The Politics of Affective Relations

In the book "The Politics of Affective Relations", there is a chapter titled "Negotiating Confucian Civility through Constitutional Discourse".

I thought the Korean court cases mentioned in the article were interesting, particularly the Constitutional Court's decision that a court-ordered public apology was considered insincere because it was coerced and hence would be meaningless as an apology. The author noted that the issue had been framed "in terms of an individual's freedom of conscience". Anyway, I found this aspect of the Court's ruling exceedingly progressive as it seemed to put the individual on a higher pedestal than faceless entities (mainly media companies). Progressive because the Court seemed to be the champion of the underdog.

But I wonder how the Court would have ruled if it is a case pitting one individual against another individual? And what if real defamatory harm had been done to the aggrieved party? I cannot imagine the Court upholding freedom of conscience when real defamatory harm had been inflicted, because maybe I am naive, but doesn't freedom of conscience comes at a price? I would imagine that freedom of rights, conscience, etc, doesn't give one the right to slander and defame. And then later refuse to apologize coz doing so would be against one's conscience.

But overall, in the three cases cited, I take the author's point that the Court had veered towards being too "Western-centric" in their rulings, while overlooking the country's cultural tradition.

I also wonder about the arguments of those who "feared that the abandonment of Confucianism will bring about decadence and disorder in Korean society". After all, I cannot imagine how there can be a clean break between Korea and Confucianism, given that Confucianism has no organized polity, no structures, no organization etc in Korea. I suppose there are Confucian academies but I am under the impression that such institutions are merely academic in nature, and that their influence on the public discourse is minimal.

I also found interesting the author's reference to the movie "The Story of Qiu Ju". It was certainly a very well-known Chinese movie and even won some award or other. But strangely enough, I never felt compelled to watch it. Maybe I am biased against the lead actress Gong Li as I think she is just too over-rated. She is also a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) where her most distinguished political contribution is to show up once a year for picture opportunity at the Great Hall of the People at the annual opening of the National People Congress. But I digress.

Anyway, one of my last and more memorable pieces of half-hour documentary which I produced before I left Beijing was people demanding justice from the authorities for a wide range of grievances. If you ask me, this is one of China's most explosive problems - the lack of proper channels for people to settle their grievances, and the lack of a fair and equitable justice system to channel such grievances. If left untackled, the issue is like a ticking time bomb that is just waiting to be ignited.

Anyway, I did this documentary in the final months of my Beijing days so I am not sure if the documentary was eventually aired due to its sensitivity. It is way too long to go into the details of the documentary as well as the case studies of all those folks from all over China congregating in Beijing to petition the central authorities. Most fail in their attempts, anyway.

Suffice to say that the reason why I brought it up is when I read the author's point about 1) the kind of justice administered through the system, and 2) that apology is still very important in the Chinese culture.

1) The kind of justice - in most cases these days, given China's rapid modernization, most people will be happy with, and are indeed seeking, monetary compensation. But even that option is not readily available, or satisfactorily rendered, given the massive levels of corruption, collusion between businesses and officials, between the courts and officials, and the equally massive cover-ups. These mainly involved land disputes where land is forcibly taken from villagers, with little or no compensation. These formed the bulk of grievances in recent years.

2) The importance of apology - as far as the Chinese are concerned, the word "apology" itself is hardly used. But the gist of what many of them are looking for is essentially the same, but the word most commonly used these days is "gong dao", (公道) or some semblance of justice. Indeed, the most common phrase used is "huan wo yi ge gong dao" (还我一个公道) - or "return to me a sense of justice (presumably after the wrong you had inflicted on me)".

To give an example, it could be a straightforward case of someone falsely accused by an official of doing something he didn't so, and then because of the stigma, grief, and pressure, chose to commit suicide. Family members would then petition the authorities for compensation, and most importantly, for a "gong dao", which in some cases would amount to a reversal of an earlier verdict. Which seldom happens, anyway.

Essentially, "gong dao" is also precisely what a group of mothers - led by university professor Ding Zilin, formed as a result of their children's death during the 1989 Tiananmen massacre - wanted to see. While compensation would be good, it is not paramount. What they really want to see is a reversal of the verdict, and a declaration that their children are not "counter-revolutionaries". They want a "clean slate" for their children, even though the children are dead.

For most others, "gong dao" would be served if the offending official is investigated, and then removed from office, which of course is not a common occurrence. Though of course sometimes there are "masquerades", where officials are purportedly removed from office for a misdemeanors, but were later appointed as officials elsewhere in the country.

Am opening up a pandora's box here! The article had certainly inspired the series of thoughts.