Sajakkini

Josh Hong

Imagine you are entrusted with the task of organising a party celebrating the founding of a neighbourhood committee soon. What would you do if two of the big players in the locality are quarreling with one another? Would you try to patch things up before the party, or call it off altogether?

Such was the dilemma uppermost on Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s mind when he delivered his keynote address at the Asia-Pacific Roundtable in Kuala Lumpur recently.

In his speech, the prime minister expressed his misgivings over the deteriorating bilateral relationship between the two East Asian giants – China and Japan – and appeared wary of its implications for the region as a whole. (more…)

Josh Hong

At a press conference held in Beijing in June 1999, a Hong Kong journalist sought the view of Zhu Rongji, then premier, in regard to the 10th anniversary of the June 4 massacre. Zhu, ever so cool and steady, uttered, ‘I have completely forgotten it.’

Needless to say, all those present were seasoned enough to not pursue the issue further.

Did the bloody incident that took place in the summer of 1989 in the heart of the Chinese capital truly escape Zhu? I think not. Most likely, he did what other leaders of the Party Central would do, that was to forcibly pluck the people from the bloody memory of the Chinese nation in the most recent past, all under the canonical principle of ‘stability above all else’.

Maurice Halbwachs, a French sociologist, stresses strongly that social processes influence not only people’s personal memories of their own lifetimes, but also a community’s shared memories of the past. To say that social processes have contributed tremendously to fostering the shared memories is hence an understatement. For a society, nation or state to continue in existence, a cautious and conscious selection of memory reins supreme. (more…)

Josh Hong

If the US voters were given a chance to recast their vote, would some of them vote differently, calling for Senator John Kerry instead of re-electing the jingoistic, bellicose George W Bush?

Since none of us is granted the divine power to turn back time, those Americans who regret having given Bush a second chance can only live with a sense of remorse that may never go away. Why?

For when the US went to polls in November last year, little did the Americans realise what a surprise Bush was prepared to give them. In March this year, the Pentagon unveiled the carefully crafted, best kept National Defense Strategy of the United States of America and, lo and behold, preemptive strike is now officially a state policy, as clearly indicated in the document.

As rightly pointed out by Jim Lobe, the Bush administration appears to be willing to bypass international bodies, such as the United Nations Security Council, and regional military structures, such as Nato, in order to secure US interests around the globe. Quite clearly, the president is still haunted by the debacle of consensus within Nato, when France and Germany decided against the war on Iraq in 2003. (more…)

Josh Hong

“Japan did a lot of bad things in Malaysia during the Second World War. I am so deeply sorry.” Shizuko uttered her apology to me, in a tone full of shame and guilt, on a breezy summer day in 1994.

We were in Ealing, a beautiful London suburb, surrounded by the lush green trees and grass, by the River Thames. It was a fine and lazy afternoon, but she decided to raise the delicate issue nonetheless. I could see she was struggling to express the remorse that the successive governments in Tokyo had failed to demonstrate in an unequivocal manner.

Still, one thing is clear: Shizuko and I have been able to remain close friends for more than a decade because we had crossed the psychological barrier thrust upon us by a war that neither of us was involved in, yet had to confront nonetheless.

When the Sino-Japanese dispute over Tokyo’s attempt to revise its war past escalated in recent weeks, some Malaysian journalists were quick to cite The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1), the seminal book by US anthropologist Ruth Benedict, to prove that Japan is a nation shrouded in a culture of shame, and it is therefore hard, if not impossible, for the Japanese to feel remorseful for the wrongs that their country had committed. (more…)

Josh Hong

I do at times wonder if I should blame the Malaysian authorities for their decades-long indoctrination exercise that has rendered some part of the Malaysian population unable to read and think out of the box. Still, I believe the Malaysian government - although it is not entirely unblemished - cannot be held responsible for some Malaysians who obstinately refuse to digest alternative views and opinions with an open mind.

Despite Chinese racism being a topic frequently raised among the Chinese in private, some Chinese Malaysians are still outraged by my audacity to wash the dirty linen in public not so long ago.

