China, having seen the wondrous success of the "
Singapore Model" (of
99% free enterprise -
1% behavioral divergence), has taken it a step further. Or perhaps
much more than just a step. Where, in
Singapore, dissidents are sued, ridiculed and marginalized, in
China they are, at best, imprisoned, and at worst, 'disappeared'. Just like that.
Each of
Chinese officialdom's vile violations against
dissidents causes a stir in the
Western Press : everyone and his uncle speaks out in the
Media against the latest barbarous official act.... And then the
Media, like their fickle readership, their fickle viewership, seems to forget all about that particular '
dissident outrage' as soon as a more recent one 'goes viral'.
The latest sensation on the '
China Dissident Newsfront' is the disappearance of
China's internationally acclaimed artist
Ai Weiwei and the previously unheard-of outbreak of supportive
graffiti appearing in, and on,
Hong Kong's streets. And before that, many of us, -or perhaps some of us- remember the imprisonment of
Nobel Prize winner
Liu Xiaobo (you'd already forgotten him, hadn't you?). But before that, who remembers the
6-year imprisonment and death-in-prison of writer
Li Hong? Who remembers the
10-year imprisonment of writer
Li Xianbin before that? Or the fate of cyber-dissident
Wang Xiaoning? Or this year's house arrest of dissident writer
Yu Jie? Or
He Depu, beaten and imprisoned for
8 years? You, and your ignorance, are not excused because all the names look alike.... There are more than
30 writers -that we know about- who are currently imprisoned in
China for the crime of '
dissidence'. Our
Western Media seems to have 'gone cold' on these other
29 individuals..... (Note: the formula has long been in place - those who are suspected of being '
dissidents' are first branded "
mavericks" -which has a separate connotation in
China- then accused of "
economic crimes".)
All of this criticism from the
Western Media, of course, is water off the
Middle Kingdom's back, they could care less as long as their economic dragon continues to breathe fire. The
Chinese simply could not care less what the
Western Press work up in their own minds - if
Chinese officialdom comments at all on these subjects, it is to tell the
West to stop meddling in their internal affairs. (- Or perhaps, just to stick the
pudao in and twist it a little for fun, they will rant on about poverty and injustice in the
U.S.A. or imprisonment in
Gitmo - you get the idea....)
And are the
Chinese likely to change their ways? Since before, but much more acutely after
Tien An Men Square, they have been pursuing the single policy of nipping everything that looks like dissidence in the bud. The
Uighur uprising in time for the
2008 Olympics, and then the
2009 uprising in occupied
Tibet, and now the so-called
Jasmine revolution (although external) have continued to harden the resolve of the
Chinese leadership. Add to that, what the
Chinese perceive as the
'nightmare' of the Internet - and we see why the levels of
personal freedom and
expression in
China are falling, not improving. And there is nothing on the horizon to indicate a change in direction of that plummeting graph-line.
More is the mystery, then, that
Hong Kong has found itself awash in a wave of very public
graffiti in support of
Ai Weiwei. Naturally, authorities are under severe pressure to locate the offending stenciller - at which time he most certainly will be branded a '
maverick'. However, to date said graffitist, as yet, has not been identified. One only hopes that the
Chinese don't adopt the all-too-
Thai trait of 'scapegoating', or worse, take it out on
Ai Weiwei.
This just in...
29 April 2011
Hong Kong
Projector-Graffiti Not A Hit With China Military
China's Army, the largest standing military force in the world, is up in arms over projector-graffiti which was displayed on their Hong Kong barracks. The military claimed that likenesses of the currently detained dissident artist Ai Weiwei, which also included the script, " Who's afraid of Ai Weiwei?" were projected on their facilities - and was a breach of the law. They have threatened legal action against the perpetrators. Hong Kong police, however, have stated that no crime has been committed. It is perhaps, then, the extra-legal action that the perpetrators should be concerned about....
|
Archives
May's Nightlife News 
PATPONG I 
MAP
PATPONG I 
2002 - 2011, BANGKOK EYES / bangkokeyes.com
