein with a post note written today.
Dear Bro,
Pls read this
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/opinion/04kristof.html
I remember I was very sympathetic to the students at that time. Over the years, I came to the view that what they did at the time was wrong - not that what they demanded was wrong but the way they demanded it. Zhao was unable to backpedal it and arguably deploy these hot blooded students as pawn to fight against Deng.
I have been partial to Deng all these years. The last 30 years has been golden years for china and I felt so defensive each time he is marred by this incident. I always try to see in the light of 30 million death compared to 3000 casualties. The truth is it is really not statistic.
When the soldier gunned down the students, it was wrong and there is no justification. Apology is definitely dued. CCP has to retract their official stance on Tiananmen incident.
I think CCP will come to senses one day and I am confident to see it in the next 10-15 years.
written just less than a mile from Tiananmen,
KY
Note on June 26: even on the 20th anniversay, I was and am still hoping that CCP would repent and reconcile with its transgresses. I don't know if I am too optimistic. I hope I am not. If what I am hoping remains illusory 10-15 years from now, will I be considered as tacitly endorsing a government repressive to its peoples. Will I come to regret? I am talking about 10-15 years and during that interval, what would happen?
Think of all those activitsts who were jailed/exciled. Think of all those most often unnamed peoples whose property, dignity and rights are aggrieved by the corrupt and repressive officers and their accomplices.
Think of the very notion of justice, liberty and democracy denied to the 1.3 billion. Think of the 30 millions of Mao's casualties during the Great Leap Forward. Think of all those who sufferred and lost their life in the countless of campaign launched by the CCP in the first 30 years of its rule.
Think of those kids at Tiananmen and the vision that remains illusive the past 20 years.
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
3 Films and Lesson for Humanity - Comments
Bro, thanks for a wonderful post. 3 movies with the backdrop of 3 terrible atrocities spanning 3 continents Asia, Africa and Europe. I think it is sobering that the most recent one happenned merely 15 years ago. And goodness knows what is happenning in Burma or North Korea even today?
What intrigues me the most is how the movies uncovered 3 different sets of reactions by both the perpetrators and victims. Along with the previous post about CCP's stance on reforms - or rather the lack of it - I am afraid it betrays some uneasy signs of immaturity amongst Asian governments and may be, even within Asian societies. I have a terrible feeling that we have not seen the last of barbarism and violence on an inhuman scale even within the most modern Asian societies. Underneath the veneer of Asian modernity and economic progress, there are dark violent impluses, deep insecurity and intolerance still festering and seething.
The Germans admitted the Holocaust as a tragedy and a national shame. The Nazi leadership was tried (by the Allies) but the rest of the nation - who bore some responsibility one way or the other - admitted responsibility and was forgiven, even by the victims.
Likewise for Rwanda. The victims - the Tutsis - came into power with the help of regional allies and from their bases in the Congo. In a region that is often prejudiced against by many who consider them uncivilized and barbaric, they exhibited extraordinary magnanimity and humanity against the people who earlier butchered them and their families. What does this say about the quality and leadership of the Rwandan people?
The important point is not only to recognise that the Germans and the Hutus were guilty but also that they were forgiven by their victims. That is an important concept. Calls for justice and responsibility must be accompanied by forgiveness not hatred.
In Asia, memories are long and are subject to political manipulation to create new generations of victimhood. That will only feed the demons of fear, intolerance and violence that can erupt uncontrollably at any moment. Asia still awaits the kind of leadership that not only call for responsibility and apologies but who also simulteneously offer forgiveness and tolerance.
I re-read with some poignancy your email to me from June 4 this year. That was a good article by Kristol. Little did I expect that a week later, one would experience a re-enactment in the streets of Iran. Comparing the young people in Beijing circa 1989 and in Tehran circa 2009, I see so much similarities: especially in their hope & haplessness, righteousness & recklessness, impressive people & tragic repressions. I saw perfect mirrors in their impulses for freedom and progress against a corrupt and reactionary regime. I saw their pride in their respective nations and ancient civilization. I also see patriots wanting reforms and change while respecting the "revolution" but ended up being smeared by their oppressors using unimaginatively identical language: as counter-revolutionaries and terrorists supported by foreign powers.
It is tempting to over-rely on analogies but there are important differences. For decades, the Iranians had some power of the ballot through elections. The powers-that-be still try to preserve a fig-leaf of ruling by popular mandate. The tanks were not (yet?) on the streets. The opposition leaders were not (yet?) locked up or shot. And the protest goes on in many ways. In an echo of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, every night at 10pm, protected by darkness, Iranians go up to their roof tops .... and repeatedly prayed out loud: "Allah-u-akbar" and soon they were joined by others from other roof tops, and then from more and more rooftops until the city roared with prayers. From a news report today, this still goes on for half-an-hour every night.
And through it all, I believe the Iranian people have gained the respect of many people in the world who are seeing them for the first time as intelligent, dignified, passionate, educated and fine-looking individuals - not the crude, turbuned, nihilistic caricatures painted by warmongers looking for a pretext for a war with Iran. With a people like this, its just a matter of time for change for the better in Iran.
