I cannot help the temptation to write again... but just some quick
"opinions"... sorry for the point-form style...
(1) nationalism is a 2-edged sword: it unites and divides... it makes
some your fellow countrymen/women and others "aliens" and potential
enemies... (e.g., immigrants: illegeal or legal...)
(2) personally, I don't know what my identity is... (to a Chinese from
China or Taiwan, I'm just a lowly "Hong Kong person", too Westernized to
qualify to be called a bona fide "Chinese"; to a Westerner, who am I if
I'm not a Chinese? To myself: who am I? ... until I come to
recognize that identity can rise beyond all these socially constructed
boundaries of nation, culture, race, language, geographical region...,
religion, ... etc...
After all, aren't we all "humans"?!
And an education should provide to a child both the "intellectual" and
"affective" stimulation to recognize this: we are all humans with
UNCONDITIONAL human dignity, even in the most shabby circumstances we may
find ourselves in (e.g., out of job, not pretty, physically or mentally
handcapped...etc....) or in the most "alien" circumstances (speak
different languages, from "exotic" cultures, have very different
convictions and beliefs...)
And we're all humans with the will to human
connectedness...
our primordial needs, if we choose, need not be "pleasure" or "power"...
[i elaborated these in more detail in my book review of Lensmire's
Critical Re-Visions of the Writing Workship...]
I think (my personal opininon only) the problem or crisis wit N. American
culture today (please excuse such a sweeping comment!) is that people are
too wrapped up in "power" struggles: e.g., men and women against each
other; and people resolve their conflicts on a "legal" plane...
everything is in terms of "power" struggle.... even in a 2nd grade
writing workshop!
Power is very real... (and I like Jay Lemke's book textual
politics...)... but if we choose... we can choose to help make our world
more a place where humans have unconditional dignity and have the need for
human connectedness, not necessarily voluntary or involuntary power struggle
participants...
What do you think?
Angel
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Angel M.Y. Lin
Doctoral Candidate
Modern Language Centre
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education
252 Bloor St. W., Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada
E-Mail: MYLIN who-is-at OISE.ON.CA
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Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When ... we stand face to face in the cyber space? ...
--Adapted from: The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling
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