I’ll also be joining the Harvard May Day rally and walk out tomorrow which is to show solidarity with the movement. You can read more about the Harvard coalition here.

The basic positions: 1) against criminalization of undocumented immigrants 2) in demand for a real path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented individuals who reside in our country and want to become U.S. citizens 3) in support for civil rights for immigrant workers 4) in favor of equal access to education for immigrants and/or their children.

To find out more general information about these issues, and ways that you can support the movement, visit the Immigrant Solidarity Network.

According to the introduction by another professor, Tilly’s work has recently tried to create a general theory of “boundary formation” and his talk introduced an argument which seems to be a part of it. His talk yesterday began with a story about the formation of the concept of citizenship in the Pyrenees Catalan speaking communities between Spain and France in the 17th century and then went to more general observations about the rise of citizenship within the context of national boundary formation. He based much of his historical discussion on two books by Peter Sahlins called Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees and another called Unnaturally French. His emphasis, which I think ties into his broader theory, was on the idea that the modern concept of citizenship formed as a byproduct, or the indirect result of an exclusionary move. In other words, it was not so much thanks to the definition of who was “French” but out of the gradual determination of who was “not French.” This is not, in and of itself, a very creative point. Many scholars of national identity and nationalism emphasize the role of “the Other” in the creation of a national Self. In using Sahlins’ example of the Pyrenees, however Tilly was good at tracing specifically how this worked in the legal domain of citizenship, long before, as he says, “The idea of ‘nation’ was hijacked by the French Revolution.”

While I don’t have time to trace (and have no confidence I can reproduce accurately) his 8 point argument during the talk, there was one prerequisite condition which I found of particular interest. He argued that one of the triggers which allowed this kind of definition of citizenship by exclusion was the modern transition from a “jurisdictional” regime of state control to one which was “territorial.” When he described this, I was immediately reminded of the argument in Thongchai Winichakul’s book Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation. Thongchai’s examination of the birth of Siam’s (Thailand) “geo-body” comes out of the clash between a traditional “jurisdictional” interpretation of state control—one in which each community is involved in complex, and potentially contradictory or overlapping social relations with political agents, and the modern British and French conception of “territorial” control based on clear geographic territorial markers which designate the physical boundaries of (and therefore the material body) of a nation.

I had imagined, up to this point, that Thongchai’s argument might only pack a punch in the case of pre-modern states outside of the “West” but Tilly was very clear in his claim that this same transition happened much later than I had imagined in the case of Europe as well. He cites, for example, the fact that the “territorial” boundaries which depended on clear and geographic markers weren’t completely fixed in the case of France and Spain until an 1868 treaty finally marked the territorial boundary with a row of stones. In early modern Europe, he argues, many areas were only beginning to make the shift from a jurisdictional conception of state control. Does anyone have any recommendations for books which specifically trace this kind of shift in the European case, either from Tilly’s own work or others who he might have been referring to? I want to get a better grip on the theories behind this as I go on with my own studies of East Asia.

Finally, I just want to mention that I was impressed at how completely his work was taken as having broad interdisciplinary value. Evidence of this can be found in the fact that they did not choose sociologists to comment on his paper. Instead, they brought one discussant in from Harvard’s Law School, and the other from the Kennedy school of Government, neither of whom had done anything directly related to this in their own work.

While at one point there was an offer for her to become a full technical consultant for an interim Iraqi government, apparently their correspondence died off after she asked his opinion about some of the infamous figures like Chalabi and others who were in the émigré community and he had replied that two of them she mentioned, including Chalabi, were relatives.

Apparently, Allawi didn’t end up in charge of the de-Baathification policy and the proposal they had worked on didn’t get implemented. However, after the invasion of Iraq, Professor Boehling discovered, “How much worse an American occupation could really get.” I wish I had some time to outline some of her critique on the post-WWII denazification process but I hope her work, which is still in progress, will soon be out in a paper or book form.

Also unlike much of the alpinist culture in the west (and surely, I can say, Scandinavian), the macho element and physical rustic aspects were downplayed by Japanese alpinists, emphasizing that this was something anyone could and should do. the Japanese Alps were a place to get a sense of scale, a look down upon Japan, and a way to realize how amazing Japan was as a geographical masterpiece. The mountains were, as Wigen, argues, a place for geographic enlightenment. She notes the irony that after this new appreciation for nature was found, the very 風景 themselves, an especially those mountains a famous western alpinist Walter Westin visited, become “famous places” or 名所, completing the circle as it were.

