Pack It Up Guys, Concertos Might Be The Peak Artform

    As I am doing more writing recently, I have been listening to an assortment of lyrics-less music. For the past week or so it has been romantic era concertos (concerti?). This all started when I rediscovered Tchaikovsky's violin concerto. This is my dad's favourite concerto. As a result, it has been trivialized in my brain from his whistling the tune on the toilet. But when I listened to Itzhak Perlman perform the piece the other day...let's just say my spirit was so moved. 

    I am not saying anything new here, but I like how the concerto is so hummable. Each part of the music flows into the next in such an intuitive way that, even though the first movement is almost 20 minutes long, it's very easy to memorize it and sing along. I think this has a lot to do with Perlman's interpretation of the piece. He did a very great job carrying through and building the intensity of the piece without much interruption to the flow of the music. 

    I also love that the central motif of the first movement is so warm and sublime. I enjoy how Tchaikovsky starts the piece with a cautious and subdued version of the motif and slowly builds on it. Every time it appears it is different and slightly richer than the last, sometimes playful, sometimes romantic, and sometimes extremely intense. At 10:38, at the end of an incredibly difficult and demanding cadenza that keeps you tense and in awe of what a human body can achieve, the melody softens and settles into a long trill, WHICH BECOMES THE ACCOMPANIMENT FOR THE FLUTE TO COME IN WITH A TENDER RENDITION OF THE MOTIF???? When that happens you simply cannot help but melt into your chair. Wonderful, life affirming, soul nourishing. 

Overcoming Paddington

My lovely friend Abby got me this Paddington from THE Paddington Station. My prized possession.

*Spoilers for Paddington (2014) and Paddington in Peru (2024)*

    On March 18, I watched the 2024 film Paddington in Peru with my dear friend, Gracie. There were little things about the film that I was mildly dissatisfied with. For example, they recast my beloved Sally Hawkins and I didn't like the new actress as much. But all in all I quite enjoyed the film. I love Olivia Coleman and Antonio Banderas's iconic performances that live up to the long tradition of high profile actors having a great time performing delightfully quirky villains, and I love it when Paddington runs toward Aunt Lucy and gives her a big hug (it never fails to make me a sobbing mess). It is without a doubt the weakest entry in the Paddington trilogy, but that speaks less to the poor quality of this film and more to the life-changing beauty of the first two films. 

    There is, however, a persistent critique that is levelled against P in P, and I fear it is quite a valid one. Despite being set in Peru, P in P seems terribly uninterested in the country, its culture, and its people. A usual UK-centred Paddington story stresses Paddington's relationship with the UK, his interaction with its people and his struggle to form a unique British identity. Paddington is situated in the UK and the story explore how this situated-ness shapes and drives him as a character.  P in P on the other hand doesn't feature any speaking Peruvian role nor any (human) populated Peruvian locations. After a pretty stereotypical travel montage featuring bustling marketplaces, locals in unfamiliar attire, and many, many llamas, the narrative moves into the hidden-away home for retired bears, and eventually, the empty darkness of the Amazon forest. The only speaking local roles are reserved to the (stunning) English actress Olivia Coleman and Spanish actor Antonio Banderas, who are later revealed to be gold-lusting treasure hunters descended from a line of Spanish colonizers. 

    P in P is, above all else, a take on the classic treasure hunting narrative -– that uniquely colonial trope and tradition. After all, what is a good treasure hunting story but a fantasy of a rugged individual embarking on an adventure to an uncharted tropical jungle –– one where the natives are either nonexistent or bone wielding savages –– to extract an ancient resource previously unharvested? While at the end of the day, P in P might want to condemn endless greed of its colonial treasure hunters, it nonetheless exists in the shape of a colonial dream. It is unable to challenge the narratives that strips the colonized of their voices, agency, and humanity.

✷

     Paddington is no stranger to postcolonial critiques. This is because at the core of the Paddington story is an assimilationist narrative. Coming from "Darkest Peru", Paddington must learn proper English etiquette, he must forgo his bear name in favour of a name easier for English speakers to pronounce. To be sure, it celebrates the new life immigrants bring to the community, yet it takes for granted the disproportionate accommodation expected of immigrants, as well as the erasure, or at least dilution, of their identities. Paddington is one of us, but not before the Browns guide him to shed his savagery and embrace the ways of civilization. 

    Yet having re-watched Paddington (2014) last night, I find the film's handling of this material to be destabilizing, exciting, and odd. To start, the film presents the opposite of the assimilationist position –– the exclusionary position –– in quite an insightful fashion. We were introduced to our first racist, Mr. Curry, who is the archetypal working class racist. Mr. Curry's racism is really rooted in ignorance and his lack of understanding of the other. His objective is to maintain the imagined British way of life. Yet Mr. Curry's racism is presented as toothless and abstract. It is only mobilized and concretized by Nicole Kidman, who espouses an entirely different form of racism. For Nicole Kidman, the end goal is never to expel the other, but to stuff, taxidermize, and display them. The other is, for Nicole Kidman, useful. As Susan Sontag observed in Regarding the Pain of Others, the display of the other automatically objectifies the other and solidifies the spectator as an "us". She wrote about the disproportionate coverage and display of the suffering Non-European bodies, 

The exhibition in photographs of cruelties inflicted on those with darker complexions in exotic countries continues this offering, oblivious to the considerations that deter such displays of our own victims of violence; for the other, even when not an enemy, is regarded only as someone to be seen, not someone (like us) who also sees.

