On April 23, I went to National Tsinghua University (
In his speech, Anderson said that during the Persian Gulf War, the words "Satan, get ready to have your butt kicked" was spray-painted on US Navy jets. The implication was that Saddam Hussein was to be sodomized with missiles. However, no matter how much some Americans may loathe Bill Clinton, they would never use language with sexual overtones to verbally attack him. Anderson concluded that this is due to a subconscious belief that people of the same nation share the same origins. Anderson used another example: In an American university, he had heard several male students from China cursing Taiwan and saying that they would go rape women in Taiwan, the more the merrier. They said they wanted to "drive away the Japanese genes inside Taiwanese women with Chinese sperm." According to Anderson, Chinese men who made such statements no longer considered Taiwanese as Chinese because people would never say such a thing about their fellow countrymen.
Indeed, social ecologists have said, in explaining why foreigners often engage in killing and raping as part of their invasion, that people of difference races kill enemy men after a victory in battle to carry out genocide and rape enemy women to pollute enemy genes. However, the killing of war prisoners and raping of enemies in a civil war lacks justification and is considered immoral and therefore would be punished.
Many of the five types of nationalism mentioned by Anderson exist in Taiwan.
Creole nationalism: In the past several hundred years, people who came to Taiwan from China were gradually alienated from their former home and became oppressed by it. As a result, a new self-identity began to emerge among these people much the same way early emigrants to America gradually lost their European identity.
Official nationalism is one promoted by the government. This was exemplified by Lee Teng-hui's (
Victim nationalism occurs when a nation is occupied by foreigns. Taiwan was under foreign rule for more than 400 years.
Chinese nationalism also possesses some of the above-described characteristics, especially victim nationalism resulting from its former imperial occupations, government nationalism, linguistic nationalism, and popular nationalism. As a result, a conflict is produced between Chinese nationalism and a rising Taiwanese nationalism.
The selective memory and oversight of the Chinese and Taiwanese have widened the gap between the two and their mainstream social values are also growing further apart. One cannot help but feel concern about the rift between the two sides.
Japanese nationalism became associated with expansionism for a number of reasons. Among them, Japan lacked prolonged interaction with other nations, as has been the case in Europe. Similarly, Chinese nationalism began to take on the appearance of a victim and became quite vengeful. Therefore, it feels hatred toward Taiwan's own nationalism. Fortunately, China has endeavored to interact with the international community. These experiences should, hopefully, play a role in easing the conflict between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Pu Ta-chung is the deputy chief editorial writer of the China Times.
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