I would love to read more about the history of alpinism and Norway’s connection to it through its national identity. I suspect that Norwegian alpinism is more conspicuously a site in which to locate the ideal reflection of a national “rustic” national culture. Rather than as “a place to go to”, as in the Japanese case, I suspect that a look into the Norwegian case you would find that mountains described and admired as “a place we come from” or at least “are of”. The ocean, with Norwegian self-perception as a sea-faring people, is more of the place to go to, but not in the same way that Wigen speaks of the modern metropolitan Japanese elite going to the mountains. I suspect alpinism amongst Norwegians is more about a “return” than in the Japanese case.

Of the three presentations I was most interested in a paper by Sugano Atsushi 菅野敦志 on the history of Chinese character reform movements in Taiwan entitled 台湾における「簡体字論争」ー国民党の「未完の文字改革」とその行方.

Anyone who has studied Chinese knows that there are two major sets of Chinese characters in common use. The simplified characters or 简体字 and the traditional or full-form characters 繁體字 or as they sometimes called, the 正體字 (the “correct” characters). The former are used in mainland China and more recently in Singapore, while the latter are used in Taiwan and other places with large Chinese populations. Many of the simplified characters are short hand versions of characters which all writers of Chinese characters use in some form or another when they write things by hand and there are variations of these in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China and elsewhere. Mainland China has its own standard simplified set, and many complain about the sometimes less than satisfactory changes.

The characters have political importance too. After the Chinese civil war, the nationalist government under Chiang Kai-shek retreated to Taiwan and it would not have been easy for them to simply adopt the mainland Communist government’s set of simplified characters after they implemented their reform in the mid 50s. I have always thought that that was the end of the story, that is, the mainland Communist regime pointing to their characters as “progressive” and a contribution to increased literacy through simplification, while the Taiwanese, with their more complicated characters boasting that they alone preserve China’s written culture with its beautiful and semantically rich characters.

I won’t go into the details of Sugano’s paper here but essentially he talks about the fact that Taiwan’s nationalist government was at one point very serious about reforming the characters. He focuses on two reform movements, one in the mid 50s and a second one in the late 60s. In both cases, there was heated discussion amongst scholars, government committees, and also a lively involvement by Taiwan’s newspapers press, which I found surprising given the repressive controls on Taiwan’s media. Ultimately, both movements failed, and I fear Sugano doesn’t fully explain why, but throughout his paper he brings up some fascinating little tidbits about the debate.

One thing I found very surprising was that apparently Chiang Kai-shek was strongly for the simplification of the characters. In December of 1954 he is quoted as saying, “For the education and convenience of the masses, I believe that nation can greatly benefit from the introduction of simplified characters. I am for it, and believe we need to promote it.” (I hope my English translation of Sugano’s Japanese translation of the original Chinese is not too far from the original in meaning)

A second point he showed was how the debate over the reform of the characters sometimes pitted mainland 外省人 against native Taiwanese. The former had much to gain from the fact that they already had been raised on the old characters while the native Taiwanese, many of which were illiterate, would have nothing to lose from the reform. This doesn’t quite play out in the statistics however, as we can see below.

Sugano also notes that the two sides in the Taiwanese debate on reform were split completely in where they located the value of the characters themselves. The pro-simplification reformers always described Chinese characters as a “tool” of communication, and thus evaluated the need for reform based on a desire to increase literacy. The anti-reform side always argued that the characters were a symbol of Chinese traditional culture and thus needed to be preserved. Sugano’s puts this nicely, 「賛成派と反対派の「文字」に対する認識は始めから大きく異なるものであった．．．賛成派は、文字を「思想伝達の道具」であるとして捉え、一方の反対派は「民族伝統文化の象徴」であるの考えに立脚していた。」

Finally, he quotes a fascinating survey from the Taiwanese newspaper 聯合報 from April 1954 in which a solid majority of Taiwanese supported the reform movement, which collapsed shortly thereafter. The numbers he cites are as follows: 7315 for character reform (2888 native Taiwanese and 4389 mainlanders) and 4807 against (1178 native Taiwanese and 3610 mainlanders) or 41.8% for simplification vs. 30.2%.

