Friday, May 16, 2008

Chinese Conspiracy

China, for a long time has a long history of human rights violations. It has a national policy of infanticide for families with More than one child. It sent us toys with lead in it. It sent us Pet food with poison. The museum exhibit "bodies" has been rumored to be made up of Chinese political prisoners. The overall blocking of Internet access and outside communication is well known. Being kidnapped by Chinese police in the dark of night and taken to secret prisons for speaking out about Chinese atrocities is well known. We all saw tanks rolling over students in Tianamen Square. Thanks to the Beastie Boys and Richard Gere, America cares about Tibet.
After The Olympic torch relays began, the world saw an unprecedented displays against the host country. I don't think I've seen any protest pictures or media from the Olympics in Nazi Germany. That tells you how fucked this situation is.
So the world was basically pissed off at China with no end in sight.So they decide to take the torch up Everest. They shut down the Tibetan side, and ask Nepal to shut down their side of the summit as well. Effectively ending the climbing season, which means no money for Sherpas, and Tibetans who make more of their income off of adventure tourism than anything else. Their video of the torch at the summit of Everest is suspect. Most electronic gear freezes and becomes ineffective; but they seem to have great actual video footage, hmm...
So through all the scandal, people are all about hating China.
Then they get hit with a 7.9 earthquake.For those of you who don't know the Richter scale: the Northridge earthquakes that devastated most of Los Angeles was only a 6-ish type of earthquake. 7.0 is usually considered "total destruction". 7.9 is probably "Apocalypse". Now we have people caring about China, and totally forgetting all their atrocities they have committed. The conversation now when it comes to China is about suffering and earthquake relief. Not anger and boycotting of the games.
I believe China turned its own WMDs against it's own people. Of course I'm talking about the Evil Communist Earthquake Machine. Also known as the "Red Dragon". China, desperate to turn attention away from aforementioned human rights abuses, has used a machine more evil than the BOMB on its own people. This effectively makes China able to show the world that they, unlike Burma, cares about its people and will do anything to give support and accept relief and aid from the outside world.
Well played China, Well played.

2 comments:

Harriet the Spy said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

To add to your exhaustive list of sins by the government of China, don't forget that they also decided to send police into the streets to kill dogs (not just strays, but literally taking domesticated dogs wearing leashes held by their owners, and clubbing them to death). Why? Because dogs are symbolic of an aristocrat social class - only the rich have dogs. This can't be tolerated in a so-called "socialist" government where all are to be equal whether you like it or not.

But I digress from my main point. I agree that the tragedy seems to have been the recent focus of PR opportunists who wants us to quickly forget about Tibet. But are we any better than they? Isn't this the culture we live in now? We quickly jump on the bandwagon of "good causes" just for the sake of doing so, without considering the complex socio-political historical context of everything else that contributed to its cause. We've become a culture of repairing our problems rather than educating ourselves for its prevention.

I'm strangely relieved that we still have a heart to help those in need, even those that we were just denouncing. I think the distinction should be made between giving relief to the people of China who are victims of a natural disaster, and the sins of its government. Afterall, haven't you ever wondered what *we* might have done to piss off someone enough to have *our* towers taken out? Would we want *our* noses rubbed in, in how poorly we financially oppress other countries during our time of grief? Shame on the press who prostitute out our sympathies for ultimate ratings and capital, and shame on us for being so agreeable to its process. But I sleep a little better at night knowing that our responsibility to each other as humans has not been lost.