Shoes, China and the real disgrace
Last week, something disgraceful happened in Cambridge. While Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was speaking at an event at Cambridge University, a member of the audience threw a shoe at him and berated the university for ‘prostituting itself with this dicator.’ The news of this event caused widespread outrage in China, with many calling it a disgrace. However, this protestor was the only one whose actions could not be considered disgraceful.
Indeed, those most guilty of disgraceful conduct were the other members of Premier Wen’s audience, who told the protestor to sit down and shouted ‘shame on you.’ What they should have been doing was applauding him. What they actually did was applaud Mr. Wen who, while he may be well-loved in China, is still the leader of a one-party state that denies its citizens basic freedoms, such as the ability to choose their own leaders.
While the shoe-thrower’s protest may not have been the most well-mannered, he did have a point. The Chinese government is still a repressive regime, and nowhere was that better shown than in the media response to the shoe-throwing. It is no secret that the Chinese media is tightly controlled by the government and criticism of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power is forbidden. One needs only think back to the row over Google’s decision to censor their search engine in China to see just how restricted the media is there. In response to the incident, the Chinese media, as well as giving fawning descriptions of Mr. Wen’s speech, suggested that the shoe-thrower might have ‘mental problems’ and that his actions showed ‘how deeply political nonsense has permeated into European awareness.’
Presumably this ‘nonsense’ includes such ridiculous ideas that the only candidates in their elections are those approved by the government, or that there is widespread political interference in the judicial system, or that punishments such as Hard Labour (called ‘Re-education by Labour’) still exist, or perhaps that places like Tibet are subject to repressive security regimes. All of the above nonsense I managed to find in a quick look at the Foreign Office’s political profile of China. Yes, even the usually moderate and diplomatic Foreign Office, an organisation which does not want to offend the Chinese, uses the word ‘repressive’ about the Chinese government.
China may like to pretend that all is well in the harmonious society, and it may complain that too many in the West like to criticise it unjustly while ignoring anything good about China, but the truth is there is a lot to criticise China for. For all its talk about progress, it is still a country where dissent is punishable by imprisonment, religious freedom is lacking and the democracy is absent. The real disgrace about last week’s shoe-throwing incident is not that it happened but that, among the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘get out’, nobody thought to shout ‘Hear hear.’
Indeed, those most guilty of disgraceful conduct were the other members of Premier Wen’s audience, who told the protestor to sit down and shouted ‘shame on you.’ What they should have been doing was applauding him. What they actually did was applaud Mr. Wen who, while he may be well-loved in China, is still the leader of a one-party state that denies its citizens basic freedoms, such as the ability to choose their own leaders.
While the shoe-thrower’s protest may not have been the most well-mannered, he did have a point. The Chinese government is still a repressive regime, and nowhere was that better shown than in the media response to the shoe-throwing. It is no secret that the Chinese media is tightly controlled by the government and criticism of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power is forbidden. One needs only think back to the row over Google’s decision to censor their search engine in China to see just how restricted the media is there. In response to the incident, the Chinese media, as well as giving fawning descriptions of Mr. Wen’s speech, suggested that the shoe-thrower might have ‘mental problems’ and that his actions showed ‘how deeply political nonsense has permeated into European awareness.’
Presumably this ‘nonsense’ includes such ridiculous ideas that the only candidates in their elections are those approved by the government, or that there is widespread political interference in the judicial system, or that punishments such as Hard Labour (called ‘Re-education by Labour’) still exist, or perhaps that places like Tibet are subject to repressive security regimes. All of the above nonsense I managed to find in a quick look at the Foreign Office’s political profile of China. Yes, even the usually moderate and diplomatic Foreign Office, an organisation which does not want to offend the Chinese, uses the word ‘repressive’ about the Chinese government.
China may like to pretend that all is well in the harmonious society, and it may complain that too many in the West like to criticise it unjustly while ignoring anything good about China, but the truth is there is a lot to criticise China for. For all its talk about progress, it is still a country where dissent is punishable by imprisonment, religious freedom is lacking and the democracy is absent. The real disgrace about last week’s shoe-throwing incident is not that it happened but that, among the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘get out’, nobody thought to shout ‘Hear hear.’
posted by CJM | 5:49 PM
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