<nettime> Ilyagram0508

[Ilya Eric Lee <ilya@gptaiwan.org.tw>]

translated by ipanema<ipanema@ms17.url.com.tw>.

the chinese version is circulated via several channels:

the thamesleft
(Taiwanese student associaton in London routine articles 
 and reviews)

the farwest mailing list
(Taiwanese student in Europe, including CARD, Taiwanese
 student in England compaign for racial discrimination)
 
TEAN: Taiwan Environmental Action Network
(in North America)

the greentaiwan-l
(Green Party Taiwan and Pan-green movement activists)

the Formosa Salon-l
(Taiwanese graduate students)

the Hong-Kong Radical Network.

and will now re-post into the South, the earliest mailing
list accross Taiwan in social aspect, whose audience is
across Taiwan and China.

the ilyagram0512 is done, and in publishing.

Title: "War-After": alternative war-media experience
introducing the Open-the-Border! and other after-war
aspect beyond anti-Nato actions spreading on <nettime>.
Waiting for translation into English.

best ,ilya

==============================================================

<the ilyagram050899 special issue to chinese speaking audience>
<English translation by ipanema@gptaiwan.org.tw.>

Dear friends,

As a net activist concerning international situations, the recent bombings
and long term Kosovo crisis stirring huge amount of information, actions,
discussions, flooding into the Taiwan "youth"'s computer, whose world is a
life of 25 years inside this island, most news reports of outside world is
basically under ways of production following the matial law era's customs
(copy and paste Reuter and US, named internet's news "editing"), seldom
chance to meet international conflicts directly.

Reading emails/webpages as a fieldwork

Since the NATO started bombing the FRY in 1999.3.24, my eyes never turned
away off Yugoslavia's news repots.  Reading every possible news from
different sources is becoming part of my life, even when I am at the final
stage of the dissertation making, I can't help want to transform my life
in the media and the accompanying international information into my paper,
to put into what I call "net movement against general apartheid--in sound
and media form".

In the passionate reading devoting to the situations, I made lot of
mistakes. Before I knew what's Kosovo Crisis, I knew vaguely about "ethnic
cleansing" and Bosnia's tragedy. and nothing about Milosovic's role in it.
I used a very naive attitude of humanism, to support the independent media
movement, one reason is that I knew nothing of what's happening inside
their homeland.


The Reaction of ignorant and anxiety

Just like a compensation of the ignorant for almost a decade, I look for
maps, war explanations and interpretations, reviews and the kritik of
reviews, all over the net. A friend said to me, are you wirting paper
about international relations? Acually I know very clearly, that was a
emotional reaction of ignorant and anxiety, somewhat hope to "solve" the
present powerless situation of my own. If I cannot say anything about the
NATO bombings and Kosovo crisis, at least I can try my best to
"understand" Kosovo, FRY, or once the Taiwan's left concerning the problem
of democratic process of East Europe.

Art historian, critic John Berger once wrote his understanding of Spain
via a context of history and society in <The Success and Failure of
Picasso>. He mentioned painish Anarchism, bourgeois seriously tied in the
catatonic, inflexible framework of tradition, where Fascism grew its tiny
bud:

"why anarchism symbolise Spain, why in Spain and nowhere else evoke such
great amount of followers, the reason is that anarchism is not only a
political theory, but also extended on the historical framework....  it
ignore the whole process of evelopment, concentrate with full attention on
a single and almost mythical moment....

this is the typical Spain: believe that everything, ---the whole human
conditions, will rapidly and fundamentally changes, in a short moment of
time. The belief uprsing more and more, cause for a long time, there's
nothing changes, at the end the Spainish will have to believe some miricle
moment of change, which human's will and hopes will not influenced by some
kind of moral disturbances of civilizaiton; then people can trancend all
material conditions, overcome the slow accumulations achieved by new ways
of production. In fact, it's the only premise of progress. The horrible
balance of the rigid framework usually cause a also horrible
irritable-ness."

