Somewhere in the
distance, early this morning, a person kept repeating a musical phrase on a flute,
over and over. Out of context, divorced
from any other notes, or accompaniment, it could have been from any
tradition. I heard it subliminally for a
while and then turned to focus. And my
mind played out what might come but never came, the subsequent notes that would
give the phrase away. It could have
been North Indian, or something by Eric Dolphy or Mozart. Was it a Chinese phrase from the Butterfly
Lovers’ opera? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_Lovers
The flautist stopped.
It would remain a mystery. I had
to take my daughter off to school.
Perhaps it will return tomorrow and I’ll be able to complete the
puzzle. Folk melodies from Ireland
through to China have that remarkable way of sounding analogous. Core melodies anchoring something human.
The mystery lick cast me back to the last time I had the
good fortune to be in a rain forest. I
was standing in Tamen Negara, Malaysia.
Marveling at the myriad morning birdcalls, I fixated on one that sounded
like a muscular bee-bop hook. What a
scene if Bird himself were there with his alto to play the phrases back at all
those lonely morning birds.
Colin Turnbull in his anthropological classic “The Mbuti
Pygmies: Adaptation & Change in Ituri Forest” http://www.amazon.com/Mbuti-Pygmies-Adaptation-Cultural-Anthropology/dp/0030615372/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1382507344&sr=1-1&keywords=mbuti+pygmies
describes a memorable scene of a young boy running along, cutting down a reed,
fashioning a fife and playing for a moment up to the trees. He then throws his newly made instrument
down, and runs along. No shame. Spontaneous innovation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtngMLSIKNE (The flute arrives half way through the 19th minute.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtngMLSIKNE (The flute arrives half way through the 19th minute.)
I wrote yesterday about Korea. I wanted to take some time to explain my
assertion (from 7DS) that South Korea was a strong candidate to initiate resolution of
institutional racism in the neighborhood and artfully force some desperately
needed reconciliation.
Mahatma Gandhi used the rhetoric of British decency as a
fulcrum to shame the British Empire to behave differently. Martin Luther King Jnr. studied this. He forced Americans to confront the hypocrisy
of ideals in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence set against
the brutality and ignorance of racism.
“Just be true to what you put down on paper.”
North Asia and its Chinese civilizational overlay is not a
tradition of rhetoric and oratory. But
there is a well-established understanding of shame. Japanese behavior during World War II, in
China and in Korea, for example, was shameful.
(We can talk some other time about shameful American behavior, or shameful
Chinese behavior.) To leave this hatred
unresolved, as a curse on all future generations is to continue in a shameful
fashion. In this, all parties, not
simply the Japanese, bear responsibility.
And hate festering; besides ever increasing economic
cooperation has worked for the last sixty-eight years. But where as Western Europe has managed to
evolve beyond much of the vitriol of the war, the nation states of North Asia,
despite extensive economic interdependence, have not. There are vast differences. Britain, France and Germany all operate,
sometimes reluctantly, under the protective umbrella of U.S. hegemony in a way
that neither China nor North Korea ever have.
But differences didn’t inhibit the imagination of MLK, when he gazed
upon India.
A reorganization of regional interdependencies is pending. The status quo of regional security will not
sustain a growing China ad infinitum. Let’s assume that if a reconciliation of wartime legacies were possible, if China,
South Korea and Japan were able to engage with each other respectfully, the way
that France, Germany and the United Kingdom largely do, and more importantly if
the citizens of these nations were able to evolve beyond the racist hatred that
currently serves as a default, that they would be in a much better place to peacefully
navigate the inevitable transition.
If reconciliation is preferable to the status quo, if the
status quo is dangerous and more likely to lead to revenge and conflict, then
we should strongly encourage efforts at reconciliation. If it
is preferable, we, most importantly the citizens of North Asia, should be
intolerant of the racist default that characterizes so much of the informal
engagement between the countries. So
how to catalyze reconciliation?
As explored in the previous few postings, the extraordinary
growth of the Chinese economy, the complex development of Chinese civil society
and the understandable prioritization for order while navigating the duration
of the great Chinese industrial revolution of which we are only mid-lurch
through, will mean that China is unlikely to lead with international
rapprochement. Japan has wealth, a
mature civil society, and no lack of political and economic stability. At present, she appears, however, as examined
previously, incapable of initiating new thinking on relations with China or
South Korea.
If China cannot and if Japan will not, might South Korea be
able to step up? Both China and Japan
are captivated by things Korean albeit framed within a view of racist
superiority. From ships to smartphones,
South Korean goods compete and win, in a way that China and Japan must, of
necessity, emulate. South Korean drama,
music, film, games, are cool in China and cool in Japan in a way that neither
of the giants is able to replicate beyond their shores. South Korea is disruptive, innovative,
paranoid by necessity, living as it does in a neighborhood of giants and
hotheads. The intractable problems of
the region require innovation and the South Koreans are the best in North Asia,
at innovation.
Thus far Korea has tried to shame Japan, for example, by
putting a statue of a young “comfort woman” across from the Japanese embassy to
stare in askance day after day. This is
intended to cause shame, but has not lead to more reflection, or any
significant breakthrough but rather further hardening. What might an innovative application of shame
look like? Something that models a more
thorough and definitive evolution to an unassailable dignity. Something that capitalizes on Korea’s attractive
powers and shows China and shows Japan a pathway forward. Something that adjusts the frame so that all
regional racism is caught in the glare and begins to finally slither back to
the margins of acceptable attitudes.
Tough assignment. 一改故辙[1] But
developing and sustaining the world’s leading shipping industry from scratch,
building and sustaining the world’s most popular mobile communications device
when the same challenge bested every other global brand but one, building and
sustaining an economic miracle along the world’s most militarized boarder, etc.
has all been tough.
We’ll consider shame and how to adapt it like reed
spontaneously, tomorrow.
[1] yīgǎigùzhé: complete
change from the old rut (idiom); dramatic change of direction / a volte-face /
to change old practices
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