Recent struggles in Northeast Asia between Japan and its neighbors South Korea and China illustrate well Robin Wagner-Pacifici’s notion of the “restlessness of events.” Current territorial disputes over the Senkaku/Daiyoutai and Takeshima/Dokdo islands, as well as the uproar over the collective memory of World War II tragedies, such as the recent flare up of debate regarding Korean sex slaves, suggest that the notion that the end date of the Pacific War was 1945 may not be accurate. In some ways, the event, the world war, is continuing, and, in recent months, it’s escalating.

Governments in Northeast Asia are engaged in the escalation, but also in attempting to diplomatically calm the ongoing conflicts. Non-governmental groups also are involved, with some egging on confrontation and others trying to settle it, and still more attempting to highlight larger long-term interests over present-day concerns. My specific interest is with those non-governmental efforts that are attempting to foster peaceful coexistence, to put a final end to the great event, WWII. Through this posting, I hope to initiate a dialogue here on Deliberately Considered about the role that civil society can play in reconciliation, or at least in de-escalating tensions.

At the “end” of the Pacific War, non-governmental groups played a significant role in transforming the people of the United States and Japan from enemies to friends through carefully crafted and well-funded educational and cultural exchange programs, funded by private philanthropies such as The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, The Henry Luce Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The JDR III Fund, The Asia Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Religious organizations played a role as well. All Souls Church in Washington, DC, for example, developed a program to send art supplies to elementary school children in Hiroshima as a method for achieving reconciliation. A film titled Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard has just been completed that focuses on this story. In addition, Christians in both the US and Japan raised funds to develop what today is Japan’s leading liberal arts college, International Christian University (ICU), which was developed as a place of reconciliation between Americans and Japanese. It is built on the grounds of the former Nakashima aircraft company, which was designing a long-range bomber to bomb New York City. Transforming war to peace is built into the DNA of this institution.

Due to the unique history of ICU as a place of reconciliation, as well as its ongoing work in this area, the Aspen Institute elected to hold its most recent Cultural Diplomacy Forum there. The Art of Peace-building and Reconciliation, the fifth cultural diplomacy forum (and first in Asia), hosted 100 selected individuals from around the world for three days this past October to explore ways in which the arts, culture and the media can help overcome conflict and hatred and foster more peaceful societies and international relations. Bahia Shehab, a street artist (and also an Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo where she teaches graphic design) from Egypt, told us about her work to promote freedom there; another artist, Mundano, from Brazil illustrated his goal in life to make invisible people visible and, in the process, helping to improve their lives. He does this especially with those who make a living recycling waste materials (see his website here). Charles Bailey, Director of the Aspen Institute’s Agent Orange Program gave a very moving and powerful account of how Agent Orange in Vietnam continues to cause birth defects, and how this program at Aspen is leading a very real effort to remove all of it.

I was particularly struck by the work of three individuals I met at the Forum, Rev. Katsuhiko Seino, Dr. Haiping Liu, and Ms. Yukiyo Kawano.

Reverend Seino is a pastor at a small Christian church in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan, who directs a program there that takes Japanese people to South Korea to meet former sex slaves (formerly known as comfort women, who are generally seen to have been forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military) in order to apologize to them and foster reconciliation with them.

Dr. Liu, a Professor at Nanjing University, runs a joint China-Japan theater project that led to a production about the Nanjing massacre with Japanese and Chinese students involved.

Ms. Kawano, a Japanese visual artist focuses her work on the history and memory of World War II. At the conference, she displayed two art pieces that were exact replicas of the bombs dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but made from kimono. She used her grandmother’s kimono, a Hiroshima hibakusha (survivor), to create the representation of Little Boy (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima), which in my mind instantly and powerfully weaved together the bomb and the human victims.

In different ways, these three individuals are working with the “restless” event of World War II. Using different forms, they are creating better futures by dealing with painful memories. They endeavor to put this “event” to rest by dealing with it in subtle, complex, and authentic ways, instead of hiding or denying it. They are doing this in direct contrast to zealous nationalists who, in effect, work to keep this event alive, using it to promote their own gain, political clout or power, money for the military, or simply to fan public emotions.

I wonder how the efforts of the Japanese pastor, Chinese professor, and Japanese visual artist can scale up their work to eventually influence the states in which they live, as well as the governments of other states, to settle the enduring conflict in a more peaceful manner.

And the plot thickens as the U.S. becomes involved: on November 29, 2012 the Senate unanimously approved an Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 that reaffirms Japan’s administrative control of the Senkaku islands. The Amendment also articulates the U.S. commitment to defend Japan under Article V of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, indicating clearly that the U.S. will not change its mind due to “unilateral actions of a third party,” and stipulating that the US supports a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to the disputes over this territory. Senators Jim Webb, James Inhofe, Joe Lieberman, and John McCain co-sponsored the amendment. While Americans are not likely to support going to war with China over uninhabited rocks in the East China Sea, such possibility exists.