When I read that, I read of Taiwan. What came to my mind is the closure
and self-limited, Taiwan' folk belief(Berger also commented Spainish god)
And as a excellent role player in the cold war international
differtiation, rigid mainland China complex, a cannot dialogue internally
and externally Taiwan society.  Always cherish the Taiwan Economic Miracle
memories, pride and proud tiny giant.


War of Flames....

I came to know different positions, especially from international forum,
in the flame wars on Internet.  (South Atlantic Quarterly 92:4, 1993 Fall,
edited by Mark Dery, is titled FLAME WARS). From powerful Chomsky to Said,
Walerstein, and Susan Sontag, who throw herself in the battle lately, are
only the famous ones from the academic circle in this carnival of debate.
HelpB92 campaign (http://people.gptaiwan.org.tw/~ilya/), which I myself
participate in, and Anti-Nato movement held by ¼Ú¬wºñÄÒij·|Áp·ù, American
and European activists, also provide an incredible amount of information,
that challenges each other interactively. As my passion inspired by one
article I was just reading, the very next article made a strong strike on
previous one with logical evidences. This happens a lot in my reading
experience.

I am anxious, but content. On Internet, a world depends not on unitary
business logic and nationalism, there're always trouble-finders looking
for something to do in this multiple independent media*. You could watch
the "latest news" of CNN on TV, while bombing CNN by taking part in an
email bombing campaign. So let our forum play a good part on the huge
stage. Let more ignorant Taiwan youth have more chance to know the facts
and different point of views. We are not here having useless arguments
with hollow words, but are to get ready for the reality before the world
forces us to make decisions. It is the importance of understanding each
other, declaring ourselves, as well as in the end making decisions that
takes us away from what they tells us to believe.

This article is written while listening to the ambassadorial statements of
China, Russia, Holland, Canada, France, Malaysia, and Nigeria. And finally
I finished it. I turned of the TV mate when CNN was reporting the protest
in Beijing, and I spent two hours on this article. Now is 18:00 in the
afternoon, Taiwan time. This article is what I feel like to write, in a
half open form, that are mostly personal reflections, since Nato bombing
in March.

"Thank you for you watching, and good night."

Ilya Eric Lee<ilya@gptaiwan.org.tw>

*What I mentioned "independent media" contains the elements of "surfing",
"montage", and "bricolage", and is highly autonomous only created by
readers. Readers could interpret different meanings from raw material they
cut-and-paste from various media. It is the one personal interpretation of
the slogan's meaning, "Everyone would be media", which could be achieved
easier as technological reality changes.

**In Nato bombing and Kosovo crisis, many different viewpoints arose in
discussions on Internet. Here are some viewpoints seldom mentioned here in
our forum , such as the attitudes of Serbian democracy activists, Serbian
independent media, Serbian intellectuals, Serbian civilian, Kosovo
independent media, Kosovo liberate army, Kosovo democratic coalition (non-
violent campaign), intellectuals and reporters of neighboring countries
(Croatia, Slavenia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary,
Austria, Albania, and Bulgaria etc), and the refugee of Kosovo. (Remember
those who died in the border of Germany?)

There are more different stories and attitudes.  Yugoslavia government
assassinated one prominent independent journalist, and close down
independent radio station B92. Nato destroyed Yugoslavia TV station, when
the staff worked all night there. International human right activists
still stay in Serb fighting for Kosovo crisis, while Yugoslavian NGO
groups maintain the progress of the campaign. Yet they have to ask Nato
not to bomb the last radio station, for there is satellite equipment. They
need the satellite to connect themselves with the rest of the world. Some
environmental protection activists concern about the ecological crisis in
the bombing area. Some call for help because it is said that Nato will
bomb the nuclear power plant which was not in used for long, but is still
considered a military objective. (What's following up? I don't know.)  
Because of language gap, we have less chance to know more. Is our future
going to be dark due to our ignorant and self-limits? I have no idea.
Obviously, we don't have answers for these questions by now.


---
#  distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@desk.nl and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/  contact: nettime-owner@desk.nl