What intrigues me the most is how the movies uncovered 3 different sets of reactions by both the perpetrators and victims. Along with the previous post about CCP's stance on reforms - or rather the lack of it - I am afraid it betrays some uneasy signs of immaturity amongst Asian governments and may be, even within Asian societies. I have a terrible feeling that we have not seen the last of barbarism and violence on an inhuman scale even within the most modern Asian societies. Underneath the veneer of Asian modernity and economic progress, there are dark violent impluses, deep insecurity and intolerance still festering and seething.
The Germans admitted the Holocaust as a tragedy and a national shame. The Nazi leadership was tried (by the Allies) but the rest of the nation - who bore some responsibility one way or the other - admitted responsibility and was forgiven, even by the victims.
Likewise for Rwanda. The victims - the Tutsis - came into power with the help of regional allies and from their bases in the Congo. In a region that is often prejudiced against by many who consider them uncivilized and barbaric, they exhibited extraordinary magnanimity and humanity against the people who earlier butchered them and their families. What does this say about the quality and leadership of the Rwandan people?
The important point is not only to recognise that the Germans and the Hutus were guilty but also that they were forgiven by their victims. That is an important concept. Calls for justice and responsibility must be accompanied by forgiveness not hatred.
In Asia, memories are long and are subject to political manipulation to create new generations of victimhood. That will only feed the demons of fear, intolerance and violence that can erupt uncontrollably at any moment. Asia still awaits the kind of leadership that not only call for responsibility and apologies but who also simulteneously offer forgiveness and tolerance.
I re-read with some poignancy your email to me from June 4 this year. That was a good article by Kristol. Little did I expect that a week later, one would experience a re-enactment in the streets of Iran. Comparing the young people in Beijing circa 1989 and in Tehran circa 2009, I see so much similarities: especially in their hope & haplessness, righteousness & recklessness, impressive people & tragic repressions. I saw perfect mirrors in their impulses for freedom and progress against a corrupt and reactionary regime. I saw their pride in their respective nations and ancient civilization. I also see patriots wanting reforms and change while respecting the "revolution" but ended up being smeared by their oppressors using unimaginatively identical language: as counter-revolutionaries and terrorists supported by foreign powers.
It is tempting to over-rely on analogies but there are important differences. For decades, the Iranians had some power of the ballot through elections. The powers-that-be still try to preserve a fig-leaf of ruling by popular mandate. The tanks were not (yet?) on the streets. The opposition leaders were not (yet?) locked up or shot. And the protest goes on in many ways. In an echo of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, every night at 10pm, protected by darkness, Iranians go up to their roof tops .... and repeatedly prayed out loud: "Allah-u-akbar" and soon they were joined by others from other roof tops, and then from more and more rooftops until the city roared with prayers. From a news report today, this still goes on for half-an-hour every night.
And through it all, I believe the Iranian people have gained the respect of many people in the world who are seeing them for the first time as intelligent, dignified, passionate, educated and fine-looking individuals - not the crude, turbuned, nihilistic caricatures painted by warmongers looking for a pretext for a war with Iran. With a people like this, its just a matter of time for change for the better in Iran.
3 Films and Lesson for Humanity
In the past one month, I watched 3 films with setting at different time and space.
One of which is The City of Life and Death (known in Chinese as Nanjing!Nanjing!). This is a story of the Rape of Nanjing. The film tells the story of, among other, a brave Chinese soldier who resisted the Japanese in street fighting following the retreat of his commander. He was eventually arrested and forced to march with thousands of Chinese POW to the Yangze River bank where they were all mercilessly machine-gunned down. This was not war. This was mass murder, masacre of the highest order against POW. The commanding officer of Imperial Army in Nanking then was Prince Asaka who lived a post war live filled with golf and died only in 1980s never was he brought to account for his role.
The films also tell about John Rabe, a German businessman with the Nazi membership who saved many Chinese civilians through setting up the Nanking Safety Zone. In the films, there were also other brave characters who gave their life to save other as well as the unsavoury who tried to save their own by selling out others.
There were also many uneasy scene where the girls were raped and enslaved as the comfort women. I remember from my reading that the girls at Jinling Girl College were mass raped by the Japanese soldiers. We are talking about thousand and thousand of violent sex victims many of whom didn't survive to tell the story.
It always anger me that someone out there, be it the right wing Japanese or the China bashers whatever their nationality, who denied the attrocity simply because they either cannot accept their responsibility or just hold the Chinese in contempt. The latter has their theory that the CCP made up or exagerate the Nanking massacre in order to give its rule the legitimacy. I find this Cold War era theory ludicrous and these peoples are no different from those who denied the Holocaust.
Back to the film, Lu Chuan, the film producer gave a sympathethic portrayal of a Japanese soldier for which he received death threat from the angry Chinese netizens. Again, this show the immaturity of many mainland Chinese who are unable to accept even a slight variant to the standard description of the Imperial Japanese army.
On the other hand, I am very happy to see more diverse perspectives introduced into the film making. What they did is not a revision of the history rather it is a microscopic perspective of a world with unlimited spectrum of characters and possibilities.
With hindsight, largely due to the Cold War, the perpetrator of war crime particularly the Japanese Imperial Family was not brought to justice. Emperor Hirohito was spared. So was Prince Asaka, the commander at the time of the Rape of Nanking.
