It may not be a pity to die, but it should not die like this: mourning 'patriotic'

Foreword: Last night, I thought I went to a pro-independence rally. I don't think the one who calls "Hong Kong independence" is the majority. But in terms of momentum, they are obviously bigger than those who chanted "traditional" slogans to support China's democracy movement. I'm here to mourn the June 4 victims and come out one night a year to show solidarity with dissidents in mainland China and pro-democracy activists around the world. More than once the idea of leaving early came up, but in the end it was left until the end of the ceremony. I wanted another complete article to organize related thoughts. But firstly, there is not much time; secondly, there is no mood. So I reposted the following essay from seven years ago.

However, some of the ideas in the work from seven years ago are out of date (or I am out of date). And there are some new ideas in recent years. Just share it here.

1. When I was a child, I learned to be Chinese, and the keynote was "hardship". The regime is unjust, the country is backward, and the people's material life is not rich? This is reality. So what we have to do is to change the above state. This is the embodiment of "love" the nation. In recent years, when I talk to young people, they emphasize the "evil" of the regime and the "evil" of the people. In their imagination, "suffering" does not seem to exist. If the people north of the Shenzhen River are "inferior", then maintaining the "excellent" south of the river is the top priority. Similar questions have been thought about in the past. But my starting point is, why are both Chinese and people here can live a better life? Is there anything I should do to improve the quality of life for people on the North Shore? I have to admit that I can't do it, but I still really want to do it. Under such an atmosphere, in recent years, I have become more and more fond of the lyrics of "Sunshine in May": "Whoever looks at this sick motherland will rise up and shout."

2. Because of "suffering", I have always felt that that kind of national identity can have a strong anti-oppression spirit. Oppose the oppression of the regime, oppose the oppression of Western Japan... Today, the country is richer and stronger than before, and it is tougher in both foreign and domestic affairs. Coupled with the phenomenon of "little pink", it is difficult to link China's nationalism with anti-oppression. . When I used to be very enthusiastic about Baodiao, I would call myself a nationalist. Of course not today. But because there are still some patriotic feelings and national feelings, he always thinks of ways to make the country and nation go on the right path. Yep, I can't do it.

3. Some friends say that this phenomenon is also caused by the regime. I will not deny it. But I'll insist that's not the whole story. "We" are also responsible for not doing better.

The following original text was first posted here on the eve of June 4, 2013:

As long as the stake has not abandoned the slogan "Love the country and the people," I have been ignoring the controversy. The full name of the stake was "Hong Kong Citizens Supporting Patriotic Democracy Movement", and the parade before June 4 every year is called "Patriotic Democracy Parade". In fact, whether it was a large-scale mass gathering 24 years ago or the annual gala that followed, it was an occasion for everyone to sing folk songs together. Therefore, the theme of "loving the country and the people" is really implementing its line for nearly a quarter of a century. What special things happened this year to create such an uproar?

I learned to be Chinese during the 1989 pro-democracy movement. After that, the June 4th party held by the stake every year taught me how to be patriotic and strengthened my identity as a Chinese. Although I haven't seriously said that I am patriotic for a long time, and I have many more important identities than Chinese, I have felt suffocated since the stake announced that it would no longer chant "patriotism and love for the people." The reason is not that I think patriotism will last forever, but because what I feel is the real experience of patriotic struggle for democracy, which has been severely trampled on.

The rise of patriotic thought in modern China is of course closely related to the rise of Western and Japanese powers in the late Qing Dynasty, which made China almost subjugate. After the defeat in the Sino-Japanese War, Chinese intellectuals began to actively seek solutions to save the country. The Republic of China, which was born in 1912, was incapable of improving China's plight, and even as a victorious nation in the First World War, it could not regain its homeland. This is the background of the May Fourth Movement. At that time, young students had high patriotic enthusiasm, trying to find a way to free China from the oppression of imperialism. At that time, various ideas competed with each other, some advocated total Westernization, some advocated the revival of Confucian culture, some advocated communism, and so on.

It can be seen that the main goal of the so-called patriotism of the Chinese at that time was to liberate the Chinese people from imperialism, which was a manifestation of anti-oppression. The methods and means of patriotism are diverse, not monopolized by one party or faction, nor are they serving a certain regime or regime.

Nearly four decades of political turmoil in China finally came to an end when the Kuomintang retreated to Taiwan. But the CCP that rules the mainland and the Kuomintang regime that rules Taiwan both have one-party dictatorships. Therefore, in the mainland, the official saying is: only the CCP can make China prosperous and strong. In Taiwan, it is up to the Kuomintang to restore the mainland to save the mainland compatriots. Ironically, in addition to the ideological competition between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, Hong Kong under colonial rule still has room for patriotic ideas that are not attached to the two regimes.

