Isn't it ironic that both in London and in Paris, huge numbers of police, including in Paris at least riot police, had to be put on the streets to limit the demonstrations against Chinese policy in Tibet, and - I hope, although I haven't noticed it in the media - their other human rights abuses. In other words, our police forces, put in an impossible position by the folly of granting the Olympic Games to China, have had to limit free demonstration in our own countries for the sake of a vicious dictatorship. We are so concerned not to upset China that we have compromised our own values. Good on those who today extinguished the Olympic flame: it's long been in principle extinguished by the Chinese.
BTW, I've been looking at the latest issue of Modern Reformation, on Dawkins, Hitchens et al. I wonder which religion it is that poisons China so greatly? Presumably these gentlemen blame the Chinese house churches and Falun Gong for their own oppression and for poisoning an otherwise pleasant atheist society?
2 comments:
CHINA IS NOT A VICIOUS DICTATORSHIP this is a country with 15 times greater culture than any country in the world. How can you say that?
What can you have against one country? Are you shure that your country DOES NOT ABUSE HUMAN RIGHTS?
My apologies for being slow to reply to your comment. Thank you for it.
As China has an ancient imperial tradition and well over 15 times the population of the UK, whose cultural roots, though doubtless ancient, do not reach the standards of "great civilisation" (what a weird term) until thousands of years later, everyone with a brain acknowledges the cultural diversity and achievements of China - at least 15 times those of the UK.
So far as UK breaches of human rights are concerned, plenty of legal actions have been taken under the terms of the Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. The Government is open to challenge therefore on Human Rights. Are there cover-ups? Probably.
Finally, since the Peterloo Massacre of 1815, no UK government has done anything like what was done in 1989 on Tianamen Square. Nor does Britain criminalise all religions not registered with state authorities, arresting house church leaders because they are leading churches that meet in houses.
Hence the arguments deployed are non sequitor to the issue. Russia, Eastern Germany and other countries in the old Soviet Bloc produced many of Europe's greatest thinkers and writers. Does that justify Stalin or the Stasi, or reduce their brutality? Or does government brutality in any way diminish cultural achievement? Of course not. An argument permissible against the claim "vicious dictatorship" must seek to demonstrate the following: (1) all arrested Falun Gong and Christian leaders by virtue of their beliefs and practices truly threatened the territorial integrity and/or fundamental security of China, (2) that failure to grant journalists access to Tibet during recent demonstrations was not a cover up, and (3) that despite the enormous documentary evidence, the crushing of the student rebellion of 1989 simply didn't happen. Post it on your blog and put your URL as a comment to this. I await your reply.
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