Nevertheless, this responsibility in granting the immunity to the Imperial Family is largely that of Douglas MacArthur who single-handedly deprieve any notion of justice to the victims in the region and the humanity at large. What MacArthur did was equivalent to installing Hitler as the German Chancellor.
I will call for MacArthur family and the American government (vicarious responsibility) for a formal apology.
Moving on the second film Rwanda Hotel. This is a story of a Hutu hotelier, Paul Rusesabagina, who shielded hundred of Tutsi and moderate Hutu from the Hutu militia during the 1994 genocide in which an estimate of 800000 were killed.
The film blamed the Westen inaction against and the French complicity in arming the Hutu in wiping out the Tutsi. (It is disgusting that the France today are taking a high moral ground on human right)
It is really sad watching the so-called peacekeeper withdrew from a guarded compound full of refugees who minutes later were slaughtered by the advancing Hutu militia.
The conflict traces its root to the colonial era. The racial stereotyping and prejudice are human's greatest folly which is reenacted generation after generation. By the way, Rwanda is very much a Christian country most observers failed to highlight.
One thing strikes me was the role played by the media. In this case, the radio broadcast by the Hutu extremist repeatedly went on to the airwave to call for blood against the cockcroach, a code name for Tutsi. The radio also urged the Hutu to "taste" the Tutsi women.
In those senseless age, I wonder what one would do in those circumstances. Kill your neighbour? Protect your neighbour at the pain of being killed yourself if discovered? Tragically, the 1994 genocide saw many chose to be the latter. Catholic priest included.
Maybe the defence of duress is available but does that exculpate such a large scale of mass killing. Almost every surviving Hutu took part. There is simply no jail big enough to house them. Thus punishment is meted out to the organizer and the militia activist, the rest are rehabilitated in return for admission of guilt.
If this is called justice, this is justice. If one disagree, I could only fan out the message from Gandhi, an eye for en eye make the whole world blind.
The last film is the Reader starring Kate Winslet. It tells a story of a female Nazist who was tried and sentenced for killing the Jews at the Concentration Camp. Actually it was more of a story how a new generation of Germans come to term with the attrocity commited by their kins and loved one.
To a large extent, the German had dealt with the truth of Nazi crime much better than the Japanese. The Rwanda led by the Tutsi today are wise enough to forsake retribution im favour of truth and reconciliation.
As for the Japanese, short of a heartfelt apology from the Japanese emperor, the collective conscience of the Japanese will never be absoved of their involvement and complicity in the most attrocious crime against humanity committed in the region's history.
One of which is The City of Life and Death (known in Chinese as Nanjing!Nanjing!). This is a story of the Rape of Nanjing. The film tells the story of, among other, a brave Chinese soldier who resisted the Japanese in street fighting following the retreat of his commander. He was eventually arrested and forced to march with thousands of Chinese POW to the Yangze River bank where they were all mercilessly machine-gunned down. This was not war. This was mass murder, masacre of the highest order against POW. The commanding officer of Imperial Army in Nanking then was Prince Asaka who lived a post war live filled with golf and died only in 1980s never was he brought to account for his role.
The films also tell about John Rabe, a German businessman with the Nazi membership who saved many Chinese civilians through setting up the Nanking Safety Zone. In the films, there were also other brave characters who gave their life to save other as well as the unsavoury who tried to save their own by selling out others.
There were also many uneasy scene where the girls were raped and enslaved as the comfort women. I remember from my reading that the girls at Jinling Girl College were mass raped by the Japanese soldiers. We are talking about thousand and thousand of violent sex victims many of whom didn't survive to tell the story.
It always anger me that someone out there, be it the right wing Japanese or the China bashers whatever their nationality, who denied the attrocity simply because they either cannot accept their responsibility or just hold the Chinese in contempt. The latter has their theory that the CCP made up or exagerate the Nanking massacre in order to give its rule the legitimacy. I find this Cold War era theory ludicrous and these peoples are no different from those who denied the Holocaust.
Back to the film, Lu Chuan, the film producer gave a sympathethic portrayal of a Japanese soldier for which he received death threat from the angry Chinese netizens. Again, this show the immaturity of many mainland Chinese who are unable to accept even a slight variant to the standard description of the Imperial Japanese army.
On the other hand, I am very happy to see more diverse perspectives introduced into the film making. What they did is not a revision of the history rather it is a microscopic perspective of a world with unlimited spectrum of characters and possibilities.
With hindsight, largely due to the Cold War, the perpetrator of war crime particularly the Japanese Imperial Family was not brought to justice. Emperor Hirohito was spared. So was Prince Asaka, the commander at the time of the Rape of Nanking.
Nevertheless, this responsibility in granting the immunity to the Imperial Family is largely that of Douglas MacArthur who single-handedly deprieve any notion of justice to the victims in the region and the humanity at large. What MacArthur did was equivalent to installing Hitler as the German Chancellor.
I will call for MacArthur family and the American government (vicarious responsibility) for a formal apology.
Moving on the second film Rwanda Hotel. This is a story of a Hutu hotelier, Paul Rusesabagina, who shielded hundred of Tutsi and moderate Hutu from the Hutu militia during the 1994 genocide in which an estimate of 800000 were killed.
