From: johan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Johan van Zanten)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Comfort girls?
Date: 2 Jan 1993 07:18:41 GMT
Organization: UT Austin Computation Center, Unix Services
NNTP-Posting-Host: sylvester.cc.utexas.edu
Keywords: rape of nangking

In article <1992Dec29.025921.144@leland.Stanford.EDU>
underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:

>People like Mr. Liu are unable to distinguish between culture (behavior)
>and ethnicity (genetics).  Mr. Liu translates my criticism of Chinese-cu
>culture and society into hatred of Chinese-ge.  Only a Chinese-cu would do
>that.

 No, i do it, too.  You hate Chinese people more than anyone i know. I think
probably the best evidence of this is the login name you used yesterday morning
on the netrek game on bronco.ece.cmu.edu: "bombCHINAtoHELL".  Hardly the words
of someone discriminating between culture and genetics. There are over a billion
people in what is commonly considered the country of "China", and you were
telling everyone on the game to bomb them all.  You obviously hate China, it's
culture, it's history, it people, both past and present.  I dislike the current
government of China and hate what they are doing to Tibet, but i would never
say "bomb China to Hell".  The actions of a totalitarian government are by
definition different than the will and desires of the people it rules over.

>However, Chinese-cu use the term "descendants" to mean all those in a
>"racial" (quotes intended) group.  They mean that all the Japanese-ge
>bear shame for what other Japanese-ge did.

 I don't think this is what he meant.  I think the issue here is that if any
culture produces people who murder, torture and rape on a scale like what
happened in Nanking, then that CULTURE has the obligation to make certain that
it never happens again.  Culture is a body of knowledge and practices passed on,
kind of an operating system, if you will.  If an OS murders 200,000 or 20,000
people, it obviously needs to be corrected.  Human's OSs can only be corrected
by the participants. There is no programmer to do it for us.

>
>However, we all, not just the Japanese-ge, have responsibility to ensure
>that atrocities never happen again.  This is not a responsility that
>accrues specially to the Japanese-ge.  We _all_ have this responsibility.

 I agree.  Do you really think you are living up to your responsibility by
suggesting that Chinese people be killed.  (I.e. "bombCHINAtoHELL")
>
>It's too bad that Chinese-cu people don't understand.  Western-cu Chinese-ge
>people understand.  Actually, virtually all Westerners-cu understand.
>It's mostly the Chinese-cu that are ignorant.

 I can't believe you can generalize like this.  You are talking about hundreds
of millions of people.  How can you be so sure?

>Experience has shown me that _only_ Chinese-cu people would then conclude
>that I was justifying the Japanese-cu gov'ts efforts to hide history.
>Again, for the 3rd time (to the Chinese-cu jerks), I did not say any
>such thing.

 Well, your experience is again incorrect.  I am not of the Chinese culture
by any stretch of the imagination, and i also interpreted your estimate of
the number of people killed by the Chinese government as an excuse for the
Japanese atrocities in Nanking.

>
>_Only_ Chinese-cu people would make this kind of erroneous extrapolation.
>They really are ignorant.

No, i made that extrapolation as well.  Just to anticipate your next argument,
i am 100% culturally American, whatever that is. Perhaps you should re-assess
what you imagine Americans think of you.

 I apologize to the readers of this group; i realize that this has
gotten off of the subject (Nanking) quite a bit.  I have great trouble
with letting someone try and pass themself off as "normal" when they are so
obviously racist.

 I think a few readers of this group would find it interesting that in
this game (of netrek, which is basically a "real-time" game of
interplanetary conquest where players blow each other up and seek to
conquer the rival team/race) Mr Joe sought to portray his team (the
Klingons) as the Japanese, and my team (the Orions) as the Chinese.  
At the same time, he said something to the effect of "Long live the
Japanese Emperor, kill all the Chinese..." etc. etc.

  I cannot imagine how you can really feel that you are not a racist,
with such a hatred of a faceless group of people.  I think you should
reflect on this and the things that you have said.  Webster's dictionary
defines "racist" as:

1: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and
     capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority
     of a particular race

  You obviously think that all people of the Chinese culture are
inferior to you.  That is racism.


-- 
Johan van Zanten - Unix Services - The Computation Center -
The University of Texas at Austin - johan@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu