nan | 楠木

21年前的这个春夏交接之际，我刚6岁，还未上小学。我的父亲，那个春天刚刚公派出国留学。我模糊的记忆里，有他给我看国家发给他的外币，以及他出门的时候母亲喊我“快来跟爸爸说再见！”在之后的数月里，我时常会在夜里梦醒，因为梦中父亲的出现。

21年前的那段日子里，另外一个记忆的碎片，便是某一天幼儿园老师带我们到小区门口，去“围观”（用当下的网络词汇）一些大哥哥大姐姐们的游行。他们是否有喊什么口号，打什么标语，已无从追溯，但这件事本身我始终记得。

在许多年以后，我才逐渐意识到那是一个多么不平凡的春天，无论对我的家庭，还是对于我的祖国。最早对这些事情有些确切的概念，大约是在91年出国以后，听父亲、母亲和其他中国留学生家庭的讨论，抑或是因为在国外看到的电视新闻─总之，是“从大人那儿听来的”。又，那时为了学习中文的需要，读了一些浅显的讲历史的书，对社会运动与革命这样的事情，有了些最浅显的认识。

那时，我对1989的了解以及判断是极其简单乃至粗暴的。一定程度上，这与父亲、母亲对我的灌输有关。他们都是地道的农民家庭出身，两个人住在相邻的两村。他们经历了动荡的60、70年代，而恢复高考是改变父亲命运的一件事情；时至今日，性格直爽的母亲仍时常不无遗憾地说，当时她若是认真复习考上了大学，她的生活会是多么的不同。父亲走上了学术之路，他与母亲的婚姻则让这个家庭完成了从农村到城市的转变。一方面，他们对70年代末的社会变革是无比感激的，另一方面，他们很大程度上保留了中国农民千百年来素有的淳朴。这使得在政治问题上，他们的态度往往是非常务实而温和的，并通常是“穷则独善其身”式的主张─不问国是。

因此，他们对我的最初的灌输，大约是与官方立场相贴合的，学生运动被人利用，国家政治秩序被破坏，最后的清场虽然遗憾但不可避免。在我的少年时代的大部分时间里，我对于那个春天所发生的事情的认知，基本便可以这样概括。

之后是如何开始转变的，无从考证。大抵随着心智的成熟，以及对中国社会以及制度的认识的逐步形成，我开始意识到事件或许还有另一种描述。并不意外的是，这是一个支离破碎的认知过程，信息往往是零散的片断，比如某些“外媒”的报道，以及类似围绕维基百科这样的网络资源的争议。我那时并不怎么对1989年的春天有怎样的关注，而更多的是对中国当下的社会问题的不满。我从来都不是一个活跃分子，即便是诸如2005年水木清华BBS关站这样对我个人影响深远的事件，都没有把我真正变成“异见分子”。对于我来说，这个支离破碎的认知过程，更多的是在为了树立我内心的座标，是为了寻找内在的平衡─所以，我虽然对具体的事情的看法可能与父母有极大的出入，但他们还是把我培养成了一个“不问国是”、以“独善其身”为目标的人。

在大学的时候，利用北大的一个文件共享资源（该资源以大量色情资源闻名，中国当代大学生的生活倒也可以略见一二），曾偶然下到了一本禁书，某某事件《真相》。一个很简陋的txt文件，我饶有趣味地读了部分章节，但并未读完。尽管那恐怕是一部极有争议的书，我还是不得不承认，我对21年前的事情的看法在半信半疑中有了一些发展。

再有任何明显的进展，大约要是去年了，20周年前后发生的许多事情都一再地将我的视线移至那个春天。赵紫阳的那本书是一个素材，另一个素材是在网上下载到的台湾媒体20年前4月到6月的每日新闻报道。声画的力量是强大的，此前在纸上读到的如何惊心动魄的描述，都不若北京街头的一个平凡的采访片段有煽动力。而这个观看过程又好比电影里典型的倒叙手段─你宿命论似的业已知道最后的悲剧，这更加使得每一个平凡的场景都蕴含着可怕的命运。

我有没有完整的看完所有的片段，现竟不能记得，总之，那是一个相当煎熬的过程。

近几日，因为又逢周年，围绕那个春天的话题再次出现。也因为此，我想到想再去翻翻那本《真相》的书，而并不意外，学校的东亚研究图书馆便有。今天去图书馆，找到那本书，却同时看到了旁边芝加哥大学赵鼎新教授的《天安门的力量》，一本社会学学术之作。这后者，我以前共事的一个同事曾委托我去年去香港的时候帮他带一本，害得我当时颇费了一番周折才买到。最后，我即兴借走了赵鼎新的那本书，而把《真相》留在了书架上。