The film blamed the Westen inaction against and the French complicity in arming the Hutu in wiping out the Tutsi. (It is disgusting that the France today are taking a high moral ground on human right)
It is really sad watching the so-called peacekeeper withdrew from a guarded compound full of refugees who minutes later were slaughtered by the advancing Hutu militia.
The conflict traces its root to the colonial era. The racial stereotyping and prejudice are human's greatest folly which is reenacted generation after generation. By the way, Rwanda is very much a Christian country most observers failed to highlight.
One thing strikes me was the role played by the media. In this case, the radio broadcast by the Hutu extremist repeatedly went on to the airwave to call for blood against the cockcroach, a code name for Tutsi. The radio also urged the Hutu to "taste" the Tutsi women.
In those senseless age, I wonder what one would do in those circumstances. Kill your neighbour? Protect your neighbour at the pain of being killed yourself if discovered? Tragically, the 1994 genocide saw many chose to be the latter. Catholic priest included.
Maybe the defence of duress is available but does that exculpate such a large scale of mass killing. Almost every surviving Hutu took part. There is simply no jail big enough to house them. Thus punishment is meted out to the organizer and the militia activist, the rest are rehabilitated in return for admission of guilt.
If this is called justice, this is justice. If one disagree, I could only fan out the message from Gandhi, an eye for en eye make the whole world blind.
The last film is the Reader starring Kate Winslet. It tells a story of a female Nazist who was tried and sentenced for killing the Jews at the Concentration Camp. Actually it was more of a story how a new generation of Germans come to term with the attrocity commited by their kins and loved one.
To a large extent, the German had dealt with the truth of Nazi crime much better than the Japanese. The Rwanda led by the Tutsi today are wise enough to forsake retribution im favour of truth and reconciliation.
As for the Japanese, short of a heartfelt apology from the Japanese emperor, the collective conscience of the Japanese will never be absoved of their involvement and complicity in the most attrocious crime against humanity committed in the region's history.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Activist Charged for Subversion
It is reported today that Liu Xiaobo, an activist, one of the drafter and signatory to the Charter 08 has been arrested and charged for subverting the national sovereignty/government and the socialist system (煽動顛覆國家政權, 推翻社會主義制度).
I remember we both disagree with certain aspects of the Charter for being going too far
however we accept that it is necessary for an open and healthy debate on the constitutional and political issues faced by the country.
Coincidentally, I read today a column at SCMP by Frank Ching who wrote about "Dengish Whateverism".
His point is - if Deng back in 1979 could turn the table on The Maoist's Two Whateverism" to launch the economic reform and liberalization, the CCP today should be entitled to review Dengist Whateverism, namely, his hardline stance on one party rule.
The silly mantra then was whatever Mao instructed during his life time should be carried out and whatever Mao opposed should never be done.
My fear is this.
There are many supporters for the gradualist approach taken by the CCP since 1979s. I think we are among them. I must confess that I defended Deng all along despite my reservation on the handling of June 4th incident.
Having said that, the snail pace of the CCP's political reform is beginning to loose the patience of her once supporters.
I forecasted the political transformational year for China earliest is 2022. However, what I see today is that the action taken against Prof Liu is and not condusive to creating a gradually incremental approach toward that goal.
I remember we both disagree with certain aspects of the Charter for being going too far
however we accept that it is necessary for an open and healthy debate on the constitutional and political issues faced by the country.
Coincidentally, I read today a column at SCMP by Frank Ching who wrote about "Dengish Whateverism".
His point is - if Deng back in 1979 could turn the table on The Maoist's Two Whateverism" to launch the economic reform and liberalization, the CCP today should be entitled to review Dengist Whateverism, namely, his hardline stance on one party rule.
The silly mantra then was whatever Mao instructed during his life time should be carried out and whatever Mao opposed should never be done.
My fear is this.
There are many supporters for the gradualist approach taken by the CCP since 1979s. I think we are among them. I must confess that I defended Deng all along despite my reservation on the handling of June 4th incident.
Having said that, the snail pace of the CCP's political reform is beginning to loose the patience of her once supporters.
I forecasted the political transformational year for China earliest is 2022. However, what I see today is that the action taken against Prof Liu is and not condusive to creating a gradually incremental approach toward that goal.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Our Time in the iPhone
In my view, the one product that best captures and symbolises the age we are in is the iPhone. For sure is a brilliant little product but I see it as something that excapsulates so well so much of the breathtaking difference as decade or so makes in our lifestyles.
Less than 10 years ago, photographs are taken with cameras and printed on paper - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago music is something on a CD or a tape - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago a cell phone is for voice only - not any longer! (And less than 20 years ago, there was hardly ANY cell phone at all!)
Less than 15 years ago, hardly anyone had an email - not any longer!
Less than 15 years ago, people have just discovered using the HTML and linking different documents together with "links" you can click on ... the internet was an exotic realm limited to research institutes - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, the dot-com boom went bust and people were declaring the party to be over and the internet is dead - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, international phone calls were extremely expensive - not any longer ! Moreover you can do that now for free and with streaming video from anywhere!
Less than 10 years ago, people still buy encyclopedia in the book form - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, people were surprised to find little cameras on their cellphones - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, to open a page on the internet you needed to w.a.i.t. for it to load - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, Google was newly founded (in 1998)
Less than 5 years ago, you can only access the internet on a computer...and always with a wire - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, broadband was unusual and costs a lot - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, WiFi were rare and exotic - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, the idea of watching endless choice of smooth-streaming video online was far-fetched - not any longer!