In addition, battles over the Korean sex slaves was brought to the United States this past summer when Japanese Diet Members requested that the mayor of Palisades, New Jersey remove a monument to Korean sex slaves that was placed in that town by Korea-Americans. After request to remove the monument was refused, some Japanese people began a petition on the Whitehouse.gov website, demanding that the Obama administration force the Mayor of Palisades to remove the monument. This led to an escalation in the conflict. Soon thereafter, a second monument was erected in Long Island and more are apparently being planned. The dispute became so serious that Korea and Japan broke off a deal to share national security information.

As World War II continues to haunt Northeast Asia (due to word count limitations I have left out countless details and examples), one of the most dynamic regions of the world and a region in which the United States is intricately involved, I think that it is worth exploring the role that independent citizens and associations can play in preventing conflict and in promoting long-term reconciliation between and among the people of different states.

My invitation: I hope readers of Deliberately Considered will offer statements, suggestions, and stories about ways in which non-governmental organizations have successfully, or unsuccessfully, played a role in de-escalating conflict and promoting peaceful reconciliation, how they might contribute to putting WWII to rest. These can be very grassroots efforts such as those between civil groups, sister cities, and individual organizations, or can be more “high level” non-government efforts of Track II dialogues run by think-tanks, for example. Furthermore, it is my hope we can then better understand the ways in which some of these activities grow, spread, and in effect gain power, or fail. In Jeff’s terms, I hope we can understand the conditions and consequences of the politics of small things in an important corner of the world.

I think that the form of Occupy Wall Street expresses its content, as Scott Beck showed in his earlier post on the occupation. I observe, further, that the way people use social media contributes to this form, as does the setting of the occupation. And I believe deliberating about the movement and connecting the debate to other political, social and cultural activities are keys to the democratic contribution of the movement to broader politics in America and beyond.

Jenny Davis in her post last week makes cogent points about the role of social media in social movements in general and in Occupy Wall Street in particular. Her key observation is very important. Digital activism is not only a means to the end of embodied social action. It also is an end in itself, a new type of politics that can make the previously hidden visible and can contribute to what she calls “the zeitgeist,” what I would prefer calling the prevailing common sense. I would add that it can constitute a space for free action, a public, a point made by Judith Butler in a recent lecture. This is especially telling as David Peppas and Barbara note in the two comments to Davis’s post, because the occupation doesn’t have a simple meaning or political end. The act of protesting, as well as the act of posting, makes the world look differently, and looking at the world differently is what is most needed at this time, to face up to stark social realities that have been ignored and develop the capacity to act on this. It is interesting how the way this happens is structured by social media actions, no longer a monopoly of the mass media, while the power of the movement, is quite material. It’s embedded in a specific geography and its link to political culture.

The place of the occupation in an important way contributes to its power. Situated in lower Manhattan, the New York Stock Market and the World Trade Center have been symbols of advanced capitalism and American economic power in the global order and have been actual centers of the order. And, thus, to my mind, Occupy Wall Street is the ground zero social movement.

Ironically, mine is first of all a “pedestrian observation,” based on very particular experience. In recent weeks, I walked around the area on the tenth anniversary of the attack with my friend, Steve Assael, who survived the 9/11 attack, including a stroll on Wall Street. And last week, I walked and observed the very same area when I went to take a look and to support the occupation at Zuccotti Park, passing by the site of the so-called Ground Zero Mosque as well.

Because it is at the symbolic center, the media are paying attention to OWS. A relatively small social demonstration is capturing global attention, exciting political imagination. In the U.S., apparently the Tea Party has met its match. A report yesterday indicates that Occupy Wall Street is more popular than the Tea Party. Occupations of public spaces are spreading around the country, and, as the old slogan goes: the whole world is watching. Occupations are going global, eminating from ground zero to London, Seoul back to Los Angeles and Washington D.C. and many points in between.

They have been watching in Gdansk. I was surprised by the interest in the Occupy Wall Street demonstration when I lectured there, and surprised and pleased to read that an important figure from that city, indeed the city’s most important historic figure, Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity Trade Union, is planning on coming to NY to support the occupation.

As reported in an unlikely source, The New York Daily News:

“Walesa has warned of a ‘worldwide revolt against capitalism’ if the Wall St. protests are ignored.
They are protesting the ‘unfairness’ of an economy that enriches a few and ‘throws the people to the curb,’ he said in a recent interview.

‘That’s why union leaders and capitalists need to figure out what to do, because otherwise they will have to contend with a worldwide revolt against capitalism.’ ”

The news is spreading through mainstream media and publications. But I think it is also important how social media are spreading the word. I don’t read the Daily News. It’s the American classic tabloid, similar to Murdoch’s NY Post, though not as bad. I got wind of the report through a friend’s (Elzbieta Matynia’s) Facebook page. The world is watching the world as mediated by our friends and our interpretation of things. As Davis observes:

“This sharing, of course, is rarely (if ever) done in a neutral manner. Rather, Tweeters and Facebookers accompany shared news stories and web links with commentary that reveals a particular bent, or interpretation of the content. The content is therefore not just made visible, but impregnated with meaning in a web of social relations.”

