Lessig Video and Video Transcript

Super Tuesday brought mixed results and it looks like the primary contest will continue into March. HT to Kerim for the video link.

I support the candidacy of Barack Obama, and his first major challenge is only a day away in the Iowa Caucus to be held January 3rd.

I have been consistently impressed with Obama. I support his position on a very wide range of issues, and where I disagree with him, my own views are often sufficiently marginal that any US politician who shared them would find a largely hostile electorate near impossible to overcome. His commitment to the fight against poverty, his desire to move towards universal health coverage, his support for a strong and well-funded public education system and his consistent support for a more rational and measured foreign policy are all important. His consistent opposition to the war in Iraq helps him stand out among most candidates.

On many of the key issues in this particular campaign, Obama has much in common with other candidates for the Democratic party nomination. However, I believe he stands out when we consider his personal skills and character. The role of a leading politician in a democracy is not that of the monarch. They cannot merely dictate policies after inheriting power. An excellent candidate for president of the United States must be able to inspire the electorate, persuade them of the wisdom of his or her policies and, once in office, be able to work harmoniously with both opponents and allies alike. I believe Obama is the candidate best equipped for the task. He is an incredibly gifted speaker who can combine a straightforward message without abandoning nuance. His life has been dedicated to causes worth fighting for and has fought for them at both the grass roots level and in the halls of political power. His sharp intelligence and wide knowledge are virtues too long ridiculed in American politics. He has generated an intense excitement about politics among many in our cynical generation who have long since stopped caring and I sincerely hope his efforts will help carry him to the presidency later this year.

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.

Interestingly, before launching into its nationalist, if not boldly imperialist arguments, the article makes mention of a book by world federalist Clarence Streit called Union Now which argues for a supernational federalist government. Unlike many other world federalists during this time and after the war, Streit wanted to limit his federalist state to democracies, thus splitting the movement even before it becomes strong for a brief period in the early postwar period. Early in his article Luce says Streit’s approach, “may not be the right approach to our problem. But no thoughtful American has done his duty by the United States of America until he has read and pondered Clarence Streit’s book presenting that proposal.” (164) Luce then begins by invoking the core ideals at stake:

“in postulating the indivisibility of the contemporary world, one does not necessarily imagine that anything like a world state – a parliament of men- must be brought about in this century. Nor need we assume that war can be abolished. All that it is necessary to feel – and to feel deeply – is that terrific forces of magnetic attraction and repulsion will operate as between every large group of human beings on this planet….Tyrannies may require a large amount of living space. But Freedom requires and will require far greater living space than Tyranny. Peace cannot endure unless it prevails over a very large part of the world. Justice will come near to losing all meaning in the minds of men unless Justice can have approximately the same fundamental meanings in many lands and among many peoples.” (168)

In other words, peace and justice must be found at the level of the universal, and cannot be maintained if only a few play along. The question, of course, is how this is to be accomplished. The world federalists had one solution, the founders of the United Nations had a somewhat more limited vision, but Luce clearly has something a little different in mind. He begins by looking at the word “internationalism” He notes that the word doesn’t tell you very much by itself. Indeed Rome, the Vatican, Genghis Khan, the Ottoman Turks, Chinese emperors, 19th century England, Lenin, and Hitler all had their own kind of “internationalism” to offer.

“But what internationalism have we Americans to offer? Ours cannot come out of the vision of any one man. It must be the product of the imaginations of many men. It must be a sharing with all peoples of our Bill of Rights, our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, our magnificent industrial products, our technical skills. It must be an internationalism of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

The contrast to those empires of old, which he is directly comparing America too, cannot be more stark:

“…Unlike the prestige of Rome or Genghis Khan or 19th Century England, American prestige throughout the world is faith in the good intentions as well as in the ultimate intelligence and ultimate strength of the whole American people.” (169)

Throughout the article, the transmission is one way, from America to the world, for it is America who is the wellspring of virtue. No clearer expression of this can be found than here:

“…We have some things in this country which are infinitely precious and especially American – a love of freedom, a feeling for the equality of opportunity, a tradition of self-reliance and independence and also of co-operation. In addition to ideals and notions which are especially American, we are inheritors of all the great principles of Western civilization – above all Justice, the love of Truth, the ideal of Charity. The other day Herbert Hoover said that America was fast becoming the sanctuary of the ideals of civilization. For the moment it may be enough to be the sanctuary of these ideals. But not for long. It now becomes our time to be the powerhouse from which the ideals spread throughout the world and do their mysterious work of lifting the life of mankind from the level of the beasts to what the Psalmist called a little lower than the angels.