Less than 2 years ago, one cannot carry around their entire digital library (of creation, documents, photos, music...) on a sliver of silicon the size of their finger nail - not any longer!
Less than 2 years ago, you won't expect your auntie to invite you to be their friend on Facebook - not any longer!
The list can go on but physically the iPhone is nothing more than a piece of glass, pieces of circuitry on silicon and plastic, a battery and a think metal back. Thoughout most of human history, it is not something that would have worth much at all.
Its magic and power lies in the unseen and the intangible. This is the sign of our times that its power came from the power of thought and intellectual energy that made up the software and its value lay in the connection of thought that it opened up; by linking up the collective knowledge and the energies of human creativity. The value of the device is no longer in the physical, it is all intellectual - unseen, intangible, everywhere and nowhere in particular.
Once we consider how our entire collection of photographs, music and recorded knowledge can disappear into the gigabits of memory that appear to be little more than dust and ether; one is reminded that ultimately the universe is only energy - even mass is a energy according to Einstein and quantum physics - "everything" is just but a thought, a pool of energy, both-existing-and-non-existent, limitless, transforming, transient, abundant, all-powerful and all-present.
If we consider how the device came about, I can see vast chains that stretch across the world and across time only to meet at certain points in time and space.
On the most tangible level, I see the global supply chain of the millenium decade. Into mega production bases in Southern China came product designs streamed from Apple in California. In came microchips from the US, Korea and Taiwan. Countless other materials were sourced from all over China and the rest of East Asia. In came software codes written by brilliants minds drawn from California, India, Japan, Russia and any number of other places in the world. In China, all those ingredients met young workers from Sichuan, Guangdong and Zhejiang who assembled them iPhones and loaded them into containers in Hong Kong ... or into FedEx aircrafts that swarm like bats across the oceans and land only in the middle of the night. Along the way, they were read by hundreds of lasers as they move from containers to bins to boxes and all the way to the shelves in a thousand cities in the world.
There, another thousands of paths converge - those leading back to the people who turned a thingy into a product (marketing), the technical support team in India, journalists who wrote the reviews in the magazines, the youngsters who man the stores, the guys who designed the theme music for the advertisement campaigns, the girl whose art work adorned the store display, the thousands of programmers who hoped to strike it rich creating online applications, the corporate boardrooms who demanded an iPhone "platform" for their services, the technicians who upgraded supplied the cellphone network and finally the consumer - who would in time blogged about her new iPhone to her friends on facebook.
Out of a network, a chain and out of a chain and into another network, and then another. It is globalization in action both the actor as well as the result.
On another level that if often unseen, the risks of all such ventures were financed, underwritten, exchanged, insured, collaterialised, packaged-and-sold-on by bankers in New York and London. We can see the lawyer who decided to add another punctuation mark on the intellectual property agreement. On one side of the world, a trader executed a trade for AAPL and covering it with an option; and on the otherside of the globe a retirement fund manager attended a Macworld event sitting next to a hedge fund manager and next to a venture capitalist all thinking different thoughts but all linked to how what Steve Jobs was about to show will do to the money under their control.
But that is before we got to the power of the device itself. In its innards, we see the cumulative knowledge of generations of scientific genii and pioneers all the way from the beginning of science in ancient Greece, to medieval engineers in China, mathematicians in India and Persia, ancient mechanical designers in Rome and Egypt. We see them through the foundations of modern science that stretched from France, Geneva, Florence, Vienna, London during the Enlightenment, and all the way to the labs of MIT, Cambridge, Stanford and Caltech where their brilliant decendants - whether they come from America, Russia, Europe and Asia create breakthroughs and spilled out into their garages and start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
And in its memories - those same dust and ether that store information - we see the cumulative creative energies from time immemorial that live on in ideas, in our music, in the written and spoken word, in images, in art and design, in all the richness of the creative arts and in all the richess of life that populate the human civilization - so long as anything can be digitised.
And that is how, I see our time in the simple little iPhone.
Less than 10 years ago, photographs are taken with cameras and printed on paper - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago music is something on a CD or a tape - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago a cell phone is for voice only - not any longer! (And less than 20 years ago, there was hardly ANY cell phone at all!)
Less than 15 years ago, hardly anyone had an email - not any longer!
Less than 15 years ago, people have just discovered using the HTML and linking different documents together with "links" you can click on ... the internet was an exotic realm limited to research institutes - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, the dot-com boom went bust and people were declaring the party to be over and the internet is dead - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, international phone calls were extremely expensive - not any longer ! Moreover you can do that now for free and with streaming video from anywhere!
Less than 10 years ago, people still buy encyclopedia in the book form - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, people were surprised to find little cameras on their cellphones - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, to open a page on the internet you needed to w.a.i.t. for it to load - not any longer!
Less than 10 years ago, Google was newly founded (in 1998)
Less than 5 years ago, you can only access the internet on a computer...and always with a wire - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, broadband was unusual and costs a lot - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, WiFi were rare and exotic - not any longer!
Less than 5 years ago, the idea of watching endless choice of smooth-streaming video online was far-fetched - not any longer!
