Political Daoism in Singapore?

If you only rely on the web and internet on Singapore political development, quite obviously Workers’ Party (WP) seems to be practising political Daoism in Singapore. WP has a practice of not replying over the internet, less active in giving their views over the internet, even for budget comments, they will wait till Parliament debate.

This is like practising Daoism (Taoism) “wu wei”. Many people, especially non Chinese, don’t really understand what Dao Jia is doing and even for ancient Chinese, Daoism people were always classified as “隐士yinshi “ who live away from the society. Some even misunderstand them as religion Daoists (Taoists) and think they are a group of traditional priests practising in the temples or fortune tellers or Ghostbusters.

To have a better understand of Daoism, here are some explanations from Wikipedia:

“”
Wu wei (simplified Chinese: 无为; traditional Chinese: 無爲; pinyin: wúwéi, variantly written in traditional Chinese: 無為) is an important concept of Taoism (Daoism), that involves knowing when to act and when not to act. Another perspective to this is that "Wu Wei" means natural action - as planets revolve around the sun, they "do" this revolving, but without "doing" it; or as trees grow, they "do", but without "doing". Thus knowing when (and how) to act is not knowledge in the sense that one would think "now" is the right time to do "this", but rather just doing it, doing the natural thing.

Wu may be translated as not have or without; Wei may be translated as do, act, serve as, govern or effort. The literal meaning of Wu Wei is "without action" and is often included in the paradox wei wu wei: "action without action" or "effortless doing". The practice of wu wei and the efficacy of wei wu wei are fundamental tenets in Chinese thought and have been mostly emphasized by the Taoist school. The aim of wu wei is to achieve a state of perfect equilibrium, or alignment with the Tao, and, as a result, obtain an irresistible form of "soft and invisible" power.

There is another less commonly referenced sense of wu wei; "action that does not involve struggle or excessive effort". In this instance, Wu means "without" and Wei means "effort". The concept of "effortless action" is a part of Taoist Internal martial arts such as T'ai chi ch'uan, Baguazhang and Xing Yi. It follows that Wu wei complies with the main feature and distinguishing characteristic of Taoism, that of being natural. To apply wu wei to any situation is to take natural action.
“”

However, philosophical Daoism is highly respected in the western world. Some even regard Daoism as a representative of the highest level Chinese philosophy and regard Confucianism to the teaching of moral value only. Hence these highly intelligent people like Laozi and Zhaungzi are not only ordinary scholars. Daoism is perhaps the only other Chinese philosophy that can match and challenge (and co-exist with) the powerful Confucianism in the past and perhaps in the future. It has been proved that this philosophy can survive the long history of China. And today, it is still being appreciated and contributes to Chinese traditional values and cultures. Dao Jia believes “wu wei” is the best way to tackle the current situation (warring state period). In a warring state period, “wu wei” is the most appropriate survival weapon to remain alive and according to Dao De Jing, after the failure or darkness, the success or lightness will come. Just like the coming of the Jasmine revolution and the fall of Berlin wall. The only question is timing. Who has ever predicted it to be so soon?

For many netizens, they are quite puzzle and want to know why? How come WP is so inactive over the net? Are they cowards or moles of the ruling party? Partly because they had bad encounters with the authority and so to avoid getting into the “traps”, they have to maintain low profile. It could be also a strategy of less talk less mistake, as “misfortune comes from the mouth” so to say. In a democratic county, the best way is to get elected and then change the government. If one is not qualified to stand for election, there is no chance to get into the parliament. So, continuing remain silent will still be the strategy for WP prior to the dissolution of Parliament. When you are facing a giant opponent, work in silent and pretend to be doing nothing can serve as an effective strategy. Let be patient towards Dao Jia!

A brief history of WP looks also inline with Daoism. When it was formed in 1957 by David Marshall, it was not an aggressive major political force in Singapore even though David Marshall was once the chief minister of Singapore. He resigned from the post after a failed negotiation in London for a better Singapore. Resignation voluntarily as he could not meet his promise to Singaporeans. Sound likes Japanese. May be only in Daoism politics, one will happily make this decision and not wanting to hold on power forever. When the time comes for withdrawal, David Marshall did the gentleman way and obliged to his promise. Powered with this tradition, WP continues to last until now. And you may want to ask why WP can survive after 5 decades and still remain a recognised political force in Singapore.

You may call them opportunists. But for Daoism, the most important thing is to survive and live in harmony with the nature. When the situation and timing are right, you can re-appear and serve the people. It is why WP is quite difference from Barisan Sosialis (BS) in the past or SDP of today. Even though BS merged with WP in 1980s, it has not changed the “wu wei” principle of WP, especially after JBJ leaving WP.