America as the dynamic center of ever-widening spheres of enterprise, America as the training center of the skillful servants of mankind, America as the Good Samaritan, really believing again that it is more blessed to give than to receive, and America as the powerhouse of the ideals of Freedom and Justice – out of these elements surely can be fashioned a vision of the 20th Century to which we can and will devote ourselves in joy and gladness and vigor and enthusiasm.” (170)

Freedom, equal opportunity, self-reliance and independence are “especially American” while America has also, as by some auspicious royal marriage, come to inherit guardianship over the principles of Justice, Truth, and Charity – the “ideals of civilization.” These She will share with the world.

Does this sound familiar? I was not raised in the United States so these words are perhaps less familiar to me than many. However, more than ever, we hear echoes of such passionate idealism and frightening conceit around us in much that we read and hear. Its supporters today want a new American century and much like Luce, embrace a vision in which a benevolent and virtuous America may, through her own “internationalism” dictate her terms to the world.

Note: I’m citing from a reprint of Luce’s article in Diplomatic History 23, no. 2 (Spring 1999): 159-171

My host for my ChinaJapan.org site had a crash and had no functional backups. They handled the whole thing with complete incompetence which I will be describing at major hosting forums to warn future customers. I’m going to be moving the site to another host where I am hosting Muninn and FrogInAWell along with numerous other projects. I have fairly recent backups so I think I can get everything back up.

Che and Sponheim

By the time I post this to the internet, the Norwegian Storting elections will be over. However, one amusing thing about the last days of the election campaign. The Left party, or Venstre, was campaigning in downtown Stavanger on Friday, my last day at the library. The Left party is actually one of the non-socialists (Norwegian parties are traditionally but somewhat misleadingly divided into socialist and non-socialist camps) and are in the current (relatively) conservative coalition. However, they had some interesting campaign posters which were appealing to young voters. They depicted that famous image of Che Guevera (sp?), the Communist revolutionary leader on a red background. However, instead of Che’s face, they put Lars Sponheim, the leader of the Venstre party.

This was cute but somewhat surprising given the Høyre (Right party, their coalition ally) party’s recent ineffective attack on the Socialistic Left or SV party by associating them closely with Communist regimes and their atrocities. However, I suspect the irony of the poster escapes the notice of most.

And yet imagine if you will, the same campaign poster, approved by the party in the United States. While the Left party in Norway is a very moderate centrist party in comparison to the Republicans, imagine if you will some moderate republican putting their face on a Che poster in a effort to appeal to young voters. It just wouldn’t happen, right?

Norwegian Television Debate

VG, one of the major Norwegian newspapers (although it has always looked like a tabloid to me) has a strange way of measuring up the political debate between the party leaders in its Sunday, Sept. 11th issue. It first give all the participants of the debates a grade from 1 to 6 (six being best). It gave a 5 to Jens Stoltenberg (Labor party) and Dagfinn Høybråten (Christian Democrats) and 4s to everyone else except the right-wing Progress party (3 points) and the marginal Coast Party (2 points). Then it marked each one along a scale showing whether they were on the offense or defense in the debate. The highest “offense” ratings went to the hard left-wing Red Alliance, Socialist Left and Labor party, basically the left spectrum of Norwegian politics. Then, most bizarrely, it marked the mood of each participant with happy and sad faces on a scale. The most happy were apparently the Center party and Progress Party, with the most miserable being the Right party (who are set to lose big in this election) and the Coast party.

