“1949 by 龍應台” is a book for the unknown people get crossfire between wars. It is the most neglected part of the human history. If you read books about the modern history, you always have a kind of feeling that something must be or must have been missing. So a prudent reader searches more information from different sources in order to verify the facts. If you try to find more information about the common people in the history book, you will be very disappointed. Most of the story about the common people instead can be found in novels or magazines. But the stories in novels or magazines are not rigorous in verifying facts. To most Chinese, the modern history (1945-2010) is a giant jigsaw puzzle. You don’t trust the history books written by both sides of the regime. Here I think 龍’s book is valuable in documenting many stories of the common people before they pass away or fade away from the history. When you finish reading this book, you inevitably will have this feeling that wars are hell, terrible, disastrous & better to avoid them at all cost.
PS: 龍 應 台 is a woman. Her ‘野火集’ had a lot of influences to the society in Taiwan. If we rate the most influential women from Taiwan in the pass 60 years, we may come up with the list like this: (note: we are talking about INFLUENTIAL only, not GREAT, not PRETTY, not INTELLIGENT, not ...)
王錦雲 (釋證嚴) (Most influential in the time span: 1966-2010). Religion & Philanthropy
瓊 瑤 (1960-1980) Novel
鄧 麗 君 (1970-1990) Music
龍 應 台 (1990-2010) History & current affairs
Of course, this is subjective. I think everyone should have his/her list.
7 comments:
I do not know 龍 應 台 and any of her writings, but I feel 柏楊 can be considered as one of the most influential persons in Taiwan. His novels, essays, and historical research have great influence on me. I learn the Chinese History from his two volumes「中國人史綱」more than any my school studies.
On war. It is a necessary evil. Only through war, human can evolve so fast. In a big picture, only through the cruel elimination in nature, human can be evolved in such as short time, namely, from nothing in 3.5 billion years「天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗。」Now with birth control pills, human has defeated the natural curse of over production and possibly war.
On the other hand, science and technology were accelerated by war. The life and death associated with war has also inspired many great poems, songs, and novels. 「葡萄美酒夜光杯 欲飲琵琶馬上催 醉臥沙場君莫笑 古來征戰幾人回。」No emotion can be stronger.
「起來，不願做奴隸的人們，把我們的血肉築成我們新的長城。」Every time I heard this verse, the spirit of the volunteer army still touches me.
I just mentioned the most influential women (not men) from Taiwan, It is much easier to pick influential men since they usually possess power & occupy important positions in the society. As to 柏楊, I agree that he is one of the most influential men from 1960 to 1980 in Taiwan.
I am not sure whether war is a necessary evil. If evolution is a necessary process in nature, the war is not one of them. All species except man do not equip the wisdom in killing off his own kind in a systematic manner. I am not sure either that birth control pills can eliminate war. Not all wars were originated from over population. In fact most of them were due to human greed, an ugly side of human being.
Most poems related to wars display remorse & hateful feeling of human being. It may glorify the activities temporarily, but it always ends in a negative manner in the long run. I do think poems related to love contain much stronger emotion than those of war. This reminds me of the saying of Thomas Mann “ It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.”
Sorry that I was not careful enough to notice that you were talking about the most influential women, not persons.
For human behaviours, there are always variation. Wars can be started with many strange reasons, such as for a pretty woman, but I still think the struggle for land to ease over population is the fundamental one. 「北斗七星高，歌舒夜帶刀，至今窺牧馬，不敢過臨兆。」 told us that the past wars in northern China was because the Huns wanted a better land.
The animals do not kill its own species systematically because most animals are not organized in great numbers. When ant nests fight, there kill their own species by the millions.
As the intensity of emotion between love and war, I still think war is stronger. But for most great novels the two are mixed, i.e., a love story with a war in the background.
"The struggle for land to ease over population is the fundamental reason for war." This may be true for some wars. But most civil wars in the history had little to do with this. The American civil war & Chinese civil war are the notable two. I don’t think these two wars started mainly because of the overpopulation. It is unthinkable to believe that the Chinese civil war erupted mainly to expand the land at the expense of other countries. The end results of the civil war did reduce the population by 80 million. It sounds odd to say the purpose of the civil war is to decrease the population & so ease the pressure from it. Did 成吉思汗 wage so many wars in central Asia & Europe mainly due to mongol’s overpopulation?