However, they continue to work the ground as you can see from WP website, their members visit here and there from time to time. Some members have their own blogs and even books publication, but all are under their individual names. So, if individual gets into troubles, the main body is still there intact. Kaisuism you may call it, however this is politics of Singapore.

From “wu wei” to “Only those who work hard can succeed” as an unofficial anthem is a surprise! Are WP telling Singaporeans the right timing, right position and right harmony are coming soon?

More on Hundred Schools of Thought can be seen below or other websites.


Hundred Schools of Thought
In the turbulent Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC) and Warring States Period (475-221BC), many schools of thought were flourishing. The four most influential schools of thought that evolved during this period were Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and Legalism. There were also other schools like Yin & Yang, Eclectics, Logicians, Coalition persuaders and Militarism. The hundred schools of thought showed the fierce political and class struggles for survival among regional wars between the rising landed class and slaveholder class. The flouring thoughts intensified activities and debates in the intellectual and ideology system in ancient China and exerted great influence on Chinese culture.
Confucianism
Confucius was the founder of Confucianism. He advocated a set of moral code on basis of five merits: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness. Among them, benevolence was considered as the cornerstone, which stands for faithfulness, filial piety, tolerance and kindness. He also requested people to keep in good harmony with each other and establish a community ruled by standard manners and behavior.
Mencius (372-289BC) was a Confucian in the Warring States Period (475-221BC). He repeatedly tried to convince rulers that the ruler should cultivate moral perfection in order to set a good example to the people and the ruler who governed benevolently would earn the respect of the people. He held the view that human nature was fundamentally good as everyone is born with the ability to recognize what is right and act upon it. He also believed that people were more important than rulers.
Xunzi (about 313-238BC), also a Confucian of the state of Chu, advocated the policy making a country rich and building up its military power, and sang high praise of the state of Qin.
Mohism
The Mohism founded by Mozi flourished in the latter half of the fifth century. It resembles Confucianism in its reverence for humanism. Master Mo called for a universal love encompassing all human beings in equal degree. He suggested a harmonious relationship between people on a reciprocal basis. Thus he was an assertor of unionism who suggested a practice of a political relationship of mutual benefit or dependence between states.
Taoism
The Taoism was founded by Laozi. The most important pre-Han Taoist bible was Laozi, also known as Dao De Jing (Classic of the Way and its Power). Laozi put forward a dialectic view: Good fortune follows upon disaster; Disaster lurks within good fortune. He tried to tell people not to exaggerate the importance of man too much because human life is only a small part of the universal and the only way can human actions make sense is to act in accord with the principles of the nature. It showed an integral concept of Taoism the withdrawal from the worldly affairs and the self-cultivation. Zhuangzi was a Taoist in the Warring States Period. He understood the Tao as the Way of Nature as a whole and the origin of the world. He believed that all things were in constant changes and there was no rule of right and wrong. In his mind, life was but a dream and only destruction could lead to the final peace of the society.
Legalism
The Legalist School sought by every means possible to strengthen the state and increase its military might. It began to take shape late in the fourth century. Earlier legalists were Shang Yang, Li Kui and Wu Qi. Later in the Warring States Period, the most important legalist named Han Fei advocated harsh rules and laws.
He was born in a rich family in the state of Han. In the book Han Fei Zi, he bent on organizing society on a rational basis and finding means to strengthen their states agriculturally and militarily. He also advised elaborate means for controlling people's lives and actions through laws and punishments. In his theories, law was the basis, strategies were the means in political struggle and power was the strength and high position. Only getting command of the three factors can a ruler establish a powerful state of central power. Han Fei's theory was applied by Qin and played an important role in unification of China by Qin Emperor Shihuang.

Source: chinaculture.org

History, truth and untold stories

“When you commit something bad, you will never write it in your diary.” As claimed by Li Ao, a famous Taiwanese writer who always considers himself an expert in modern history. He is criticizing another Taiwanese writer, Long Ying-tai (Lung Ying-tai) on her book published 2 years ago.