Similarly, so zealous are these people in defending the great socialist motherland, although they prefer to live comfortably outside of it, that they have overlooked my warning over the increasingly aggressive foreign policy of Japan, and chosen to tag me, conveniently, an antsy anti-Chinese when I disagree with them on the way the global Chinese community has been handling the most recent Sino-Japanese spat. (more…)

Josh Hong

Amidst the flurry of anti-Japanese protests across China over Japan’s new history text books that gloss over the nation’s militarist past in recent days, a friend of mine asked, ‘Would any nation be forthright in telling the world about its darkest past?’

‘Fat chance.’ I said without a second thought.

The latest effort by Tokyo to whitewash the war crimes of the Imperial Army against much of Asia is indeed deplorable and despicable. With many of the victim countries still reeling from one of the most savage wars waged by an Asian nation against its neighbours, the recalcitrance of the Koizumi government - from the controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine to the revision of history – will only make Japan’s path to become a normal country strewn with greater distrusts and perils. (more…)

Josh Hong

When the latest earthquake hit the Indian Ocean early this week, the region had just marked the fourth month after the deadly tsunami that claimed as many as 300,000 lives last December. Since the catastrophe, there has been intense diplomatic maneuver on the part of a number of major countries to enhance their international images for all kinds of reasons and purposes.

Some are more vocal than others in spelling out their objectives, and even naively and whimsically so. Taiwan, for one, made no attempt to conceal the hope of increasing ‘its international visibility’ and shoring up diplomatic support by pledging US$50 million to the tsunami-stricken countries.

Others have been, of course, rather discreet. Germany and Japan, with securing a permanent seat on the UN Security Council in mind, have been profusely active in the post-tsunami reconstruction. Japan, in particular, is a deep pocket and a complaisant paymaster that the US - from the Iraq war to the aftermath of the tsunami disaster – can ever rely on. The ‘generosity’ of the Koizumi administration has come to some fruition, as Kofi Annan has allegedly thrown his weight behind Tokyo’s bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council. (more…)

Josh Hong

‘I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.’ – Charles V.

So, he is no more Mr Nice Guy, although when he took over the helm from the once ‘much hated’ Dr Mahathir Mohamad, he was made out to be the one whiter than snow and everyone’s darling.

To win favour with the Chinese community, he sent a Lunar New Year’s greeting in Chinese calligraphy just two months before the 2004 general election. Unlike his predecessor of Indian lineage who was fanatical about being a true blue Malay, he allowed the Chinese press to reveal that his maternal grandfather was a Chinese Muslim hailing from Hainan island in China. (more…)

Josh Hong

President Bush has begun a fence-mending trip to Europe this week, in the hope of assuaging the angst of some European nations that have been growing wary of the arbitrary behavior of the United States following the Sept 11 attacks.

However, as the president is all smiling to his European friends (and perhaps some foes too), his administration is burning bridges on another side of the globe.

After the end of World War II, the US sought to tame Japan, the perpetrator of the Pacific War, by first occupying the country and then putting it under US security aegis, resulting in the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960 that allows for Washington to maintain military presence in Japan for the sake of the latter’s security as well as for the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East. (more…)

Josh Hong

On the day the two Germanys became united, I was the only person who went euphoric in the house - the rest of my Malaysian housemates in London simply couldn’t care less. Watching the live coverage of the reunification celebration at the Brandenburg Gate on October 3, 1990, with a can of German beer in hand, I nearly wanted to ode to joy, as the background music, written by Friedrich Schiller and composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, was being played.

It was a reunification that manifested the spirit of freedom and joy - freedom from the Communist yoke, and joy for the German nation that had stood divided for four decades. Most important of all, it was a reunification eagerly and willingly sought by the East Germans, not by coercion of their brethren from the west (eh, I am not referring to the sabre-rattling China vis à vis Taiwan here.)

But not all Europeans were enthused by the prospects of a newly united Germany. The Poles were sceptical, Mikhail Gorbachev found the Wessi’s takeover of the Ossi abhorrent, and Francois Mitterrand was reputed to say: “We cannot declare war on Germany to prevent her reunification.” (more…)