China ‘deserves’ the earthquake, high death toll?
While China has won much sympathy from the world and score some points in its PR over the Sichuan earthquake, some comments from the west still prefer to point the fingers towards the Chinese government.
For instance, Simon Elegant of the Time magazine blog wrote in his blog about the first day of national mourning has attracted fierce criticism:
As I write, (14.28) it is exactly a week since the earthquake. China’s State Council has mandated a three minute silence in honor of the victims.
They also ordered the sounding of all horns, air raid sirens etc during the period. You’ll see this on TV so I won’t put up video but it was eerie. All traffic on the usually jammed second ring road outside our Bureau stopped and every single car sounded its horn for the entire three minutes. It was strange to my eyes (and ears) but oddly moving.
That will mark the start of three days of mourning. All flags will be flown at half mast for the period and entertainment channels on TV simply broadcast a copy of the State Council’s order in stark black and white. Internet portals have been ordered to shut down entertainment services such as song downloading etc. Even the Torch Relay will be interrupted. It seems odd after such an outpouring of volunteering by individuals to have the state step in like this, almost as though it is reasserting its authority.
When saddened, heart-broken Chinese people are standing in solidarity for their tens of thousands of brothers and sisters killed in the mega earthquake in a first-ever communist commemoration for civilians who lost their lives in natural disasters, Elegant’s point of view is that the central government is reasserting control, as if he still believes Chinese people are mindless followers who know only to follow whatever the gov says. How humiliating!
One of the responses Elegant get asked him what about the national mourning held in the US after 911? Would he argue that it was a pure manipulation by the Bush administration and the civilians couldn’t decide for themselves for mourning for the dead?
The Telegraph of the UK has a story telling about the horrifying situation in Sichuan after the quake: how people suffered, how volunteers drove miles away everyday to help deliver food and water etc. However, the title of the article is : “China earthquake: Struggle to cope with ‘Biblical’ devastation”.
“Biblical”? Was that a hint that Sichuan was destroyed by mother nature because God (the biblical god) punishes the people?
Yet, many other westerners believe that Chinese deserve their sufferings because they haven’t treated the Tibetans right. They say it’s a karma. This theory blames the general Chinese for failing to push for democracy and kick out communism.
I also read somewhere in the Vancouver Sun (which I couldn’t locate it now) that a reader hinted that the high death toll was unsurpising given China has a corrupt communist gov.
All these are prejudices, if not racism. The Chinese people are collectively regarded as a bunch of brainwashed idiots with no ability for independent thinking and judgement.
When Obama’s spiritual mentor Jeremiah Wright said the US deserves 911 for its inhumane foreign policies, he was condemned and Obama’s campaign almost sank on Wright’s comments.
Why there is always double standard??
Tags: double standard, earthquake, racism, TibetRelated posts
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Biblical devastation, IMO, is another way of saying extremely huge. I do not believe the UK writer was insinuating that the Chinese people are “getting their just desserts”. He or she was probably using a more eye catching word.
I agree that some reporters are still looking at China through “red goggles” but more or less, they are sympathetic to the efforts on the ground in Sichuan and as more dialog between average Chinese and “Western Journalists” take place, the more willing the Journalist are to removing those “goggles”.
I have read enough of these mind-bloggling views in the net. It will cause uneasiness for a start but you’ll get used to it and more voices of disapproval and demeaning to the Chinese govt will emerge as days pass.
It is a good thing to have things like these gets reported to the public and everyone gets to see their warts. But I hope more fair-minded people in the West will come out to voice their disagreement with these radical views and censures them.
hi anno: of course i understand “biblical devastation” means “extremely huge”. but when it’s a norm that the western media see china through “red goggles”, it’s difficult not to speculate the subliminal connotation presented by the telegraph article here.
according to a professor of the old testament (http://www.claudemariottini.com/blog/2005/10/earthquakes-in-bible.html):
Earthquakes will continue to scare people because of the physical destruction it causes and because of the psychological and emotional stresses it produces in their lives. For those who truly understand the message of the Bible, such a devastation confirms the biblical truth that “the whole created universe groans in all its parts as if in the pangs of childbirth” (Romans 8:22).