Critique of Domination

Roger Cohen had a good editorial in the Sept. 10-11 Int. Herald Tribune I got in the airport today where he discusses the political split on discussing looting during a crisis like the Katrina hurricane. He notes that conservatives are taking a hard line “zero tolerance” for looting (even those stealing food and water) but notes sardonically that Rumsfeld once said “While no one can condone looting, on the other hand, one can understand the pent-up feelings that may result from decades of oppression.” Of course, he was referring to Iraq, which led Cohen to say that Rumsfeld and conservatives think that “A little mayhem in Mesopotamia was just fine” as long as it wasn’t within the US.

However, I found most memorable a quote from a French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in the article. He was deeply critical of any sympathy towards looters, who he described as having a “revolting reaction.” Now, I strongly disagree with his take on the looting question and find myself having no moral opposition to any looting for food and essentials in a crisis situation. However, he then added a quote which sums up one of my biggest problems with recent critical theory.

While I’m very much influenced by a lot of recent critical theory out there, especially those important in historical research, I’m worried about the kind of moral paralysis I feel can result from some approaches suggested by things like postcolonial theory and postmodern critiques of society. Finkielkraut sums this up very nicely into one line, “It’s funny, our dominant ideology is a critique of domination in all its forms.”

Since the 1960 Swedish politics has based their childbirth leave laws on two premises – the need to give females time away from work to care for a newborn child, but secondly, on the need to get men into the house. They have had flexible leave since 1974.

I think there have been numerous changes in the law but as I understand it stands now it basically says you get 43 total weeks of 100% paid leave from work or 53 weeks of 80% paid leave. Of this, I think the mother has 9 nine of these weeks reserved for her, and the father has 5 weeks of the total reserved for him. I think you can freely divide up the rest. In contrast, in liberal Sweden there is a fully equal law reserving 60 days for each the father and mother, but provides you 80% salary for 390 days and then 60 Swedish kroner for 90 days after that.

This issue is big in this election coming in September here in Norway. Everyone but the Right party (~15% in polls) and Forward Marching Party (~20%) want to expand the reserved time for fathers and there is all sorts of talk about making the whole system more flexible so that you can take your leave well after the child is born, up until at some point while the child is in school. One reason for considering greater flexibility is that the Swedish welfare department (who I guess in this issue plays the role of the neighbor whose garden is better tended) reports that men are more likely to take paternal leave if they are allowed to do so later on in the child’s life.

Another issue is marriage and adoption. Adoption rights for homosexuals (who already have marriage rights here) and the question of getting rid of some elements of the marriage law which have gendered aspects to it (not sure what these are) are on the election agenda. Homosexuality was also in the news here because of some big conference on homosexual issues held in Norway recently. The Norwegian crown princess gave the opening speech in which she emphasized that discrimination against homosexuals still remains in Norway, especially in the workplace.

On the adoption issue:

Those who want to allow adoption for homosexual couples: Socialistic Left (SV 12% in current polls) Left Party (3.6%), Labor Party (34.6%), Red Alliance (0.x%), and looks like the Right party (15%) is considering something they call “step children adoption” for homosexuals, which I don’t quite understand. Against: Christian Democrats (5.6%) and Forward Marching Party (20%)

Those who want a completely gender neutral marriage law: Socialistic Left (SV 12%) Left Party (3.6%), Labor Party (34.6%), Red Alliance (0.x%) Against: Christian Democrats (5.6%) and Forward Marching Party (20%). The Right party doesn’t either I guess, since they say they want to “keep the partnership law.”

Today the little open space housed some kind of political fair. While a band, dressed in typical Norwegian sweaters and old-fashioned pilot goggles (?) cracked jokes and sang songs in a mix of dialects that gave them a nice authentic sound of belonging to “the people.”

Surrounding the stage were three booths where political organizers could pass out brochures about their respective party positions in the upcoming September election. The scene struck me as somewhat unusual. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like it in Japan or the US – multiple, quite antagonistic parties gathering in a single public space only a meter or two distance from each-other, all trying to reach the same crowd of passing people and strays listening to the band.