    So is the case with Kidman's view of Paddington. The other must be exhibited for all to see. He must be emptied of subjectivity, stuffed with European projections and ideas, and ultimately frozen in his abject barbarity. The savages are made as much as they are found. Power is, as Foucault observed, as productive as it is repressive. 

     The characterization of the assimilationist position in the film is just as surprising. The film presents the assimilationist view not only through the Brown family, but also through an original character created for the film –– Montgomery Clyde, the explorer. In an especially intriguing part of the film, the members of the Geographers Guild ––  supporters of the exclusionary-exhibitionist position –– question Clyde as to why he did not kill one of the bears and bring it back as a specimen. Clyde's response states clearly what the Browns say only in a repressed form, "Gentlemen, these were no dumb beasts, they were intelligent, civilized." 

    The members are not impressed. "Come off it Clyde," they retort, "they don't even speak English. Did they play cricket? Drink tea? Do the crossword? Pretty rum idea of civilization you've got." 

    The scene moves on and Clyde does not get to reply, but it makes one wonder what he would say to the geographers. Why would he use this word, civilized? Does he understand civilization to be something more than the superficial signifiers that the members list out? Or perhaps he was merely thinking of his own list of superficial signifiers: they love marmalade the way we do, they yearn for London the way we do...The narrative, staunchly on the side of Clyde and the assimilationist position, seems to indicate that the latter is true. After all, the film suggests that Paddington may be incorporated into British society precisely because he is civilized in this superficial sense, because he speaks English, enjoys tea, and maybe even plays crickets and does crosswords. When all is said and done, the bears are included with the exact logic by which they are excluded.

 ✷

    It is in this nuanced understanding of the exclusionary-exhibitionist position and the complicating of the assimilationist position that the film reaches its most astonishing dialectical insight –– Nicole Kidman is the daughter of Montgomery Clyde. The seeming contradiction between the assimilationist position and the exclusionary-exhibitionist position is revealed to be working within the same colonial framework of the Geographers Guild. It is in the colonial encounter that the colonized other, that quasi-subject stuck between beast and man, becomes a problem to be solved by the European man; and it is through the same colonial gaze, the same will to power-knowledge, the same need to domesticate and master the other that these opposing solutions are articulated. 

    Assimilate Paddington into the dominant culture or freeze him in his savagery for all to see. It doesn't matter which side you choose, the logic of colonialism remains intact.  

    As much as Paddington praises the possibility of assimilation, as much as it tries to tame Paddington's otherness with his English politeness and love of marmalade, it cannot help but undermine itself, to gesture at the unity of the seemingly opposite positions. Under the loud and apparent privileging of one side as opposed to the other, it can't help but ask under its breath: Is there a possibility of overcoming this contradiction? What might be lying beyond?

Comic Research Notes #1

State-Building and the White Terror: The Cause of Political Persecution in Early 1950s in Taiwan, Ching-Hsuan Su (Master Thesis)

 

Today I learned that the founder of Taiwan's communist party and 

a leading figure in many anti-KMT movement was a women named Xie Xuehong.  

 

The cause of the White Terror is usually interpreted in two ways. 

The first is to place Taiwan in the global context of the Cold War and the Chinese Civil War. This position understands the persecution of left-wing activists and intellectuals as following the direction of the US Empire. The difficulty with this view is that it ignores the agency and semi-autonomy that the KMT possessed under this period. It underplays the fact that in order to secure its rule on the island, the KMT also persecuted pro-US forces that threatened its power. 

A more subtle version of this view is best exemplified by left-wing historian 藍博洲 (Lan Bo-Zhou), who understands the White Terror as a campaign to root out the left-wing organizations on the island who play a leading role in anti-KMT movements. The US is the condition of possibility for KMT's rule in Taiwan, and the rooting out of the left is the necessary process of KMT security. This view, however, is not without problems. It over-inflates the impact exerted by the Taiwanese Communist Party (TCP) and its movements. The TCP was a major anti-KMT actor during the period but not the only one, nor did it take a leading role. In reality, the masses largely neither express solidarity with the communist success in China, nor identify with the left-wing project of its Taiwanese counterpart. 

The second view, in conversation with the first, is advanced by the scholar 李筱峰 (Li Xiao-fung). This view understand the White Terror chiefly as the KMT's effort to ensure the security of its rule. In his article, 台灣戒嚴時期政治案件的類型 (Categories of Political Persecution Cases under Taiwan's Martial Law Era), Li describe 8 types of political persecution cases which include communists and left-wing actors, Taiwan independence activists, indigenous elites, liberal and democracy activists, etc. He provides examples of each category and describes the challenges they present to the KMT rule. 

