On Nationalism

Political scientist Madan Sarup on nationalism:

The nation is difficult to define. It originated in eighteenth-century Europe, and, according to Benedict Anderson, is an imagined community. A nation is a political arrangement of boundaries; it is a a territorial space with a political center which aims at reunification. Nations foster a sense of belonging, a rootedness, a sense of sovereignty.

What usually happens is that national states construe their subjects as ‘natives’. States are engaged in incessant propaganda of share attitudes. They glorify and enforce ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural homogeneity.

National states construct joint historical memories (called ‘our common heritage’) and do their best to discredit or suppress such stubborn memories as cannot be squeezed into a shared tradition.

They preach the sense of common mission, common destiny. In other words, national states promote uniformity. This state-enforced homogeneity could be called the practice of nationalist ideology.

With the rise of nationalism, the state is regarded as legitimate; it represents the nation. It is said that nationalism ‘works’ only because it is based on national identity.

We identify with others ‘like ourselves’. We feel pride (or shame) about others who share our identity. National identity is an expression of a way of life, and it has a powerful appeal because it is a mode of self-fulfillment.

But what constitutes that identity?

As Benedict Anderson has pointed out, nationalism links me with people in the past, with people elsewhere that I don’t know, and with others in the future. Every nation has its own story. Every nation has its myths, myths that can exploit contradictions.

Nations make claims to land, and they make appeals to blood, native soil, homeland, motherland, fatherland. It is not surprising that the discourse of the nation uses ‘the family’.

Nationalism has a popular and powerful fascination because it appeals to the real needs of people, their need for belonging.

But if some belong to the nation, others do not. Nationalism, inevitably, excludes others from the ranks of the privileged group. Once nationalism gains momentum, others have to assimilate - or to resist.

These days, I’m reluctant to call myself Malaysian. Because there’s no such thing as a Malaysian. It is an imaginary construct, based on history that is really HIS STORY, not mine.

Global Peace Index

The Global Peace Index is a ground-breaking milestone in the study of peace. It is the first time that an Index has been created that ranks the nations of the world by their peacefulness and identified some of the drivers of that peace.

121 countries have been ranked by their ‘absence of violence’, using metrics that combine both internal and external factors. Most people understand the absence of violence as an indicator of peace. This definition also allows for the measuring of peacefulness within, as well as between, nations.

Check out the rankings here.

On Patriotism

It amuses me when I come across Malaysians who claim they love their country.

It amuses me even more when they declare themselves to be patriots.

The analogy that comes to mind is this: if you see your brother doing drugs, do you pat him on the back, encourage him on, and say you love him?

That’s not love.

That’s hypocrisy.

It’s Chow time

My friend Alexandra Wong had a memorable encounter with the venerable Chow Yun-Fat at a press conference in LA:

I’ve barely gotten over the shock of seeing him in person, when he does something completely unexpected. He walks round the table to shake all our hands, drops imaginary kisses on the female reporters’ cheeks, and wishes all and sundry, “Good morning, everybody. How are you, sir? How are you, young lady?”

From their expressions, clearly even the European and South American journalists have never seen anything like him.

When somebody wishes him Happy 52nd Birthday, he replies solemnly, “Birthday in the Chinese community is a day to remember your mother. She brought you to the world in a very critical condition, and thus, our birthday is Mother’s Day more than anything else.”

Any wonder why he was my childhood hero?

How Star Wars Changed Everything

It’s the 30th anniversary of STAR WARS, and no matter what you may think about the original film, it completely redefined the way we approach movies. Everything from storytelling to special effects to merchandising. Read all about it here.

Confessions of a slush pile reader

Patricia Chui shares her experiences working with a publisher’s slush pile:

Every editor’s in box is piled high with mail from big agents, small agents, writers met at conferences, friends of his wife’s dentist and people who plucked his name off a book’s acknowledgments page. Some of these submissions, generally the ones sent by respected agents, will be read carefully; some will get little more than a glance. There’s really no other way to do it.

So overwhelming is the volume of mail to be read (and, given the current perilous state of book publishing, so arduous the acquisitions process even for a worthy project) that often a weary editor’s guilty wish isn’t to fall in love with a manuscript, but to be able to reject it quickly before moving on to the next. As Walker Percy wrote of his reluctance to consider the manuscript for “A Confederacy of Dunces,” “My only fear was that this one might not be bad enough, or might be just good enough, so that I would have to keep reading.”

Getting published

Out of the 200,000 manuscripts submitted every year in the United States, only 2 or 3 are ever published. To put it into perspective, that’s a success rate of around 0.1%. So hideously low, it’s almost ridiculous.

Most rejections happen on the basis of the first few paragraphs alone. That’s right, because of time and budget constraints, publishers don’t bother to read the full thing anymore. If your work doesn’t grab them from the get-go, they’ll toss it and move on to the next. I even know an editor who has a particularly dicey method: she just reads the first sentence and only the first sentence. If its decent, she reads more. If not, sayonara.

