雨傘運動後的流感隱喻及其來源

Influenza as Metaphor after the Umbrella Movement and Its Origin

本文以2014年雨傘運動之後的流感隱喻作為研究主體，同時涉及與之相關的沙士隱喻，希望藉著疾病隱喻的話題來展現當下香港社會政治環境之矛盾，以及描繪出現時中港之間緊張的關係是如何被鞏固的。在梳理了過往研究與疾病隱喻的理論界限之後，本文提出如何批判地運用醫學知識與歷史素材的研究方法，進而指出在除去隱喻的普遍特徵後，香港雨傘運動後的流感隱喻的特殊之處在於兩點：單一使用「中港矛盾」作為主要內容；與沙士有密切聯繫。接著，本文先是對流感隱喻中時常回顧的沙士隱喻的構建過程作出描述，然後提出流感隱喻既承續了沙士隱喻，自身又有所轉變。本文認為流感隱喻較少吸收歷時事件，而是輕易將「中心／邊緣」與「患病／健康」兩組意象複合，同時以「排他」與「區隔」作為唯一的治療手段。最後，本文將流感隱喻置於「本土主義」思潮的歷史中考量，認為流感隱喻加深了人們對於中港矛盾的刻板印象，它構建了內地人一種「患病」的本質，賦予「中港區隔」以合理性，但此方案潛藏著前所未有的暴力，它最終可能演變為對於個體的強制審判與懲罰。

This article examines the metaphor of influenza after the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong in 2014. With reference to the metaphor of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), this article draws on the metaphor to discuss the political predicament of Hong Kong, as well as the intensely conflicting China-Hong Kong relationship in contemporary time. By recapitulating the theories on illness as metaphor, this article will offer a critical study of both the pathological knowledge and historical materials to analyze influenza as metaphor in contemporary Hong Kong. The second part of this article will not only delineate the common characteristics of the metaphor of influenza, but also shed light on the specificities of such metaphor in the context of Hong Kong in two ways: (1) the metaphor of influenza is particularly deployed to account for the “China-Hong Kong conflict”; (2) such metaphor is inseparably linked to the metaphor of SARS. For the remaining parts, the article will explicate the discursive process of the metaphor of SARS that has been often referred to the metaphor of influenza. It argues that the metaphor of influenza can be understood as an “inheritance” of the metaphor of SARS, with modification and appropriation. Rather than referencing to the diachrony, the metaphor of influenza usually aligns the binary opposition of “center/periphery” with the one of “illness/health”, while it has frequently used “exclusion” and “segmentation” as the remedy for such dilemma. Finally, this article looks into how the metaphor of influenza has developed in the context of “local consciousness”. It concludes that the metaphor reiterates stereotypes of the China-Hong Kong conflict through essentializing the “illness” of mainland Chinese, thereby legitimizing the China-Hong Kong segregation. The legitimacy of such segregation implies the potential violence against the mainland Chinese and may become a coercive trial and punishment for individuals.