Kwok Ming Ma: a real state of emergency

14 Oct

如果不是facebook上，不少朋友和學生祝我生日快樂，根本想不起自己又大一歲。有位心水清的同學指出今天也是Hanah Arendt的生日。說到Arendt，她跟Walter Benjamin不但同是在德國出生和長大的猶太人，更是在巴黎淪陷後，試圖逃亡到西班牙的十多名猶太人的成員。當一行人被西班牙的邊防人員拒絕入境而折返後，Walter Benjamin把他的手稿，Thesis on the Concept of History交給Arendt，並囑託她成功到達美國後，把手稿交給Adorno。據Arendt的憶述，Benjamin把手稿交給Arendt後，自言自語地說：「納綷的秘密警察已沒我辦法了！」說這大堆話旨在借機跟各位分享這篇被評為充滿神秘主義色彩的遺作。例如命題八說："The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency."只要將命題八和命題十七一起讀，意義更加深刻。"Thinking involves not only the flow of thoughts, but their arrest as well. Where thinking suddenly stops in a configuration pregnant with tensions, it gives that configuration a shock, by which it crystalizes as a monad."香港當前的處境正好是a configuration prgnant with tensions.就讓我們的思考停留在這一充滿張力的configuration，別的事情懶得去理了。
由於幾條主要通道被佔領，佔領運動面對阻礙別人，尤其是基層市民揾食的指責。不過對小販而言，他/她們不正是長年被食環署阻住揾食？（"The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the 'state of emergency' in which we live is not the exception but the rule.）但在平常的日子，這種緊急狀況有誰會關心？不少人在討論目前這場史無前例的歷史運動的出路，或許出路在於"to bring about a real state of emergency"。僅此與大家互勉！