This view attempts to demonstrate the source of White Terror violence as a stabilizing mechanism internal to the authoritarian state as opposed to the direct influence of anti-communist geopolitical forces and influences. This explanation, however, is unsuccessful in challenging Lan's subtler version of the first view, in which US imperialism and US interest create the ground for KMT's activities. (does it need/want to challenge it? if so, why?) (authoritarian security vs Cold War framework, p17)

 

Drawing from the recent theories of "state-building" and "state-formation", scholar 吳叡人 (Wu Rwei-Ren) subsumes the above two views into the three interconnected and temporally overlapping contexts that condition KMT's chosen path of monopolizing violence and securing its territory –– of state-building.

1. State-building Project from Mainland China, 1945 - early 1950s: difficulty of incorporation of Taiwan in to the larger Chinese Republic after WWII, resulting in (1) the violent suppression of the 228 movement and (2) the persecution of non communist actors in the early 50s.

2. KMT's state-building in Taiwan, 1949 - 1987: difficulty of moving the state apparatus from China to Taiwan after the lost of the Chinese Civil War, resulting in (3) violence enacted to achieve minority rule (what's the difference between (2) and (3)?) and (4) the anti-communist persecution as the extension of the Chinese Civil War. 

3. The Cold War, 1947 - 1989: US interest and support for KMT's Taiwan tacitly permits and provides stability for the KMT to achieve violent process of state-building. (A little unclear on this whole argument.) (State building+three contexts, p12) 

Under these constraints, KMT, as a nascent state weakened by a brutal war, built its state in Taiwan first through a terroristic and easier-to-develop "despotic power" while developing infrastructure of power, under the protection and stability provided by the US,  to penetrate into society and more effectively exert control. As this "infrastructure power" became more developed, the use of despotic power becomes more sparing. (despotic power v. infrastructural power, p14)

 

All of the above interpretations assume the state as a unitary rational actor. This is a useful framework when discussing intentional acts of political persecution, cases such as the elimination of communist and left wing actors, the suppression of independent movement and liberal activists, and the removal of political factions threatening the ruling Chiang family within the KMT. Yet this view proves to be insufficient when discussing a specific class of cases –– miscarriage of justice (冤錯假案), or cases where the intelligence agencies knew a person's innocence*,  but decided to carry out the persecution nonetheless. 

That the cause of these cases are usually attributed to collateral damage or the corrupting influence of absolute power points to the need of clearer theoretical elucidation. 

The author believes that to understand the source of these miscarriage of justice, one must understand state actors not as "one solid piece of steel", but in three agentic levels: 

1. The Chiang family as the face of the KMT, the seemingly unitary agent whose motivation is analyzed above. 

2.  The multiple intelligence agencies whose existence and overlapping area of jurisdiction is the result of clique politics bubbling in post-WWII China, and the difficulty of cramming all of the agencies from the whole of China onto one small island. The two main intelligence agencies of the period are Military Intelligence Bureau (Whampoa clique) and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (CC clique). The MIB and MJIB, controlled by powerful cliques, exercised semi-autonomy within Chiang's KMT. Yet their overlapping functions and the limited resources of the state created pressures on both agencies to compete, withhold information, out-perform, and even frame members of one another.  (保密局v.調查局, p113)

The miscarriage of justice committed under this level may be further subdivided into (1) inter-cliques struggles, where members of the agencies or their associates are framed and (2) institutional rationality: the offer of prize money or the enforcement of performance requirements, in order to out-compete the rivalling agency, which motivates the false accusation of innocent civilians  (inter-cliques struggle v. institutional rationality p173)

3. The individual agents that may actively seek out people to persecute for the prize money or passively hand in innocent civilians to meet the mandated performance requirement. (institutional rationality and individual agents, p184) 

It is in the interaction of these three levels of rational actors ––  Chiang's power over the continued existence of the cliques, the cliques' struggle for power with each other, the motivation presented to the individual agents –– that the explanation for the widespread miscarriage of justice is to be found. 

* By using the word innocence, I do not wish to convey that the other persecution cases were legitimate or right, that the people persecuted are "guilty". By "innocent" I only mean that they are unrelated to KMT's project of anti-left wing suppression, security of power, and state building.

 

Chapter arrangement:

Chapter 1: Introduction, literature review (p10)

Chapter 2:  Development and elimination of KMT's primary internal enemy Taiwanese Communist Party.  Strategies and missteps in each periods. (p37)

Chapter 3,4: KMT's strategy of countering internal enemies. Chap 2 focuses on 1945 - early 1950s (228 incident), chap 3 focuses on 1949 - 1987 (elimination of internal enemies, two intelligence agencies). Showing the gradual development of infrastructural power. (p78, p100)

Chapter 5:  Imagined threat of internal communism as a driver of state building, fabricating internal enemies and the logic of wrongful and framed cases. (p162)

Chapter 6: Conclusion (p208)

Appendix: Relationship between early communist leader Xie Xuehong and Cai Xiaoqian. (p213)