No one can really understand the mysteries of nature and why it produces so much pain and suffering in the lives of people. However, when we look at the devastation caused by earthquakes, we begin to understand God’s word to Adam: “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Genesis 3:17).
another intepretation of “biblical devestation” i found online (http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Hell.html):
The divine judgment is often depicted in terms of God deciding on a definitive end to the cycle of disasters that have befallen his elect people in the course of world history. The literature depicts the forces of evil as beasts, servants of the great beast, often seen as the dark angel who rebelled against God in primeval times. The earthly beasts are, typically, the great empires that throughout history have crushed the Kingdom of God on the earth (predominantly understood as Israel). In apocalyptic imagery the great battle for good and evil is won definitively by God and his angels who then imprison the rebel forces in unbreakable bonds. An inescapable “Lake of Fire” is a common image, insofar as fire was a common biblical idiom for the devastation that accompanied divine judgment.
taikor: i’m tired too of all the western prejudices too.
anno:
you said: “as more dialog between average Chinese and “Western Journalists” take place, the more willing the Journalist are to removing those “goggles”.”
sounds like the onus is on the average chinese to incite western journalists the will to remove the “goggles”. but being a journalist myself, i know very well that journalists are not supposed to wear any goggles when they do their reporting.
that’s the problem here. the west have dominated the world for too long that they believe they are ALWAYS right and other ppl not on their side are ALWAYS wrong. i think all of us have to grow up somehow.
I’m with the first Anonymous commenter. A disaster “of biblical proportions” is one large enough to have been recorded in the bible. It means “freakin’ huge”.
So far as the PRC goes, the “red goggles” will remain for so long as the Communist Party remains. I know relatively little about the PRC. Events there don’t affect me directly, so I’ve had little reason to learn. Most of what I know is half-remembered stories about various disasters, most of them man-made, and many of them directly related to Communist Party policy. It becomes like an over-loaded train accident or ferry sinking in India. It happens so often, with such huge numbers dead and injured, that we lose track. Once is a horible tragedy. Every second week is “normal”.
The most virulently anti-PRC people I’ve ever met were Chinese themselves, usually from Singapore or HK. I would expect them to know a lot more about the PRC than I do, so I give their opinions more weight than I do those of the western media or Communist Party apologists.
I grew up in a part of Toronto with many Chinese families, most of them had come over before the Communist Revolution in China and followed events there closely. I have nothing but respect and admiration for these families. One of them half-raised me after my own parents divorced. They were very bright, hard working people with solid families. Maybe it is racist to prefer the company of Chinese to say, Jamaicans. But I do.
SN: It is already happening. We have an old saying: “A good friend is a worthy adversary.” Applies to table tennis, debate, and war equally. It is our government’s policy, and this Englishman’s hope, that China will soon be both.
The “dominant” Americans opened up trade with the PRC in ’71. It was IIRC Henry Kissenger’s idea. A deliberate policy which has since pumped $ trillions into the Chinese economy.
The criticisms of Chinese goods will pass as they get better at making them. When I hear people make fun of Chinese cars, for instance, I am reminded of the time I saw my first Datsun: an underpowered piece of junk which rusted out in less than two years on Canada’s salty roads. Today I drive a Nissan — one of the best cars I’ve ever had. My buddy just bought a 1988 Hyundai Pony for $300. Remember those? He’s planning a frame-off restoration.
There are those who have some fear of and residual hostility to Communist China. Protectionists especially. The fact is that China, like every other large country except the USA, was devastated by the loss of its Empreror, invasion, WWII, and civil war. China will be the last country to recover from the horrors of the 20th century, and when it does China will be a major power. We in the west have reason to fear this, and to hope for it too. Columbus wasn’t looking for Cuba.
thx cjrc for your comments. i came from hong kong. my family had suffered during the cultural revolution etc. i used to be very anti-communist china. but what i’m seeing in recent years is a china (at least the central gov) that is trying very hard to live up to the world’s expectation. therefore when i see ppl reluctant to credit china for its hard work but insistent on painting china as a monster, i got pissed.
let’s all hope this type of stereotype would fade away soon with or without CCP, especially i don’t believe china would do away the communist party in the near future. but if CCP is no longer an ideological communist party, or it is slowly moving towards some kind of democracy (in county levels as a start), does it matter that the west insists that there ONLY should be ONE type of self rule?