A page in Wikipedia describes Long’s book:

“Big River Big Sea—Untold Stories of 1949 is a collection of stories written by Taiwanese author Lung Ying-tai published in August 2009. It tells in detail, the events from the surrounding the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War including Chinese families that were broken up by the civil war that ended in the Kuomintang’s defeat in 1949, with some two million escaping to Taiwan. Lung Ying-tai spent more than 10 years researching material for the book and spent 400 days in Changchun, Nanjing, Shenyang, Taiwan's Mazu islands, Taidong, and Pingdong paying a visit to survivors of the Chinese Civil War in order to record their stories. “

The discussion on the book was banned in China as it tells the stories of Nationalists (Kuomintang) in Taiwan and the government of Chiang Kai-shai in Taiwan. (See below a report in New York Times).

However, after 2 years of “Big River Big Sea” publication, Li Ao published a new book called “Big River Big Sea cheating you”. Li criticized that Long is ignorance about modern history, writing the stories without referring to facts, and trying to cover up the bad things done by Chiang Kai-shai. One of the key arguments of Li is even though Chiang Kai-Shai diaries have already opened for public reference; there are still some bad things that will never be disclosed. Li asked the question: would you record down your crimes in your diary? He is very sure that Chiang will never pen down his bad things.

For people who write diary everyday, would you write and record down your bad things and ill intentions? Li said never. Just like Hitler who claimed he had never killed Jewish. Of course, Chiang would do the same thing too.

Li also criticized Long on her shortsighted in Nationalists and still under the influence of Chiang Kai-Shak (or trying to protect Chiang for the bad things he did). Long’s father is a Nationalist who escaped to Taiwan in 1949. Many of these nationalists still think positive about Chiang and unintentionally will praise Chiang’s contribution even though it may appear to be critical about Nationalists, like the book written by Long.

Li is bringing out 2 interesting questions:
1. Human nature is to cover up bad things and never record it or worst still destroy the evidence.
2. Living in an environment for a certain period, we are used to the system and unintentionally agree with the doing of the system.


However, there is a danger in such a development. As the administrators ignore the feedbacks or sufferings of the people, in return, the people will not help to protect the officials. Mengzi (Mencius), in one of discussions in the Chapter Liang Hui Wang II (see below), criticized Duke Mu for failing to understand the real problem of why people do not want to protect the officials when they were attacked by outsiders.

Officials who neglect the calls of the people and refuse to report the fact to the ruler will end up losing the protection from the people. People will stand by and watch foreigners attacking their own officials. They will not protect the officials as well as the country.

“
梁惠王下:
鄒與魯鬨。穆公問曰：“吾有司死者三十三人，而民莫之死也。誅之，則不可勝誅；不誅，則疾視其長上之死而不救，如之何則可也？”

Liang Hui Wang II:
There had been a brush between Zou and Lu, when the duke Mu asked Mencius, saying,'Of my officers there were killed thirty-three men, and none of the people would die in their defence. Though I sentenced them to death for their conduct, it is impossible to put such a multitude to death. If I do not put them to death, then there is the crime unpunished of their looking angrily on at the death of their officers, and not saving them. How is the exigency of the case to be met?'

孟子對曰：“凶年饑歲，君之民老弱轉乎溝壑，壯者散而之四方者，幾千人矣；而君之倉廩實，府庫充，有司莫以告，是上慢而殘下也。曾子曰：‘戒之戒之！出乎爾者，反乎爾者也。’夫民今而後得反之也。君無尤焉。君行仁政，斯民親其上、死其長矣。”
Mencius replied, 'In calamitous years and years of famine, the old and weak of your people, who have been found lying in the ditches and water-channels, and the able-bodied who have been scattered about to the four quarters, have amounted to several thousands. All the while, your granaries, 0 prince, have been stored with grain, and your treasuries and arsenals have been full, and not one of your officers has told you of the distress. Thus negligent have the superiors in your State been, and cruel to their inferiors. The philosopher Zeng said, "Beware, beware. What proceeds from you, will return to you again." Now at length the people have paid back the conduct of their officers to them. Do not you, 0 prince, blame them. If you will put in practice a benevolent government, this people will love you and all above them, and will die for their officers.'