Patriotic ideology was nurtured by the oppression of foreign powers. In theory, since the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, China has been regarded as the top five in the world, and the phased task has been completed after the recovery of territory other than Hong Kong and Macau. But under the dictatorship of the Communist Party of China, the people of the mainland have been oppressed by the one-party dictatorship after breaking away from imperialist oppression. The cultural patriotism brought by the literati from the south maintains a critical attitude towards the CCP and does not fully support the Kuomintang. To a certain extent, it provides the option of patriotic thought with a critical vision in Hong Kong.

The post-war world was not only the Cold War era, but also the era of decolonization and national independence. Hong Kong Chinese living in the colonies, of course, regard China as the motherland. Rong Guotuan and Hong Kong's top football players represented the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China respectively in international competitions, which was no surprise in those days. Young intellectuals and political enthusiasts in the university all have patriotic feelings and dedication to national dignity, so there are the Chinese language movement and the fishing protection movement. In fact, in the 1970s, the socialist school of the flaming era of the student movement made a certain degree of localization or localization of the patriotic thoughts of the literati from the south. Even though the cultural identity of Hong Kong people took shape in the 1970s and 1980s, this identity did not require people to say goodbye to the motherland. Hong Kongers are just Chinese who are different from mainlanders. This explains why the college students in the early 1980s proposed the return of democracy, and in 1989, why everyone was happy to sing songs such as "Descendants of the Dragon" and "Brave Chinese" to support the students in Beijing.

The above statement is of course a lot of simplification, but I would like to make three points here:

1. In 1989, many Hong Kong citizens used their patriotism as the basis to support the student movement in the Mainland, which is a continuation of the patriotic trend of thought in China for decades. To deny the real emotion and the experience of the people at that time with the phrase "Great China glue" is a complete betrayal of history and an insult to the citizens who took to the streets with patriotic sentiments back then.

2. The patriotic sentiments of the Chinese are driven by anti-imperialist oppression. Yes, both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party finally used this as an excuse to oppress the people. But the patriotic ideology handed down in Hong Kong remains critical. For the past quarter-century, stakes have held onto this tradition (whether they do it well or not is another matter). It is the stake/patriotic democracy faction that ordered the CCP/SAR government not to monopolize the interpretation of patriotism in Chinese society/Hong Kong. If the stake avoids mentioning "patriotism" in the future because it avoids controversy, then "patriotism" will really only be monopolized by the CCP. In fact, even though local awareness seems to be on the rise, the latest poll still shows that more than 70% of people do not deny Chinese identity (including "Hong Kong people in China", "Chinese people in Hong Kong" and "Chinese people"), completely Is it wise to give up the battle for the right to perform "patriotic"?

3. Because this tradition of patriotic thought is critical and aimed at freeing the Chinese people from oppression. This proves that patriotic thought can have progressive significance in a specific thinking space. It can not only be the basis for criticizing the CCP, but also the basis for criticizing the CCP or the Han Chinese for their oppression of ethnic minorities. It can also be the basis for our criticism of the oppression of Chinese labor by transnational capital and the CCP bureaucracy.

I'm not saying that patriotism is completely free of problems. Always, the construction of a country or a nation itself is mostly top-down. China's territory is nothing but the territory returned by the Manchu Qing. The composition of the Chinese nation is just to facilitate the Republic of China to inherit the Manchu territory. Moreover, when there is a conflict between the interests of one's own country and the interests of other countries, overemphasizing patriotism can easily make people ignore the value that should be higher and more worthy of recognition than patriotism. Therefore, if we can use more critical and less exclusive thinking to promote the democratic movement in China, the death of patriotic thinking today is not a pity.

However, the situation is sad. Because critical patriotism seems to be replaced by a narrower version of xenophobic Hong Kong nativism. For the past quarter of a century, the patriotic democrats may have been tactically wrong, but they have not done anything bad in the name of patriotism, mobilizing the masses against democracy, human rights, and freedom. But what about xenophobic Hong Kong nativism? In recent years, it has incited racial hatred and excluded new arrivals who came to Hong Kong with the main purpose of family reunification. This critical patriotic thought of Hong Kong is not dying at the hands of "world citizens", "internationalism" and "universal values", but at the hands of xenophobic Hong Kong nativism.

It really shouldn't die like this!