The lesson here is this: If you want to get published, quit writing for yourself and start writing for the editors. Because they are the gatekeepers; underpaid, overworked, and impatient. Make it your business to know what rubs them the right way. If you don’t, your chances of getting published are worse than 0.1%. It’s exactly zero.

Emotional Truth (Part Two)

I once knew this girl.

Troubled as a teenager, she bounced from social clique to social clique, desperate for a sense of belonging. But no matter where she went, she only ended up being scorned, used, and discarded. Her neediness blinded her. And this became a source of great personal shame. To be regretted. To be hidden.

Over time, she got into writing.

She began composing stories about, yes, a social clique. An idealized one. Its characters were loyal to a fault and always had each other’s backs. They would go to hell and back for each other.

Now, on the surface, there wasn’t anything wrong with her work. She could string together a decent sentence and construct a plot as well as anyone. But all the elements just didn’t come together.

Because she lacked emotional truth.

Why was she writing about a heroic clique when she had never belonged to one?

It ran contrary to everything that she knew to be real.

At the risk of sounding Jungian or Freudian, I believe we are all imprinted with traumatic events. Moments of pain and weakness that we have never adjusted to. They shape our souls and give each of us a unique take on life. Writing therefore becomes a form of self-psychoanalysis. A chance to dig into your own personal goldmine; using your imagination to build a story based on subconscious convictions.

As Evey from V FOR VENDETTA put it so eloquently, “…artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.”

So, are you using lies to tell emotional truth?

Because that’s the best kind of writing.

Digging up Malaysia’s Racial Past

 

Looks like the international press has picked up on the controversy surrounding Dr. Kua’s book. Here’s what the Asia Sentinel has to say:

Non-Malays in particular have long believed that though there was violence on both sides, it was a mostly one-sided affair with some Malay politicians, notably Selangor Chief Minister Harun Idris, encouraging mobs to attack Chinese areas and that the security forces initially did little to prevent violence. This is largely confirmed by contemporary reports such as those of Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bob Reece.

Kua’s thesis suggests that there was a grander political design behind the episode, which from the beginning was intended to create a new political agenda and new leadership. He attributes this to a younger Malay group dissatisfied with the aristocratic, pro-British the Tunku.

Emotional Truth (Part One)

There’s a telling scene that occurs early in WALK THE LINE, the 2005 biopic of country singer Johnny Cash.

Young and untested, Cash is auditioning in front of producer Sam Phillips. He tries hard to please, strumming his guitar for all he’s worth, crooning about the joys of being saved and knowing Jesus Christ as savior. Phillips listens politely but is unimpressed. Finally, he interrupts Cash and asks him if he can play something else.

Cash is stunned. Then angry. He believes Phillips has just insulted his faith in God.

But Phillips says, “All right, let’s bring it home. If you was hit by a truck and you was lying out there in that gutter dying, and you had time to sing *one* song. One song that people would remember before you’re dirt. One song that would let God know how you felt about your time here on Earth. One song that would sum you up. You tellin’ me that’s the song you’d sing? That same Jimmy Davis tune we hear on the radio all day, about your peace within, and how it’s real, and how you’re gonna shout it? Or… would you sing somethin’ different. Somethin’ real. Somethin’ *you* felt. Cause I’m telling you right now, that’s the kind of song people want to hear. That’s the kind of song that truly saves people. It ain’t got nothin to do with believin’ in God, Mr. Cash. It has to do with believin’ in yourself.”

Cash pauses, swallowing his pride. “I got a couple of songs I wrote in the Air Force. You got anything against the Air Force?”

Phillips shakes his head. “No.”

“I do.”

Cash begins to sing once more. Something different. Something raw. And Phillips’s expression sobers. His sits up straighter.

I hear that train a-commin’, it’s rollin’ around the bend

And I ain’t seen the sunshine since I don’t know when

I’m stuck in Folsom prison and time keeps draggin’ on

But that train keeps a-rollin’ on down to San Antone

When I was just a baby, my mama told me, son

Always be a good boy, don’t ever play with guns

But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die

When I hear that whistle blowin’, I hang my head and cry

I bet there’s rich folks eatin’ in a fancy dining car

They’re probably drinking coffee and smoking big cigars

But I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free

But those people keep a-movin’ and that’s what tortures me

Well if that freed me from this prison

and that railroad train was mine

I bet I’d move it on a little farther down the line

Far from Folsom prison, that’s where I want to stay

And I’d let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away

This scene is a telling one because it’s about emotional truth; that mysterious quality that grabs you by the short hairs of your neck, speaking to you in a voice so intimate, its conviction shakes you right to your core.

Writers seek it. Crave it, even. But what is it exactly?

More on this in a bit.