北方憨哥在北美
即兴随笔，无任何企图，欢迎指教。谢绝任何侮辱谩骂之词，如有发布，归发布者本人享用。
《Two big China stories you missed this year》
By Jeffrey Wasserstrom from the December 17, 2008
美国《基督教科学箴言报》昨天发表文章：《今年你错过的两大中国新闻》，作者杰弗里-瓦瑟施特伦，系加利福尼亚大学Irvine分校中
To say the least, 2008 has been a pivotal year for
“2008年至少可以说是中国的关键一年。这一年，中国经历了四川地震的悲剧和精彩奥运开幕式的成功。西藏骚乱、毒奶粉事件、压制民主不同政见，仅仅是成为全球头条的中国新闻的其中三条。”
他的文章的大概提要如下：
人们忽视了两条重要新闻，而每一条都能透露出有关中国的重要信息，关联着悲剧和成功的发生，预示着中国的未来。
一条是，中国的民族主义已成为一支反对力量。中国的爱国主义热情，特别是互联网所表现出来的热情，受到了很大的关注。
官员喜欢看到人们谴责奥运火炬在法国巴黎受到粗暴对待和后来法国总统萨科齐会见达赖喇嘛，报纸批评外国人不想让奥运圣火传递成为庆祝性的活动。但是，当局从未忘记，爱国主义、集体主义往往证明在中国是难以控制的。中国的精英也知道，爱国愤慨和不满官员腐败、渎职、贪婪和自私，往往驱使人们会走向街头，这是中国官员感到紧张的原因。这种情况在2008年没有发生。
另一条是，中国一位老哲学家获得了明星般的待遇，他就是孔子。孔子的复活已持续有年。尊孔的庙宇得以重建，孔子的塑像也出现了，而旨在传播中华文化的孔子学院也在国外纷纷落地。
很难说官方对于孔子的这种欢迎态度是由于真正地尊重圣贤，还是仅仅是对他的形象和遗产的利用。另一个可能的原因是国民的自豪感。不管孔子思想中有哪些优点和瑕疵，把他列入世界历史上最伟大的哲学家应该不成问题。
这两个没有获得关注的新闻，都可以使2008年成为中国人的“重要年份”。而且，它们都可以帮助我们观察2009年及以后的中国。
以下是文章的全文：
Two big
The brief yet radical shift of patriotic fervor into criticism of the government after the
By Jeffrey Wasserstrom from the December 17, 2008 edition
To say the least, 2008 has been a pivotal year for
Yet there are two major stories that received little notice. Each reveals important things about
1. Chinese nationalism becomes an oppositional force
Chinese patriotic fervor, especially as manifested on the Net, got plenty of attention, mostly portrayed as something welcomed or even stirred up by the regime. This portrayal makes sense, up to a point.
Yes, officials liked seeing posts denouncing the French after a torchbearer was roughed up in
This didn't happen in 2008. But at one crucial moment in May, right after the earthquake, a familiar shift from outward-focused to inward-focused patriotic fervor occurred. This made Chinese officials nervous – for good reason.
The tone of the Chinese blogosphere suddenly changed, with posts criticizing foreigners for being unwilling to let the Olympic torch relay be a celebratory event disappearing. In their place came posts chiding the government for continuing to run upbeat stories about the torch.
How, some bloggers asked, could official news agencies be so self-absorbed and callous as to focus on the torch when the citizens of
This whiplash could have led to large-scale street actions that made headlines, but it didn't. That's partly because
This didn't completely defuse discontent at a precarious moment. There were still small gatherings in
The government realizes that few Chinese now have any faith left in the formal ideologies espoused by Chinese leaders Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, and their successors. It also knows that the Communist Party is perceived as being riddled with out-of-touch officials who care only about lining their pockets.
One response to this long-term legitimacy crisis has been a new emphasis on social welfare and social harmony in propaganda, mixed in with a drumbeat of references to the Communist Party's role in returning
When the tenor of blog posts shifted in May, the regime concluded quickly that business as usual regarding the torch was making its talk of striving to create a "harmonious society" (President Hu Jintao's mantra) ring even more hollow than usual – and the result could be dangerous. This was probably the right conclusion to draw.
2. An old Chinese philosopher gets the star treatment
The philosopher at the center of this second overlooked story is Confucius, who has been making an extraordinary comeback in a land where, within living memory, he was officially excoriated as a retrograde thinker.
As recently as the early 1970s, the Communist Party still held to the Marxist dictate that progress tended to comes as the result of struggle and conflict (whereas Confucius celebrated harmony), and Chairman Mao insisted that old modes of thought that venerated the past and prized social hierarchies (as Confucianism did) had to be uprooted once and for all for China to advance toward utopia.
In addition, Mao's longtime archrival, the Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, had praised Confucius as
The revival of Confucius has been going on for years. It has been linked at the popular level to a general loss of faith in Marxism and Maoism, which has led to an interest in reappraising many once-discredited belief systems. And recently, thanks to how nicely Confucian bromides fit in with talk of a "harmonious society," the sage has gotten official support. Old temples honoring him have been rebuilt, new statues of him have gone up, and "Confucius Institutes," devoted to spreading Chinese culture, have been set up in foreign countries.
It is hard to tell whether this official embrace of Confucius expresses a genuine renewed admiration for the sage within the leadership, or is merely a cynical use of his image and legacy. It may be a bit of both. Another factor behind the popular official revival alike may simply be national pride. Whatever strengths or weaknesses may be in the man's ideas, there is no question that he ranks as among the most famous philosophers in world history.
This revival reached new heights during the torch run, when the flame's arrival in Qufu, the sage's hometown, was celebrated lavishly. It was then taken to an even higher crescendo during the Opening Ceremony, when Confucius was quoted as Hu and other leaders looked on with approval. Then 3,000 actors took the stage at the Bird's Nest, dressed up to represent a massive contingent of the sage's disciplines.
The prominent Confucian sayings and symbols played in the opening ceremonies were treated in a surprisingly matter-of-fact way, as though Confucius had never ceased being a revered figure and positive symbol of
For the historically minded, the effect was shocking. It was similar to what a sports fan might have experienced if a man who had won a gold medal as a sprinter at the Rome Olympics in 1960, then disappeared from the track scene, suddenly took the lead in the finals for the 100-meter dash in the 2008 Games – and the commentator simply said: "Gee, we always knew he was fast!"
Each of these under-the-radar stories played a role in making
And each gives us a sense of things to watch for in 2009 and beyond, as the Communist Party continues to try to ride out still longer the legitimacy crisis it has faced ever since the faith in Maoism as a creed dissipated decades ago. In struggling to come up with novel ways to remake their image and stay in power as a ruling group,
We should be ready for these developments. We should also watch for moments when, as happened briefly last May, patriotic fervor morphs into antigovernment backlashes, and officially sponsored Confucian-sounding calls for pursuit of a "harmonious society" are attacked by the public as nothing more than window dressing for a ruling group most of whose member care above all simply about keeping hold of the reins of power.
Jeffrey•Wasserstrom, a professor of Chinese History at University of California, Irvine, is the author of the just-published "Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments," and a co-editor of "
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