This was an especially interesting scene given the three parties in question: the Christian Democrats (KrF. polling at 5%, might be called a center-right party, currently trailing badly in the polls but in the current coalition government of the “Right” party the “Left” party, and KrF), the Forward Marching Party (polling at 20%, a semi-fascist populist party, but maybe I’m a little harsh), and the Red Alliance (1% which I think is a coalition of the Communists and other hard-core socialist parties).

There was no presence of the three parties who have joined forces to form what might be called the ASS coalition in the morning. These consist of the powerful Labor party (Ap., polling at 35%) which has dominated Norwegian politics in the postwar period, the Socialist Left party (SV) which has made a surprising rise in popularity in the last few years to become mainstream contender with over 15% support, and the Center party (Sp, polling at 5.6%), which traditionally was supported by the agricultural sector. However, the booth battle shifted to the Right party and SV in the afternoon.

My award for the most entertaining election poster so far has to go to a small crowd of Socialist Left youth campaigning in Sandnes last week, who held a banner saying, “Let’s Kick Some Ruling Class ASS”

I’m interested in these changes on the left in Norway. Since the Labor Party has dominated Norwegian politics for so long, it has a “conservative” feel to it, despite the fact that it helped create the welfare state in Norway and if I remember correctly it is out of this party that the Norwegian communists and other socialists split decades ago. In social terms, it stands much farther to the left that the Democrats in the US and must take some credit (along with the incredible boon of the oil business) for creating the health benefits, educational system, child care, and other state structures which have helped Norway become yesterday…again, the United Nation survey’s “best place to live” this year. However, for the Norwegian electorate now on the left Labor is stained by its “big” mainstream feel, the various criticism and controversy from every policy it supported in its decades of rule, and its support for Norwegian NATO membership and US support…

With the Socialist Left party together with Labor though, SV will inevitably become embroiled in the realities of political compromise that it has been able to stay out of, for the most part. For example, they have traditionally been a strong anti-NATO and anti-US force. Indeed, their official party program apparently states that, “The United States is the largest threat to peace in the world today.” The Right party, sensing the threat from SV recently launched a full propaganda war on SV, noting SV’s close connections and support in the past to Communist parties, to the current president of Venezuela, and that (shock!) some six of its “sister parties” in the New European Left movement still have the word Communist in their name. SV has taken a drop to 12% in the last few weeks thanks perhaps partly to red scare tactics, but probably more for being somewhat flaky on the specifics of their policy goals.

According to recent Aftenposten articles for example, SV has been forced by criticism from within and outside the party to make various reconfigurations of their anti-NATO stance with the prospect of them going into a ruling coalition. They are still anti-US, they say, and anti-NATO, but I think they pretty much said that they could play a constructive and critical role from within the institution.

This is of course, how these kinds of compromises start, and indeed the kinds of compromises that Labor started making when it became a mainstream and then the dominant political force in Norwegian politics so long ago. It is fascinating to see it in action – it is the “maturing” (or “decaying” or “betrayal of principles” critics could just as well say) of a political power.

It happens, of course, on the right too, as the right wing Forward Marching Party (FrP) has grown immensely in Norway and suddenly found itself more powerful than the traditional right opposition to Labor, the conveniently name “Right” party (the “Left” party polling at 3.6%, on the other hand is just bizarre and I think they probably don’t change their name only due to historical reasons. I can’t figure out what they are: they are strong pro-environment, pro large-scale public education but on local level, want more cultural funding, pro-immigration, pro-small business, but are “anti-socialist” and want a flat tax?). Since FrP reached about 20% support in the electorate, this once racist and nationalistic party has tried to smooth over its rough edges and now effectively portrays itself as a harmless, rational, and calm mainstream populist opposition on the right. Most parties still smell that rotten fascist fish though and keep their distance from FrP, even though it is now the 2nd largest party. To give them a bit of credit, their party seems to have a greater diversity of types and positions among its politicians, and I have read articles saying that they are trying to stamp out some of the more explicitly racist and illiberal elements within. The Right party is even considering an alliance with them now but to be honest, their barely disguised ethnic nationalism and anti-immigration stances still disgust me.