The Ground Zero occupation is leading to a global response. An articulate critique of the global order of things is being expressed in simple bodily presence and demonstrating expressions, capturing the attention of the world that is watching and acting upon what it sees, with the potential of changing the terms of public deliberations. Those who are concerned about jobs, inequality, global warming and much more have found their voices and are making visible their very real concerns. Indeed, I believe, in the U.S., the Tea Party has been directly engaged. Both OWS and the Tea Party reveal the power of the politics of small things. In this sense, they are quite similar, but there is a major difference. OWS is grounded in the reality based community, while much of the Tea Party concerns are based on fictoids, as we have been observing here at Deliberately Considered over the last year. As an unreconstructed enlightenment partisan, I think this suggests the long term power of the newest development on the global stage. As I observed in concluding my comparison between OWS and a social movement in South Korea, the candle light movement, a candle is, indeed, being lit.

A new kind of politics is upon us. Many observers have highlighted the technological characteristics of this politics. Cell phones and Facebook and other social media are the heroes in these accounts of the Arab Spring, the Israeli summer, and now of not only the Tea Party but also Occupy Wall Street. Yet, these accounts are unsatisfying, because they don’t take into account the human agency of the new politics, the specific political struggles. We should clearly recognize the importance of the new media, but it seems to me that what is extraordinary is the way a type of power, political power as Hannah Arendt understood it, is becoming increasingly important. People are meeting each other, now virtually and not only face to face, speaking and acting in each other’s presence, developing a capacity to act in concert.

I analyzed the way this power works in our world in my book, The Politics of Small Things. It points to the way the power of “the politics of small things” was common to both the Solidarity Movement in opposition to the previously existing socialist order in Poland of the 80s and to the anti-war movement and the Dean campaign during the Bush years in America. Recently a Korean translation of the book was published. I wrote a special preface, including some thoughts on how the politics of small things worked in a social movement in South Korea, the Candle Movement. Now, those reflections are helping me understand what I am seeing in lower Manhattan and considering its potential. I think the power of the politics of small things is becoming a significant force throughout the world today in many different contexts, and that it is important to take notice in places far and near.

My general understanding as an outsider and non-expert of the Candle Movement:  Using a popular electronic public forum, Agora, a fourteen year old middle school girl called for a candle light vigil at the Seoul City Hall Public Square to protest against the resumption of American beef imports in early April of 2008. Initially, most protesters were teenagers from middle and high schools, between fourteen and seventeen. A group of text messaging Korean girls was discussing the dangers of mad cow disease, the need to act and then acted. The demonstrators shared their concerns among themselves in ever wider social circles and decided that they must do something about it. In relatively small gatherings, they met to demonstrate their concern, and there was robust response to the demonstrations as they became visible to the larger society. There followed a series of ever larger candle light demonstrations at the square and around the city and country, leading to massive nationwide candle light demonstrations around the country on June 10^th, with one million people taking part.

Intriguingly, the response to the Candle Movement was first from unconventional social actors, women’s groups of various sorts primarily among them, and then more conventional oppositional political parties, democratic activists and civil society actors of various sorts. The beef was the first issue, but then a number of unpopular plans and policies of the new administration were criticized: privatization, the Korea – United States Fair Trade Agreement, the Grand Korean Waterway, the educational reforms, the predominance of the wealthy in the new cabinet, and overly pro-business public policies in general.  What began as little more than a group of teenagers acting out became a mass societal movement, strong enough that it greatly and negatively affected the popularity of the newly elected President, Lee Myung-bak, led to the resignation in mass of his cabinet the day after the largest demonstration, and provoked a systematic response from the police, unseen in the country in over twenty years, presenting for all to see a repressive side of the political order. Small things added up.

It is notable how major events in our times follow this pattern. First, people with common concerns find each other. Then, they talk to each other. Then, they act, and sometimes people notice. The noticing, of course, is not random. There is a pattern to it. Big media, what is called these days, the mainstream media, play a role, as do cultural resonance and political inventiveness. Whether, and how, the mainstream media report on the concerted action matters. So does how a larger public understands the movement. In Korea, it is significant that women’s groups responded first and then the larger world of conventional political actors took notice. The teenage girls’ movement became a broader societal wide movement as women passed the message on. The message was positively received because it resonated with a broad skepticism about the unequal relationship between the U.S. and South Korea. The meat of the issue was not the meat itself.

I think of this as I am looking downtown at the ground zero social movement, Occupy Wall Street. Lower Manhattan, since 9/11/01, is central to the American imagination about who we are and what we stand for. This led to an outrageous flight from factual truth in the case of “The Ground Zero Mosque.” In the case of the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is empowering those who want Americans to look clearly at the facts of inequality in our country.

The movement started smaller than planned. Adbusters the organization that first promoted the protest, imagined initial participation in the thousands, and instead there were only hundreds. Yet, the movement sustained itself through the simple act of persisting at a symbolic center, Wall Street, when the values of that center are broadly questioned. The movement was taken over by those who participated. They became the leaders. Now others are taking notice, because of the political cultural creativity of the protest, first a hand full of celebrities, but now, crucially, trade unions. The police seem to be cooperating, creating periodic controversies that attract mainstream attention: last week pepper spray, this Saturday, mass arrests on the Brooklyn Bridge. A visible social movement is coming into view. A candle is being lit.