I have been following what’s happening in 瓮安 for several days. It is fascinating for the following reasons:
1. What makes a story explosive?
2. How efficient and effective the Net police is
3. The common damage control technique by the Chinese government
The most comprehensive and the closest to the event can be found here: http://xinwenshe.blogspot.com/ (see postings around 6.28.2008 and several days later, including a video posting)
To be explosive, a story has to have an innocent victim, an evil perpetrator, and an open ending. In this case, the victims are innocent or at least powerless: the rape-murder victim, her uncle and mother. The perpetrators are the police and street thugs. And an open ending is clearly an invitation for action.
The Net police is VERY efficient: two days later, there is scant trace left on the Chinese Net. In fact, when I used Baidu.com, it has suggested several keywords, such as: 贵州瓮安, 瓮安事件, 贵州瓮安事件, 贵州瓮安6.28事件, 瓮安公安局, etc. Many of the posting titles are listed there. However, after 14 random clicks on those with negative titles, only three are left. One (http://www.dongkou.com/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=11486) had the original posting deleted but nasty comments remained. Isn’t this interesting?
The damage control seems to be:
1. Physical isolation: the roads cut off, news media shut out and a surge of police force
2. Synchronizing message on the cause: it is a few bad guys (黑恶势力人员) with a large “confused” mob (不明真相的群众)
3. Stick to the message: today, only one message left, such as: http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-07/01/content_8468856.htm
So far, I believe the government has succeeded in putting a lid on the event.
It was always a pleasure meeting like-minded folks. This is true for hillbilly racists, white working class laborers, liberation theologists, too-poor-to-own-property-but-enough-to-afford-a-latte-a-day liberal activists. So is it true for immigrant intellectuals from the Orient.
ZDS is a professor in law school. We are of the same age but took quite different routes to the same spatial and temporal location as we did this afternoon… that is too much. We met in his office about my coal mine paper.
But the conversation diverged soon after. I am pleasantly surprised that he’s a fan of Foucault and Said too (more so of the latter and P Bourdieu). His has a insightful view concerning the two: Foucault is too concerned with domination and permeation. Said, however, expands Foucault’s thesis and dares to contest the symbols that were created by the powerful.
Our different views of recent events: Tibet, 08 election and the Western liberal democracy, echo our choice of favorite between Said and Foucault. I suspect his training in law and legislation breeds in him a more optimistic outlook for the outcast surviving in democracy. After all, his job is to protect the right to be different.
I am much more pessimistic about where the liberal legacy in the U.S. is heading to. Now think of it, I may have been “shocked and awed” by the collective reactions following 9.11. But the force of conformity is unmistakeable.
Will an Obama presidency change the paranoia, the hysteria of fear and the intolerance of dissent? To me, that is the hypocracy and the weakness of popular democracy, for it creates a paradox that is unsolvable: even if Obama’s election will change the political ethos of our time, he cannot win unless sufficient majority are ready for the change. If, just for the argument’s sake, the majority is wrong, irrational or stupid, what’s in liberal democracy that can bring a change to this sorry reality?