While SV has not yet seemed to (judging from their brochures, banners, and party program) shed itself of its more radical oppositional politics, I think some time in a ruling coalition together with other moderates will take its toll. Who knows, however, it may lead to a loss of support and legitimacy for a recently popular SV, as with the fall of the Socialist left in Japan. However, there are important structural differences that make any comparison with Japan somewhat complicated (for example, the conservative LDP has dominated postwar politics in Japan while the marginally more conservative Right party has been the main opposition party in Norway for most of the postwar while Labor held power for decades).

During this process, of course, new parties step in to fill the vacuum. I took a brochure today from the Red Alliance (RV), and saw that given SV’s move to the mainstream and their joining forces with Labor, RV are portraying themselves as the new “opposition on the left” («Uten RV på Stortinget – ingen opposisjon fra venstre!») Interestingly, they are targeting SV voters directly in their brochure, saying that, unlike SV, they won’t sell their soul and join forces with a Labor party which, “Supports capitalism,” “Tries to get Norway to join the EU” “Made us join NATO and supports American imperialism” and “Works towards privatization.” This mirrors the kind of efforts I have seen by the Japanese Communist party to cannibalize the remains of the SDP.

RV, who are completely irrelevant in the polls, are portraying themselves as the new authentic voice of anti-NATO and anti-US left politics and just to add some spice, they also want a 6 hour work day?! Interestingly, their local man for the job is a 20 year old student, activist in an anti-racist organization (SOS Rasisme) and lead musician in the rap group, “Criminal Art” (in Norwegian it is the more alliterative Kriminell Kunst). And so radicalism passes on to another generation…

While I’m also a Norwegian citizen, I won’t be voting in the upcoming election here. While I have no respect for political voting rights based on concepts of an ethnic or otherwise unusually restrictive class of nationality, I do feel that we should only have and exercise political rights in those communities where we have some kind of stake in the policies made and the taxes collected and expended. Since I’m living in and paying taxes in Boston for the time being, I won’t be voting in Norwegian elections for now.

Recent Aftenposten Polls

He apparently believes (link in Japanese) that “gender neutral [lit. gender free] education and extreme sex education are running rampant. There are those who might say that this is wrecking Japan.” His comments apparently continued to critique Japan’s gender neutral education system.

Sayaka points out that this is one of many similar comments by the minister and laments the fact that no one seems to have gotten across the message to the Japanese minister the importance of the foundations of an education system.

She also talks about the bewildering “return to Confucian values” movement in Japan. There is a movement to change or get rid of article 24 of the Japanese constitution which states that:

Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis. 2) With regard to choice of spouse, property rights, inheritance, choice of domicile, divorce and other matters pertaining to marriage and the family, laws shall be enacted from the standpoint of individual dignity and the essential equality of the sexes.

Opposition to this comes in the form of those who argue that, “Japan has gone too far in promoting individual rights and should return to the duties of family, community and nation.” Fortunately, however, there is a counter campaign against an effort to alter the clause.

UPDATE: Jae over at Tianan saw Sayaka’s posting and decided to look up the related clause in the Korean constitution. Read more on his blog.

I think Kerry babbled too much sometimes, but was much better at imitating the 5 word, 5 syllable sentences that for some reason seem to resonate so well with public opinion. I think everyone wants to believe that the word is full of binaries, that there isn’t real complexity, and that, to use a metaphor by Jessi Klein, freedom can be “spread” like peanut butter.

UPDATE: I remember one more line I liked, Bush’s constant pleading to Kerry that he acknowledge poor Poland in the coalition of the bribed and coerced. Here is what Aleksander Kwasniewski, the Polish president has to say about his country’s participation: “They deceived us about the weapons of mass destruction, that’s true. We were taken for a ride.” (Via Hit and Run)

UPDATE: FactCheck.org has an article detailing the factual errors of each candidate in the recent debate.