Less than 2 years ago, one cannot carry around their entire digital library (of creation, documents, photos, music...) on a sliver of silicon the size of their finger nail - not any longer!
Less than 2 years ago, you won't expect your auntie to invite you to be their friend on Facebook - not any longer!
The list can go on but physically the iPhone is nothing more than a piece of glass, pieces of circuitry on silicon and plastic, a battery and a think metal back. Thoughout most of human history, it is not something that would have worth much at all.
Its magic and power lies in the unseen and the intangible. This is the sign of our times that its power came from the power of thought and intellectual energy that made up the software and its value lay in the connection of thought that it opened up; by linking up the collective knowledge and the energies of human creativity. The value of the device is no longer in the physical, it is all intellectual - unseen, intangible, everywhere and nowhere in particular.
Once we consider how our entire collection of photographs, music and recorded knowledge can disappear into the gigabits of memory that appear to be little more than dust and ether; one is reminded that ultimately the universe is only energy - even mass is a energy according to Einstein and quantum physics - "everything" is just but a thought, a pool of energy, both-existing-and-non-existent, limitless, transforming, transient, abundant, all-powerful and all-present.
If we consider how the device came about, I can see vast chains that stretch across the world and across time only to meet at certain points in time and space.
On the most tangible level, I see the global supply chain of the millenium decade. Into mega production bases in Southern China came product designs streamed from Apple in California. In came microchips from the US, Korea and Taiwan. Countless other materials were sourced from all over China and the rest of East Asia. In came software codes written by brilliants minds drawn from California, India, Japan, Russia and any number of other places in the world. In China, all those ingredients met young workers from Sichuan, Guangdong and Zhejiang who assembled them iPhones and loaded them into containers in Hong Kong ... or into FedEx aircrafts that swarm like bats across the oceans and land only in the middle of the night. Along the way, they were read by hundreds of lasers as they move from containers to bins to boxes and all the way to the shelves in a thousand cities in the world.
There, another thousands of paths converge - those leading back to the people who turned a thingy into a product (marketing), the technical support team in India, journalists who wrote the reviews in the magazines, the youngsters who man the stores, the guys who designed the theme music for the advertisement campaigns, the girl whose art work adorned the store display, the thousands of programmers who hoped to strike it rich creating online applications, the corporate boardrooms who demanded an iPhone "platform" for their services, the technicians who upgraded supplied the cellphone network and finally the consumer - who would in time blogged about her new iPhone to her friends on facebook.
Out of a network, a chain and out of a chain and into another network, and then another. It is globalization in action both the actor as well as the result.
On another level that if often unseen, the risks of all such ventures were financed, underwritten, exchanged, insured, collaterialised, packaged-and-sold-on by bankers in New York and London. We can see the lawyer who decided to add another punctuation mark on the intellectual property agreement. On one side of the world, a trader executed a trade for AAPL and covering it with an option; and on the otherside of the globe a retirement fund manager attended a Macworld event sitting next to a hedge fund manager and next to a venture capitalist all thinking different thoughts but all linked to how what Steve Jobs was about to show will do to the money under their control.
But that is before we got to the power of the device itself. In its innards, we see the cumulative knowledge of generations of scientific genii and pioneers all the way from the beginning of science in ancient Greece, to medieval engineers in China, mathematicians in India and Persia, ancient mechanical designers in Rome and Egypt. We see them through the foundations of modern science that stretched from France, Geneva, Florence, Vienna, London during the Enlightenment, and all the way to the labs of MIT, Cambridge, Stanford and Caltech where their brilliant decendants - whether they come from America, Russia, Europe and Asia create breakthroughs and spilled out into their garages and start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.
And in its memories - those same dust and ether that store information - we see the cumulative creative energies from time immemorial that live on in ideas, in our music, in the written and spoken word, in images, in art and design, in all the richness of the creative arts and in all the richess of life that populate the human civilization - so long as anything can be digitised.
And that is how, I see our time in the simple little iPhone.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Chinese Are Venturing Out
My returning flight was delayed for three hours. Sat across the aisle were two Chinese men hailed from Hebei province.
They were both visibly excited and anxious. Excited - the first flight they experienced. Anxious - they have no clue what was going on with the delay, neither do I nor the pilot.
The Air Traffic Control Tower gave no explanation as to the delay. I could hear the Caucasian pilot of Dragonair sighed even before he made the apology for the delay. His question to the air traffic controller went unanswered.
Does this not speak of the status of the legitimate right to know in China?
Back to the aircraft, sat in front of me was a small group of Chinese men wearing the uniform of CITIC Telcom.
Like the two fellow passengers sat across the aisle from me, all of them are heading to Angola.
Those wearing the uniform are working for a unit of CITIC's Angola outfit. Presumably they are technicians.
The two however are just drivers. I didn't ask who they are going work for. All I know is that they have signed a contract of two years, no different from my Filipino helper.
The two years are going to be two years from home living in an environment so completely different from what they know.
They are not educated. Why I know? They sought my help to play the video on their newly bought laptop, an Acer laptop. What amuse me was they didn't have a VCD..
Anyway, they are venturing out. Leaving their family and out to the Africa and out to Angola, a country besieged by protracted civil war ended just not too long ago.
At this point, I cannot but think of my grandfather who left China in 1920s. His grandson returned to visit the ancestor village only in 2005.