It is interesting that MarkYang mentioned 柏楊’s ’中國人史綱’. I agree with him on his assessment about the book--- “I learn the Chinese History from his two volumes「中國人史綱」more than any my school studies.” The most uniqueness of the book is the use of 公 元 as year reference for historical events. The second uniqueness is abandoning 諡 號 for the emperors. Instead the common names are used, such as 刘 轍, 朱 棣, 弘 曆 etc.
The glory and ugliness of the war can be found in 柏楊’s book, chapter 31, section 4, page 867 “準喝爾的覆亡与种族屠滅”. “當準喝爾汗國強盛時,人口有六十餘萬,現在逃到哈薩克王國的約十餘萬人,留下的五十餘萬人中,約二十萬人死於天花,三十萬人被殺.準喝爾人從此在他們的故土上消失,祇剩下一個地理名詞 ’準喝爾盆地’,和橫亙在中俄兩國边界上的 ’準喝爾門’ 要塞,供後人垂淚憑弔.
The whole thing sounds like the Carthaginian got wiped out from the earth in North Africa by Romans some 2,150 years ago. 讀來驚心動魄,令人驚悸不已. This is the ugliness of war.
So many lives & so many careers got perished during the Chinese civil war (as the book 1949 attests) and now both sides are mending the difference & try to be good neighbors again. The one lasting question always lingers in people’s mind: What a price do these people, killed in the war regardless which side they fought for, pay? Perhaps the most fitting & proper thing to do here is to recite Lincoln’s famous address:
“That we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.“
You are correct. Many wars were due to greedy. I should have thought of this had I reminded myself the book "Power" by Russell. In this book, it states that human desire cannot be satisfied. To seek power and glory is the fundamental instinct of human beings.
However, I still think this instinct came from the over population and limited land and resources. In human evolution, any group with greater ability to conquer had greater chance to survive. Moreover, many civil wars in China were caused by over population.「一治一亂」的源頭是人口膨脹。韓非子已觀察到：「父有五子，各子又有五子」，而家中的田產就只有那麼多。愛好和平並不能解決糧食問題。工業，農藥革命可以增加生產，也不能滿足人口幾何積數的膨脹。直到避孕藥的發明。
MarkYang did have some good points in his argument. I do think overpopulation is one important reason in causing wars. Perhaps a better way to look at this is to qualify the definition of overpopulation with resources. Overpopulation occurs when the needed resources can not be maintained to support an existed population. With this qualification, it is much easier to understand & interpret historical events. It is interesting to note that most major Chinese dynasties lasted around 200 years in average. There might be two reasons behind it. One is the inherent defect of the political system. The emperor inherited the throne without merit & the corruption got worse as the time went by. The other is the increase of population in geometric progression fashion. If the factor is 2, and 20 years is a generation, then the population would be 1,024 times within 200 years. In other words, thousand becomes million & million becomes billion. A reasonable good government may keep up with the pressure. But after 200 years, most regimes lost most of its efficiency & couldn’t keep up the resources to feed its people. Couple with new technology, use of 避孕藥 (MarkYang said) & efficient government, human being may finally be able to reverse the trend. Does this mean we can get rid of wars? Yes is the answer to those wars caused by overpopulation. As to the war between Jews & Moslems, no is the answer since it is not caused by overpopulation. It is much more complicate than we think & the solution is no where in sight in our lifetime.
Religious conflict was originated from overpopulation. This can be seen from the Bible where the Jews killed the other tribes to grab their land. Now the settlement is still the most difficult issue between Israel and Palestine. If the population is stabilized*, there should be peace in the middle east. However, the religious leaders on both sides wants more children of their own.
* Greedy is still a factor, because even with the same number of people, their demand for space may increase with time. For example, in US, the average house becomes bigger and bigger.
Post a Comment