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This text argues that Nietzsche's idea of invalid policy that is believed to be valid and Heidegger's concept of doubt as the reason for a representation are essentially the same idea. Using this insight, the text investigates vignettes from colonial occupation in Southeast Asia and its protest occupations to contend that untruth, covered in camouflages of constancy and morality, has been a powerful force in Asian history. The Nietzschean inflections applied here include Superhumanity, the eternal return of trauma, the critiques of morality, and the moralisation of guilt. Many ideas from the Heideggerian canon are used, including the struggle for individual validity amidst the debasement and imbalance of Being. Concepts such as thrownness, finitude and the remnant cultural power of Christianity, are also deployed in an exposé of colonial practices. The book gives detailed treatment to post-colonial Malaya (1963), Japanese occupied Hong Kong (1941-1945), and the tussle with communism in Cold War Singapore and Malaya, as well as the question of Kuomintang KMT validity in Hong Kong (1945-1949) and British Malaya (1950- 1953). The book explains the struggles for identity in the Hong Kong protest movement (2014-2020) by showing how economic distortion caused by landlordism has been covered by aspirations for freedom.
List of contents
1. Openings 1
2. Heidegger and Nietzsche 21
3. Statues: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (1963) 33
4. Judging Occupied Streets, Hong Kong (2014-2018) 41
5. Representation in 'Captured' Japanese Hong Kong (1941-1945) 54
6. Dasein of the Chrysanthemum Collaborators, Hong Kong (1941-1944) 67
7. Fading Validity: KMT Nationalism in Hong Kong (1946-1950) 81
8. Representing Christendom: Singapore's Maria Hertogh Riots (1950) 95
9. The Commission of Inquiry into the 1950
Singapore Riots (1951) 104
10. The KMT in British Malaya: Failing Futurism (1950-1953) 111
11. Lee's Favourite Communist, Singapore (1956-1969) 121
12. The Recurrence in British Interventions, Singapore (1962-1965) 136
13. Landlordism and Democracy in Modern Hong Kong (2019-2020) 149
14. Closings 172
About the author
R.B.E. Price is a lecturer in law in the Faculty of Business, Law and Arts at Southern Cross University, Gold Coast, Australia.
Summary
This text argues that Nietzsche’s idea of invalid policy that is believed to be valid and Heidegger’s concept of doubt as the reason for a representation are essentially the same idea. The text investigates vignettes from colonial occupation in southeast Asia and its protest occupations.
