SHAKING FOUNDATIONS ACROSS THE GLOBE
We here at ACP love people (duh). But even more, we love people who utilize their power to initiate change. “Shaking Foundations All over the Globe” will cover those underrepresented yet really important people-initiated actions that take place in China, Bolivia, Nigeria, as well as the U.S. We will expose actions that people take in demanding social, political, and/or economic change. These actions will be showcased in a non-partisan manner, and we do not always endorse the ways in which action is taken, however we feel it is important that you all see just how much power the people have. The first country we explore will be China, and following that blog we will feature a different country/week. Feel free to comment on the articles/give us suggestions, and remember to check back with us each week for another entry!
THE SITUATION: CHINA
- By Sofia Saiyed
It seems like everyone's been talking about China recently. They used to make everything, now they own things, and sell things, and buy things (they seem to especially like oil), and build things, and fund things, there's no end in sight! What with all that talk you'd think that China's got it right. Finally a country that can sustain speedy economic growth, forever! But just because economic growth looks good on a chart doesn't mean everything's peachy…
You see, it all began with the Chinese civil war, which the Communists won way back in 1949. Led by Mao Zedong, the Communist Party attempted something that has never been achieved successfully. Instead of the idealistic Marxist society in which worker's collectively owned everything and no one was poor, everyone was poor (save a small number of Communist Party members who led all the poor people.) Here's what I'd wonder in this situation: if there's so many more poor people than rich people, then how come the poor people didn't do something? But being a smart man, Mao was prepared for that; he maintained such a strong choke hold over the entire country that his knuckles were perpetually white. Fast forward to 1978 and you have Deng Xiaoping, who realized that Communism wasn't working and so he scrapped it. He turned China into a capitalist monster; now he had a bunch of filthy rich capitalists and a choke hold so tight so that his knuckles were perpetually white.
PROPAGANDA
I find the whole thing pretty fascinating, how elaborate a network of lies the Communist Party has managed to create. Opposition leaders forgotten, events hushed over so much that they barely exist anymore (or not the truthful version anyway), it must be exhausting. That's why there exists the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. (Notice that this isn't part of the government-- it's part of the communist party, which is parallel to and effectively controls the government.) Censored items include anything about democracy, Marxism (ironically), the movement for Tibet's freedom (Tibet was invaded and taken over by China in 1950), freedom of speech, police brutality and anything else that could arouse dislike for the government, including most notably of all, the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacres.
PEOPLE will have a VOICE…
Because of said choke-hold on the people of China, there have been relatively few organized movement against the Communist State—members of opposition groups are heavily repressed, it’s nearly impossible for them to get information out to the public (though in recent years it’s gotten slightly easier with the internet), and anyone who dares make a public declaration that could incite fear and panic is arrested before they can do any real damage (even this woman who insisted on an online forum that contrary to the government’s version of events, people had died in a recent flooding of a mall.) The fear of arrest and punishment for speaking up has been so effective that when 1.2 million people were dislocated by the building of the Three Gorges Dam, most affected people barely uttered a grumble because they couldn’t afford any more trouble.
Nonetheless the Chinese people have found ways to make their voices heard.
Unfortunately, almost the whole world knows about the famous massacre of university students that took place at a place in China called Tiananmen Square (sounds like Ti-ENN-in-Min) in 1989, but Tiananmen should be remembered for a lot more than that. 1989 wasn't the first time unorganized groups of people gathered in the infamous Tiananmen Square. It was the place where people gathered to mourn for national heroes, and actions of protest there ranged from posting politically symbolic poetry (like the one below) at memorials to hundreds of thousands of people marching for democracy. The 1989 protest was just the first time that urban laborers and educated students happened to join forces – they came out initially to mourn the death of a political leader and reformer, and then began to protest for everything from better wages to democratic reforms.
The most famous poem was by a high school student, Wang Juntao:
In my grief I hear demons shriek;
I weep while wolves and jackals laugh.
Though tears I shed to mourn a hero,
With head raised high, I draw my sword .
But their protest only made the repression worse-- the government responded by tightening censorship so much that a generation later, students at Peking University (the same University many of the 1989 protesters attended) don't even recognize the iconic picture of the lone protester standing his ground before an army tank.
Go to YouTube to see footage of this major protest:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2300254722104314948&q=pbs+documentary+tiananmen+square&total=2&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
minutes 37-40)
DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT HERE COMES THE MOVEMENT!
Just because there might be some pretty stiff repression, doesn’t mean the people won’t be heard.
In 2004, the number of protests rose in China by 15%. And in August, 2006 the Chinese government reported there were 39,000 cases of public unrest in the first half of the year – that’s 2.5% more over 2005!
These protestors will be the real heart of this block so check back soon to read more about them – they’re everyday, ordinary people who take action even though they’re not celebrities. They’ve never been celebrities or had 3-hour movies made about their lives – they’ve never even gone on long hunger strikes or led millions in a march. They live their daily lives like you or me, and they protest.