I hope they would not take that long....
They were both visibly excited and anxious. Excited - the first flight they experienced. Anxious - they have no clue what was going on with the delay, neither do I nor the pilot.
The Air Traffic Control Tower gave no explanation as to the delay. I could hear the Caucasian pilot of Dragonair sighed even before he made the apology for the delay. His question to the air traffic controller went unanswered.
Does this not speak of the status of the legitimate right to know in China?
Back to the aircraft, sat in front of me was a small group of Chinese men wearing the uniform of CITIC Telcom.
Like the two fellow passengers sat across the aisle from me, all of them are heading to Angola.
Those wearing the uniform are working for a unit of CITIC's Angola outfit. Presumably they are technicians.
The two however are just drivers. I didn't ask who they are going work for. All I know is that they have signed a contract of two years, no different from my Filipino helper.
The two years are going to be two years from home living in an environment so completely different from what they know.
They are not educated. Why I know? They sought my help to play the video on their newly bought laptop, an Acer laptop. What amuse me was they didn't have a VCD..
Anyway, they are venturing out. Leaving their family and out to the Africa and out to Angola, a country besieged by protracted civil war ended just not too long ago.
At this point, I cannot but think of my grandfather who left China in 1920s. His grandson returned to visit the ancestor village only in 2005.
I hope they would not take that long....
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Lee Kuan Yew in Malaysia
[Apologies for being lazy with my postings in the past few weeks. No excuses. But suddenlly I was provided some interesting food for thoughts. It was none other than MM Lee Kuan Yew's 8 day visit through West Malaysia between 8 June and 15 June. I find the whole thing extremely interesting.]
Firstly, as The Star newspaper admitted, this was no trip down memory lane as initially branded. No, Lee Kuan Yew does not do such things. In fact, it was a highly astute and in-depth fact-finding mission to learn about the Malaysian political landscape post 8 March 2008.
As usual, Singapore is shrewedly looking and planning ahead. Singapore is also extremely lucky in having Lee Kuan Yew, for he has few equal when come to experience, knowledge and track record in making astute assessment of people and the political situation. His is a gut-feel for Malaysia that few outsiders have and plus he has the historical perspective. On the other hand, in making the trip, he is also acknowledging that many of the players in the opposition are not yet well-understood - even to the most seasoned observers. At 85, Lee Kuan Yew no longer travel too much so having him on a 8 day trek through Malaysia is a significant move. No stranger to controversy across the causeway, his trip would not be risk free. And yet, Malaysia is so important to Singapore that the prospect of dealing with a change in the Malaysian government could not be left to chance or to anyone less than the master himself. I deeply admire this practical far-sightedness on the part of the Singaporeans.
It was no coincidence that his trip took him through KL (Selangor), Perak, Peneng, Kelantan and Pahang, i.e. almost all the states under opposition. It was no coincidence that he wanted to learn more about the realities, personalities and directions of the PRM leaderships, especially those in the state governments. Those states are real life laboratories of how the opposition will operate if given the chance to seize power nationally. After all, it is not enough just flying in to meet with Dato' Seri Anwar. He understood that in dealing with a coalition, he needed to know all the different forces and personalities so as to understand how the different permutations might play out. By all accounts, he arrived extremely well-briefed (as befitting a top lawyer) about the issues and personalities but he really wanted to size them up first hand. It would be interesting to hear what he says after his visit.
Quite interestingly, his fact finding was not limited to the opposition because BN itself is undergoing a lot of changes with the ups-and-downs of MCA, MIC and Gerakan and the East Malaysian parties becoming more influential. Below the usual cast of characters at the top are many who are jostling for position. It would be negligence to focus on knowing the opposition camp when the ruling camp itself is in a flux.
In this context, it is intriuging that he made a point to meet seperately with Najib's wife. I find that a fascinating decision - both for Singapore to request and for Najib to agree to such an overt meeting - because it certainly gave credence to the suspicion that she is the power behind the throne. It is more telling that Lee Kuan Yew openly explained the reason for the meeting is that Najib and his wife work (govern?) as a team. I wonder what Najib's adviser feel about the publicity.
Quite unusually, his visit was not greeted by the usual grandstanding and chest-beating by UMNO Youths or other anti-Singapore sentiments - although for many Malaysians cynicism remains a common reaction to Singapore. What more a visit that is an undisguised attempt at understanding Malaysian internal politics. This shows the growing maturity of Malaysia-Singapore relations. But more importantly, this shows the pragmatism of all parties in Malaysia that everyone - in power or out of it - that Singapore could be a useful friend and ally in whatever they aim to achieve. Even his old nemesis in DAP and non-bed-fellows like PAS were wiling to be open to him. After all, when one is in government even if its Peneng State or Kelantan State, one has to deliver to the people. And being friends with Singapore has its benefits.
Firstly, as The Star newspaper admitted, this was no trip down memory lane as initially branded. No, Lee Kuan Yew does not do such things. In fact, it was a highly astute and in-depth fact-finding mission to learn about the Malaysian political landscape post 8 March 2008.
