One almost feels sorry for the poor Chinese nationalists, who seem to be beleaguered by traitors:
- Chang Ping, editor of the mainland Chinese newspaper, Southern Metropolis Weekly, argued in favour of freedom of speech for Chinese people on his blog. You might be tempted to think that Chinese nationalists would welcome this – Mr. Chang is defending their right to speak up, after all. But no, he’s a traitor.
- Jin Jing, the one-legged, wheelchair-bound Chinese athlete who was declared a national hero after protesters had tried to snatch the Olympic torch from her in Paris, is now a traitor too. Why? Because she has publicly expressed reservations over the boycott of Carrefour – which was initiated to a large part in reaction to what happened to Jin Jing in Paris. She dared to point out that boycotting the supermarket chain might hurt Chinese people more than anybody else.
- Grace Wang, whose fault it was to be interested in hearing what both “pro-Chinese” and “pro-Tibetan” protesters had to say, and to try to get both sides to talk to each other instead of just shouting at each other, is a traitor too. She has been insulted countless times and received death threats; her parents, who live in Qingdao, were harassed and eventually forced to go into hiding – apparently with Chinese authorities’ connivance. The high school she graduated from, in true Cultural Revolution fashion, held a meeting to condemn her and revoked her diploma. Ms. Wang now has to be protected by police from her own compatriots at her university in the U.S.A.
Here’s an article by Ms. Wang herself: “What a lot of people don’t know is that there were many on the Chinese side who supported me and were saying, ‘Let her talk.’ But they were drowned out by the loud minority who had really lost their cool.” – And here’s a video of the events at Duke University.
Howard W. French looks at the importance attributed to “unanimity on whatever is deemed a vital question” in China, and how it is enforced. He notes that if you say “anything but the ‘right thing’” on Tibet or the Olympics in China, you’re in danger: “if the state doesn’t get you first, one risks having emotional, screaming mobs shouting you down, or worse, instead. People speak solemnly all the time about what ‘the Chinese people think’ and about their feelings, as if unquestioned unanimity were the most natural of things, and moreover a conferral of moral legitimacy.”
“How dare anyone offend our feelings?” The art of being offended by different opinions, and of using this sense of being offended as a weapon, has indeed been developed to new heights in China. It’s part not just of the fundamentalist mindset (Muslim or otherwise) but also hof the Chinese identity, an integral element of that curious oscillating between inferiority complex and megalomania which is characteristic of people, and groups, who are profoundly unsure of themselves, psychologically unstable and very much afraid.
In all this, I’m so relieved to have known quite a few people in China who are not like this at all. It’s so important to know that “the reality on the ground” is often different – even though the general picture is deeply alarming.
