Monday, March 17, 2008
Stone
I keep complaining about being busy, yet when I stone, I do the most unproductive things, especially late at night.
I actually watched all 20 parts of the final tv debate between the two Taiwanese presidential candidates, Ma Ying Jiu and Xie Chang Ting on youtube.
Just as I saw something I was not 'supposed' to see (nothing sleazy if you're thinking so), suddenly everything links, and creates this intertwined mess in my head.
Suddenly, everything links.
Master Khor's words. The content of the presidential debate. My own experience and self-discovery.
"You love with all your heart, and hate with all your guts."
"You cannot resist temptation."
By conventional interpretation, these sentences are funny, and carry a certain undertone suited only for a certain category of things.
But now, I totally get the new light of it. It's not physical. It's mental. It's not active. It's passive. It's that kind of defence mechanism everyone sets, and through it, passive defence or avoidance appears as hate.
At both sides of the Taiwan Straits, people ask: "How are we ever gonna solve this 'dispute'"?
I support Ma Ying Jiu for President, and he roughly said, "Perhaps even in our lifetime, we'll never see this 'dispute' resolved. So, now we should put our focus on the urgent things, establish back dialogue, and build ties."
How true, how true. 60+ years ago, Taiwan is considered a part of China. Viewed from the 'status quo' of that era, it's a pity the Taiwan got politically seperated from China.
But as time goes by and the seperation continued, it's always harder to re-concile the two sides of the Straits, as people get used to what changes to become 'the status quo'. When the Taiwanese are used to them being 'independent', they no longer feel a strong sense of kinship to China. They understand, and perhaps sentimental to the fact that Taiwan was once part of China, but through a magic potion called 'time', the feelings involved simply eroded.
No matter how one respects and tries to remember history, once the feelings attached to that era was gone, no amount of reading and referencing will influence the current sentiments. Hence, instead of being stuffed with that unreachable portion of history, it's time to create a fresh sense of identity, free from the burden of the distant past.
People will only remember the recent past. The Taiwanese would not remember how they are Chinese too, linked by a common history. Instead, what they remember and still experience is how China try to restrict its sovereignty, by 'snatching' diplomatic relations and restricting entrance into world bodies.
This is the new reality. And both sides have to face it. The Taiwanese have broken free of the sentimentality of the old era, and China, in wanting to build new ties, has to 'forget' the distant past, and focus on how do you go on from the current status. Everything has to be viewed from the current, and not the past. The past has passed. It's kind of impossible to ask for a full-blown re-unification as per the distant past. So reconciliation has to have the take of two seperate, sovereign entities trying to work closely, rather than that of a close re-unification as per the distant past.
And even that takes time. A hell lot of time. Plus, a lot of goodwill from both sides. Given recent history, would it be easy? I'm afraid not. But Ma Ying Jiu's willing to try, without sacrificing Taiwan's sovereignty. That's why I support him.
Perhaps it's good I chanced upon it. Even as the issue remains unresolved, one has got to study history to understand history.
lowtide blogged @
1:17 am