Source: ctext.org
“

Untold Stories of China and Taiwan

By VERNA YU
Published: October 5, 2009, NT Times

HONG KONG — When Ying Meijun bade farewell to her 1-year-old son at the train station in September 1949, little did she know that it would be 38 years before she saw him again.
The baby was crying so much that she decided not to take him onto the overcrowded train, so she left him in the care of his grandmother.
Thinking they were only leaving China temporarily, she promised: “We’ll be back soon.”
By the time she saw her first-born child again in 1987, he was a 40-year-old man wearied by years of hard labor on a mainland Chinese farm. Fighting back tears, he told his elderly parents how, as a young child, he used to chase trains that went pass their front door, shouting, “Mother! Mother!”, thinking that she would be on them.
Ms. Ying and her husband, Lung Huaisheng, who was an officer in the military police under Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang government, fled with his family to Taiwan a few months after the Communist Party declared itself the new ruler of China on Oct. 1, 1949.
Even in his old age, Lung Huaisheng often wept as he took out the shoe soles that his mother knitted and gave him when they saw each other for the last time at the train station.
These family memories are just some of the heart-wrenching stories told by their daughter, Lung Yingtai, a Taiwan-born author and University of Hong Kong professor, in her latest book “Da Jiang Da Hai 1949” (“Big River, Big Sea — Untold Stories of 1949”). The book is published by Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine and Hong Kong’s Cosmos Books.
Ms. Lung, who was born two years after the family moved to Taiwan, is a leading cultural critic, well-known for her sharp and candid writing. Her book of social-political criticism, “The Wild Fire,” published in 1985 when Taiwan was still under Kuomintang’s one-party rule, was seen as influential in the democratization of the island.
Her new book is a tribute to the tens of millions of people “who were trampled on, humiliated and hurt by the era.” It tells the story of the many Chinese families that were broken up by the civil war that ended in the Kuomintang’s defeat in 1949, with some two million escaping to Taiwan. Many, like her own parents, hastily said goodbye to loved ones in mainland China and would never see them again.
Apart from the stories of her own family and other Chinese people born in that era — including President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan — there are tales of elderly people who as young men fought for the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, or both, and even Japan (which ruled Taiwan from 1895 until 1945).
Many have not openly talked about their experiences. One 89-year-old man who was held by the Japanese as a prisoner of war told Ms. Lung he waited all his life to tell his story.
Ms. Lung’s book has become an instant best seller — more than 100,000 copies have been sold in Taiwan and 10,000 in Hong Kong since its publication in early September. Ms. Lung, who will be giving a talk at the Frankfurt Book Fair on Oct. 15, said the book did not have an English-language publisher yet. Although Ms. Lung had expressed a wish to publish it in mainland China, it seems almost impossible now, as the government has banned all Internet articles and discussions on the book.
Ms. Lung hopes to break down her readers’ preconceptions about events around 1949. Under Communist rule, many mainlanders regard Taiwan as a renegade province that should be taken back by force if necessary.
“I want to give them a different perspective,” she said.
As the Taiwan-born offspring of mainland refugees herself, she wants mainland readers, particularly political leaders like President Hu Jintao of China, to learn about the pain and sufferings of the people of Taiwan.
“When will there be no war? It’s when you can see your enemy’s wounds, then you won’t be able to pick up your gun,” she said.
She hopes the book will make people in China and Taiwan abandon long-held suspicions and prejudices regarding each other.
“If all that the leaders can think about are political negotiations” and economic interests “and there is no genuine understanding of emotions, then the foundation of peace would not be solid enough,” she said.
While researching her book, Ms. Lung discovered that residents of Changchun in the northeastern province of Jilin had not heard of the People’s Liberation Army’s five-month siege of that city in 1948, which resulted in between 150,000 and 650,000 people dying of starvation.
Instead, what they learn about in mainland Chinese history textbooks is the P.L.A.’s “great victory” when it “liberated” that city.
Mainland China is not the only side to edit its version of history.
The Kuomintang, which lost 470,000 troops in the northeastern battles and later fled to Taiwan, did not mention its defeat in the textbooks of Taiwan, either.
Ms. Lung wanted to tell this history through the tales or ordinary people.
She claims to make no political or moral judgment in her book. There is no “right side” or “wrong side” in the stories, she says. The Kuomintang troops, the People’s Liberation Army and the Taiwanese soldiers fighting for their Japanese colonial masters are given an equal hearing. To her, those individuals were just young people caught up in history.
“In this book I don’t care about who is on the right side, the victorious or the defeated side. I just want to show you that when you dismantle the apparatus of state, what’s inside are these individuals.”
Parts of Ms. Lung’s book also detail the stories of families amid wars and conflicts in the West, including the loving letters written by her German mother-in-law’s first husband before he died in a Soviet prisoner of war camp during World War II.
Ms. Lung said she included these because she wanted her Chinese readers to see their own history in perspective.
“Chinese people on both sides of the straits tend to see history from their own national scope,” she said. “But actually who is righteous or unrighteous? It’s a very complicated matter.”
“If we continue to be the unthinking cogs in a machine,” she said, “then how do you know whether these tragic misfortunes would not be repeated?”