My only concern with the Foster-Carter article and the sometimes rabid responses to the recent censorship and current left swing of Korean politics on the usually deeply conservative English-language blogs about Korea (in particular Marmot’s Hole and Flying Yangban over at GOPKorea – I should take care to note that despite my own raving liberal politics, I still read these two blogs, which are often excellent sources for recent Korea related news) is that I believe they are portraying Korea—and Koreans—as emotional slaves to political fashion who swing from one political extreme (authoritarian dictatorship and anti-communist ideology) to the other (a pro-unification, pro-North Korean regime) without conceding the exceptionally complex adjustments and changes that are going on in Korean society. One person whose opinions I respect the most on this are those of my friend Lim Jaehwan. His most recent posting on the Korean media emphasizes the continuing dominance of conservative newspapers in Korea, even as populist or left-leaning alternative media sources like OhMyNews are growing in popularity.

The “free North Korea” and “pro-America” segments of Korean society didn’t just die overnight. Nor, for all its faults and recent blunders, does the young and more radical government of South Korea mark the establishment of a North Korean puppet in the south that will crush all voices of “freedom” and dissent. The pendulum has surely swung, but it swung partly as a result, I believe, of a number of contingent political factors (the recent impeachment crisis, desire for reform, etc.) that may not consistently serve the current ruling party in the future. The new Uri Party has had, and will surely continue to have, its share of political excesses, but if it survives another election, it may undergo a process of “professionalization” similar to what is happening with the Taiwanese ruling party now. The adjustment from a party made up of old protesters who, upon gaining power, gathered in the halls of government to sing old anti-government protest songs (Jae – I’m waiting for you to post the details about this!) to one that can function with the bureaucracy, make level-headed and long-term policies, and appeal to mainstream voters in a time when a mass reaction to a political crisis is no longer available—all this takes time.

I for one, rejoice at the thumping defeat of the conservative forces in Korea’s legislature who have ruled for so long, just as I continue to rejoice at the slow death of Taiwan’s symbol of authoritarian rule: the KMT Chinese nationalist party. I feel that this is a healthy thing, and I am confident that it will result in a more mature democracy for both countries that will hopefully give birth to a new political configuration on both left and right. However, in this period of transition, I think we can benefit now from a careful look at the deeply nationalistic aspects of more leftist parties that have come to power (The Taiwanese nationalism of the Democrats in Taiwan, and the often irrational anti-American arrogance of Uri and Roh Moo-hyun) rather than simply scoffing at their emotional polemics and their other petty incompetence at facing current political issues. We can also benefit from looking at the complex changes in Korea society, especially in its views towards the North, without assuming the south has suddenly gone Communist.

My discussions with my friends has shown me that young Koreans are deeply ambivalent and even confused about their views towards North Korea and the issue of unification. I doubt that has changed in the past few months of political turmoil. Few, if any of them, deny the madness we often hear about in the North, but as the flood of movies coming out of Korea recently reveals, there is an increasing willingness to admit that (contrary to the portrayals of Korean society I have seen by the conservative expert foreigners living in and blogging about Korea, with a few exceptions like the fantastic blog Hunjangûi karûch’im) guess what: things are not all black and white when it comes to North and South.

As readers of my previous posts will know, I love movies that are willing to deal with and present the audience with moral ambiguity. Recent Korean action movies like JSA, Shuri, Double Spy, Silmido, and to a lesser extent Brotherhood all contain elements of this. None of these movies portray North Korea as the “good guy” or suggest that Koreans should all throw away their reservations about the North and embrace it. Instead, each and every one of these blockbusters puts real human beings, with real complex emotions into the dehumanizing and reductionist reality of an insane world. North and South Korea, as well as its war and continued tensions are all a microcosm of a global disease of modern madness.

I am confident that most Koreans understand this in a time when, ironically, many Americans have come to forget it…

Today, there was an entry about the whack Michael Savage’s comment about the Nick Berg incident,

“Nick Berg, an American, not military, over there building transmission towers, was captured by the Untermenschen the sub-humans, who wrap themselves in a religion. He is seen saying his mother’s name, his father’s name, sister’s name, his brother’s name and then the smiling Arabs cut a living human beings head off as he screams. It’s a blood-curdling scream that you’ll ever hear again. You’ll never get it out of your mind if you’re a normal person, or you’re not given to murder or you’ve never been around murder. Uh, it’s something you’ll never forget, not should you ever forget it and you can thank the Democrats, you can thank the Senate Arms Services Committee for their hysterical hearings. You can thank John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Biden, The New York Times, the alphabet channels and The Washington Post for this atrocity because they caused it.”