As usual, Singapore is shrewedly looking and planning ahead. Singapore is also extremely lucky in having Lee Kuan Yew, for he has few equal when come to experience, knowledge and track record in making astute assessment of people and the political situation. His is a gut-feel for Malaysia that few outsiders have and plus he has the historical perspective. On the other hand, in making the trip, he is also acknowledging that many of the players in the opposition are not yet well-understood - even to the most seasoned observers. At 85, Lee Kuan Yew no longer travel too much so having him on a 8 day trek through Malaysia is a significant move. No stranger to controversy across the causeway, his trip would not be risk free. And yet, Malaysia is so important to Singapore that the prospect of dealing with a change in the Malaysian government could not be left to chance or to anyone less than the master himself. I deeply admire this practical far-sightedness on the part of the Singaporeans.
It was no coincidence that his trip took him through KL (Selangor), Perak, Peneng, Kelantan and Pahang, i.e. almost all the states under opposition. It was no coincidence that he wanted to learn more about the realities, personalities and directions of the PRM leaderships, especially those in the state governments. Those states are real life laboratories of how the opposition will operate if given the chance to seize power nationally. After all, it is not enough just flying in to meet with Dato' Seri Anwar. He understood that in dealing with a coalition, he needed to know all the different forces and personalities so as to understand how the different permutations might play out. By all accounts, he arrived extremely well-briefed (as befitting a top lawyer) about the issues and personalities but he really wanted to size them up first hand. It would be interesting to hear what he says after his visit.
Quite interestingly, his fact finding was not limited to the opposition because BN itself is undergoing a lot of changes with the ups-and-downs of MCA, MIC and Gerakan and the East Malaysian parties becoming more influential. Below the usual cast of characters at the top are many who are jostling for position. It would be negligence to focus on knowing the opposition camp when the ruling camp itself is in a flux.
In this context, it is intriuging that he made a point to meet seperately with Najib's wife. I find that a fascinating decision - both for Singapore to request and for Najib to agree to such an overt meeting - because it certainly gave credence to the suspicion that she is the power behind the throne. It is more telling that Lee Kuan Yew openly explained the reason for the meeting is that Najib and his wife work (govern?) as a team. I wonder what Najib's adviser feel about the publicity.
Quite unusually, his visit was not greeted by the usual grandstanding and chest-beating by UMNO Youths or other anti-Singapore sentiments - although for many Malaysians cynicism remains a common reaction to Singapore. What more a visit that is an undisguised attempt at understanding Malaysian internal politics. This shows the growing maturity of Malaysia-Singapore relations. But more importantly, this shows the pragmatism of all parties in Malaysia that everyone - in power or out of it - that Singapore could be a useful friend and ally in whatever they aim to achieve. Even his old nemesis in DAP and non-bed-fellows like PAS were wiling to be open to him. After all, when one is in government even if its Peneng State or Kelantan State, one has to deliver to the people. And being friends with Singapore has its benefits.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Meaning of Human Tragedies Remembered
I am right now in Turin. In the past weeks, I have not had much opportunity to add to the postings nor respond to KY's email on 4 June. But finally, I found something to add to our discussion. It was the remarks of Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Laureate, peace activist and author made on 5 June 2009 when he accompanied President Obama and Chancellor Merkel to the concentration camp where he was interned. Speaking off the cuff, he said..
"As I came here today it was actually a way of coming and visit my father's grave -- but he had no grave. His grave is somewhere in the sky. This has become in those years the largest cemetery of the Jewish people.
The day he died was one of the darkest in my life. He became sick, weak, and I was there. I was there when he suffered. I was there when he asked for help, for water. I was there to receive his last words. But I was not there when he called for me, although we were in the same block; he on the upper bed and I on the lower bed. He called my name, and I was too afraid to move. All of us were. And then he died. I was there, but I was not there.
And I thought one day I will come back and speak to him, and tell him of the world that has become mine. I speak to him of times in which memory has become a sacred duty of all people of good will -- in America, where I live, or in Europe or in Germany, where you, Chancellor Merkel, are a leader with great courage and moral aspirations.
What can I tell him that the world has learned? I am not so sure. Mr. President, we have such high hopes for you because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place, where people will stop waging war -- every war is absurd and meaningless; where people will stop hating one another; where people will hate the otherness of the other rather than respect it.
But the world hasn't learned. When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned -- that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option, that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people's minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless.
I was so hopeful. Paradoxically, I was so hopeful then. Many of us were, although we had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity in a world that has no place for dignity.
We rejected that possibility and we said, no, we must continue believing in a future, because the world has learned. But again, the world hasn't. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia.
Will the world ever learn? I think that is why Buchenwald is so important -- as important, of course, but differently as Auschwitz. It's important because here the large -- the big camp was a kind of international community. People came there from all horizons -- political, economic, culture. The first globalization essay, experiment, were made in Buchenwald. And all that was meant to diminish the humanity of human beings.
You spoke of humanity, Mr. President. Though unto us, in those times, it was human to be inhuman. And now the world has learned, I hope. And of course this hope includes so many of what now would be your vision for the future, Mr. President. A sense of security for Israel, a sense of security for its neighbors, to bring peace in that place. The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for oceans. It's enough. There must come a moment -- a moment of bringing people together.
And therefore we say anyone who comes here should go back with that resolution. Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.
A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate." Even that can be found as truth -- painful as it is -- in Buchenwald.
Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to come back to my father's grave, which is still in my heart."
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