Update: After being mentioned on the excellent Language Hat blog, Joel at Far Outliers added another part of the story of character reform which was featured in a recent New Yorker article. The article argues that Stalin played a key role in advising Mao against taking the final step to romanization.

Update: Kerim over at Keywords has commented on the literacy rates in Taiwan and also posted an entry which contains more information and some very interesting looking interests. I am so happy to see this kind of conversation between blogs starting to happen her as well. Thanks Kerim!

• Apparently Mao or Zhou Enlai had admitted to Japanese diplomats at some point in the fifties that “China has been an aggressor in history before so Japan isn’t unique.” I was surprised at this since it contrasts with that many Chinese are told in schools now, ‘Unlike so many others, China has never been an aggressor.’ Of course, the latter may be referring to post-liberation China but even then…
• Professor Yang reminded us of the ambiguity in the famous Japanese postwar policy of 一億総懺悔 or “collective repentance by 100 million” which can alternatively mean, “Repent for having lost the war and failing the emperor” or “Repent for the many mistakes and wrongs committed in waging the war.”
• He says that the first postwar prime minister, royal Mr. Higashikuni apparently wanted to use this term in the latter way and allegedly wanted to send the infamous former prime minister Konoe (famous for the 相手にせず declaration during the Sino-Japanese war) to China as an envy of repentance! What a whack idea, but very interesting.
• Professor Yang talked about two invitations by China for Japanese veterans to visit China, all expenses paid, beginning in 1956. Apparently the reactions were mixed and the Japanese government limited the number who could go. He notes that the effect was perhaps different than the Chinese government had hoped. Some who returned used the trip to try to get more respect for Japanese veterans in Japan, where they felt neglected and forgotten.
• In talking about the cozy relationship between the Nationalist government in Taiwan, he mentioned something called the “white brigade” which apparently received postwar training by former Japanese soldiers. Hmm, sounds very interesting, must look into this…he says there has been some research coming out about them.

Professor Sakamoto’s talk was much better…

Professor Sakamoto also focused rather broadly on modern Korea and covered a number of unrelated issues, but his points were compact and organized. He compared the US occupations of Japan and Korea in the postwar period and suggested how differences between the two may explain some of the differing results in the two countries’ postwar experiences. I seem to remember Bruce Cumings making very similar points. Sakamoto’s own emphasis was on the fact the US was not prepared to occupy Korea and had to depend on old power centers rather than “build” democracy from scratch. Although a scholar like John Dower have more to say about the kind of democracy that emerged from Japan’s experience (he wrote about this in a recent essay comparing the Japanese occupation to that of Iraq), there was no need to drag that issue out at a talk on Korea.

There were some other themes he touched on. He suggested that the militarization of Korean politics (軍事化) can help explain the unusually long period of separation between North and South Korea. He also compared what he believes to be very different views of the Cold War for Korea and Taiwan than the rest of the world, reminding us that what was “cold” for us was “hot” for much of Asia.

Another topic he spent some time on was his own argument for pacifism (this was a presentation given at ICU’s “Center of Excellent” for peace research). He backs an argument for pacifism with a very simple point: “If people are really all equal, all equally protected by some universal human rights, then this is clearly at contradiction with any state of war.” He then suggests that war introduces an “other” into the equation (in the form of an “enemy” or “animal/sub-human” etc.) that disturbs the vision of equality we have for our fellow human. I’m more than willing to grant him the observation of this key contradiction but he didn’t go on to address some of the more difficult questions that might follow. That said, the nods in the audience showed that he was among friends.

What I found most refreshing about his talk, however, was a short segment he devoted to the “kidnapping issue” (拉致問題) which fills the newspapers every day here in Japan (North Korea kidnapped a bunch of Japanese and just recently returned some of the survivors). The issue has created a huge response on the mass level and made Japan’s diplomatic efforts with North Korea much more complicated. After assuring the audience that he thinks the kidnappings are unforgivable (許せない) he asked an important question: Are the Japanese angry because the kidnapping issue was a clear violation of human rights? Or is there is huge mass movement emerging from this issue because Japanese had been kidnapped (South Koreans have been kidnapped in huge numbers as well, but obviously this never generated a mass movement in Japan). If the former case is true, he saw great potential for applying the movement to a number of worthy international causes. If the latter is true (I think we can say this bordered on a rhetorical question), then it is no more than an expression of nationalism.