我想，这是因为我如今不再那么关注“真相”究竟为哪般，而是想要理清21年前的那个春天在中国历史以及社会变革中占有怎样的地位。21年了，那个春天之后出生的国人们都已经开始走向社会，然而时至今日，那个春天依旧是一个禁忌话题。中国的当代史总是存在这样的断档，80后不知文革，90后不知89，用一个烂俗的比方，这活脱是《1984》里面的情节。这样的断档与禁区是遗憾的，对中国的发展甚至可能是致命的，因为后人倘若不能理解中国社会为什么会是它现如今的样子，对其顽疾便无从诊断，这最终一定会制约中国的发展。

故此我期待，有一天，在我的祖国，人们可以正视这段历史，而1989年6月4日，不再是一个被屏蔽的日期。

─谨以此文纪念一个我们不能提及，却不能忘却的日子。

Xu Lai book gathering, originally uploaded by nan.duan.

今天下午和朋友去参加了徐来（即钱烈宪）的书友会，推介他的新书。说实话，我不是个读书人，徐先生提到的很多作家很多作品我听得云里雾里，不过他讲的关于审美、以及小趣味，我还是有一定的共鸣。

因为他是钱烈宪，问答环节自然有无数问题是关于这个博客的，譬如说有人问他为什么只转载不评论，他怎样看待罗永浩老师的网络事业，其实话题是很敏感的，而徐先生的回答还是非常和谐而保守的，和其博客一样很难让人挑刺。

然而就是这样一个幽默风趣（他回答问题的时候一直在笑，非常自得其乐）的人，在活动结束后竟在洗手间里遇到歹徒袭击。网上的讨论其实已经有很多了，尤其doubleaf的twitter。

我当时并不在场，与这些老师也历来只有拜读的缘分，对于事件真相没有任何可以贡献的。只是想感慨一下，钱老师所说的这个离奇的世界。

谨祝钱老师早日康复。

Over at the Peking Duck there’s a post on what happened 19 years ago. I usually refrain from posting about politics, but I do want to jump in here.

Over the last two years, thanks to my professional needs, I’ve done a fair bit of traveling around Asia. I’ve worked in Philippines, India, and now Indonesia, and what I saw and experienced in those countries have changed some of my perceptions on politics.

19 years ago, there was a big movement for democracy in China. 19 years later, the D-word is still only an ideological goal, while the country has taken big strides in economic development. There are certainly frustrations at the one-party rule, and there are plenty of deep social issues that the nation must tackle. But is the D-word the miracle cure of those issues?

I remember back in campus (I studied in Beijing) a few years ago, we would eagerly debate a range of issues every night in the dorm. And on campus BBS there were always discussions of political systems, democracy, and China. Interestingly, the most fervent supporters of democracy were students who hadn’t seen the outside world, while those who had already graduated usually had a jaded view towards it. People who have studied (or are studying) overseas (mostly in the US) seemed to be most against democracy.

And I remember I once also had pipe dreams for democracy. I was (and still am) frustrated at the various limitations of the current system (such as surfing the Internet). Now, after witnessing the failure of democracy in other Asian developing countries (perhaps I’m exaggerating here), I know that it’s not the perfect system, or at least it’s not time yet for China to adopt that system.

What do I mean by the “failure of democracy”? Well, you only need to take a look around Asia. Save for South Korea and Japan, where democracy is truly working well, in all other places democracy has not lead to more prosperity and well-being for the people. Singapore is in truth authoritarian. Taiwan prospered before switching to democracy. The ASEAN countries are generally backwards, and what economic achievements they did achieve were usually under authoritarian rule (at least that’s the case for Philippines and Indonesia). India, for all its claims at greatness as a rapidly developing country, still has a long, long way to go before it can catch up with China. Without economic prosperity there can be no well-being, and democracy has not brought economic prosperity to most of the Asian countries who adopted it.

And democracy has not solved those developing nations’ social issues either. In India, the social divide is far greater than what’s the case in China (of course, this has deep historical backgrounds). Social security is also bad – be it Manila, Jakarta or New Delhi, you usually can’t go into a mall without a security check by personnel armed with submachine guns. And corrupt as China is, it’s hardly fair to say that China is the most corrupt country in the world – India would seriously challenge that title, while Philippines and Indonesia are by most accounts even more corrupt than those two Asian giants.

When I was in India, I often talked with my Indian colleagues about the two countries. One colleague said in sincerity, “wouldn’t it be great if we could switch political systems whenever we wanted? What India needs right now is a government that would ‘just do it’.”