(My bold) My jaw dropped. Untermenschen – is he actually using that term for Iraqis? It has certainly appeared a lot in the media lately, but did he miss the fact that it was popular in Nazi propaganda? It would be the ultimate irony if this term caught on amongst commentators in the US as the term for Iraqis.

“I’m much more confident about Korea’s successful passage through crisis than Taiwan’s. Korea’s democracy is more mature: the impeachment, though disruptive, seems to be proceeding along clear procedural lines, though they are having to make up a few things, like how to treat presidential testimony at the Constitutional Court, as they go along. Taiwan’s democracy is less well developed, which is exacerbated by the scrutiny it gets from mainland China, aka the People’s Republic of China.”

While I might be persuaded that Korea is a more mature democracy, I think this is far from obvious. Granted, Taiwan’s politics still has a “wild west” feel to it, and there is widespread anger at the lack of substantial debate on domestic economic and social issues during the past campaign. I think he is also right in noting that the current post-election turmoil in Taiwan is hardly good for its democratic development. I would argue, however, that Taiwan has a very mature democratic “consciousness” and an extremely lively and colorful media (I will be posting more on this when I get my notes together) which also need to be mentioned.

In the aftermath of the recent election, no one missed the irony of the fact that the former authoritarian KMT party found itself protesting in the streets for “democracy”, “truth” and “justice” and the “voice of the people.” President Chen Shui-bian offered his sympathy to them, noting that he had been protesting in the same place for decades. Whatever destabilizing effects this has had, the language and rhetoric of the protests were all deeply connected to the legitimacy of democratic processes. Except for those lamenting the drop in the stock market, I didn’t often hear those favorite words of “sacrifice”, “stability” and “growth” which were the hallmarks of authoritarian rhetoric. The protests were more like Japanese street festivals, with free drinks and snacks (and free ponchos when it rained!) being offered in canopies along the side. They were almost totally nonviolent. Even the riot fences and lines were a joke, we walked through them to the other side on two separate protest days. My friend Tianan, who spent some of his recent military service as a riot police officer, tells me things that in Korean protests, things are still occasionally quite violent, though perhaps not as much as the 80s. Also, I remember seeing a survey from Korea (can’t remember the source) from just a few years ago in which a surprisingly large number of respondents look back fondly on the days of the dictator Park Chunghee (박정희). I would be interested in seeing a similar poll from Taiwan (and an updated one for Korea).

Dresner also says Taiwan’s democracy being less developed is “exacerbated” by the scrutiny from the mainland. However, I would argue that for Taiwan, the looming presence of China is, if anything, now a major motivation for the island to be as pronouncedly democratic as possible. The contrast helps them distinguish themselves from the mainland regime and thereby adds to their justification for status quo or independence.

Finally, I would argue that Taiwan’s parties are much more well developed than those in Korea. The DPP has without a doubt made a successful transition from a machine of protest and opposition to a party which is becoming more experienced with the dealings of bureaucratic and political nature. A friend of mine who is a KMT supporter but works closely with DPP leaders in his position as a bureaucrat admits marked improvement over the past few years. Korea’s mostly short lived political parties are infamous for revolving around personalities, who often ditch the party for a new one. Transfer from one party to the next is thus not the best marker of its democratic maturity. Indeed, when Roh left the MDP, we had a kind of transfer of power from one former opposition party to the next without even having an election.

Later in the day TV showed more scenes of violence (a KMT truck tried to break through police lines somewhere) which my KMT friend assured me was rare (indeed we were puzzled at one TV shot of a man shaking the fence near where the above police line picture is – he could have just walked around if he wanted to get to the other side. The media was definitely looking for anything juicy) and there have been lots more photos released of Chen Shuibian’s exposed belly button, dazed face during his surgery, and various medical files all designed to put to an end questions about the assassination attempt.