All those above are in support of the argument that democracy is perhaps not what’s good for China at the current stage. But I think the more fundamental question is, is the big D-word necessarily a goal/direction for China?

The concept of democracy, as far as I know, is almost as old as civilization. And even the common modern form of democracy has been around for several hundred years. If anything, history has shown that democracy (like any other political system) is a product of circumstance; it is not necessarily the best political system for every country in the world, and (gasp!) it is not always better than authoritarian rule. And democracy certainly shouldn’t be the ultimate stage in the evolution of political systems in human society – and it isn’t necessarily higher up in the food chain (so to speak) compared to authoritarian rule.

That said, it’s not as if I’m 100% happy with the current political system in China. Still, we need to be careful to separate the concept of democracy from the form of democracy. The concept maybe a worthwhile goal, but democracy as it is usually referred to – a western form of multi-party rule – may not be. I certainly don’t see how a multi-party system necessarily makes China a better country. I’m tired of the typical rhetoric that a multi-party election system (western style of democracy) would make things better – I just look at the Philippines, India and Indonesia and know that it doesn’t.

Indeed, many people nowadays look at Singapore, and Lee Kuan Yew seems eager to tell China that his way is the way to go. Perhaps many critics see Singapore as an authoritarian one-party state with only a procedural democracy, but no one can argue that this is a country with a thriving economy and a high standard of living. Compared with Singapore, what China really needs is a government which stands by its word (fulfills the contracts it makes) and a robust legal system. I think for most people, it doesn’t really matter who’s ruling, as long as they play by the book.

Over the weekend, Danwei has a post linking to Maomy’s blog which talks about an interesting search result, specifically searching Carrefour (in Chinese) on Baidu and Google.cn returns no results.

I tried this at work today, and Baidu still returns no results (displaying “results not displayed due to possible violation of laws” in Chinese), while Google.cn is working. I will try again at home tonight, just out of curiosity, since my office network is setup to go through our Hong Kong server and hence technically I’m surfing from Hong Kong.

To some extent this is certainly a comical situation (though I’m sure Carrefour doesn’t find it funny), and it again highlights issues of the Internet in China. But what I found to be important about this censorship in particular was the government attitude it revealed, which shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone of course.

“Government attitude” is quite a buzzword in China these days, especially in the local stock market. The huge rise last week (after a straight 50% drop from the highest point last year) was the outcome of a series of government interventions, which analysts and the press duly called making clear the government’s attitude. Popular catchphrases talk about how you prosper if you follow the government’s attitude, and vice versa (serious consequences if you don’t).

Back to the topic, though I’m put off at the heavy-handedness, there is perhaps little to criticize on the attitude itself (save for its arrogance and disrespect of the people etc., maybe?). The irrational spike of nationalism ironically poses a serious risk to China and the Olympics, and Beijing has once again decided to calm the crowds.

先说说抵制家乐福的事情。说实话事态的发展出乎我的意料，没想到全国各地都有颇大的声音。看到了一两张照片，也着实事夸张了一些（譬如几十辆大卡车把商场门口堵得水泄不通）。这让我原本比较中立的立场有所改变，我现在反对这种抵制，因为已经发展到了近乎不可理喻的境地。用报纸常用的口气来说，大家应小心被别有用心的人利用了。——对于政府而言，现在的情况也着实是个难题需要处理，今晚的新闻联播也多是理智爱国、用爱国热情为祖国踏踏实实工作之类的片段。

昨天去爬长城，一来踏青二来陪Janet及其台湾华裔朋友Frank。原计划是再去爬野长城，但是路线上出了点问题，索性停在了慕田峪。爬长城不必说了，现下桃花盛开，正是登高的好时节。说个小细节，在长城上Janet几次友好地和外国人说话（譬如说互相帮忙拍照），问到对方国籍得到的总是一副讳莫如深的笑而不答。我于是隐约怀疑国人近期对他们太过热情了，尤其是对法国朋友。

于是想起上周坐地铁回家，地铁上一个大妈使劲儿和一个德国帅哥搭讪，一路穷追猛打地问“你知道希特勒吗？”那个大妈可能的确有点精神问题，因为后来说的话越来越离谱，以至于全车厢的人都在看她，而她旁边的一个女生数次要和她顶嘴但是又忍住了。

想说的只是，无论这些友人来自何方，来到这里即是客，我们应该热情接待，热情交流，但最根本的是应尊重对方。不是每一个外国人都想和你讨论政治，也不是每一个外国人都想接受你的教育，而我们若想改变其对中国的成见，恰是不应该以过于积极甚至骚扰式的手法来进行。