Cries for Democracy Spread to China

It has not been widely reported because the Chinese Government is an experienced master at controlling news leaking out but an “online” call for anti-government protests across China last Sunday instead brought an resounding show of force by police determined to deter any sign of the kind of unrest that has shaken the Middle East.

In both downtown Beijing and Shanghai lines of police checked passers-by and warned away foreign photo journalists after a U.S.-based Chinese website spread calls for Chinese people to emulate the "Jasmine Revolution" sweeping the Middle East and stage gatherings in support of democratic change.

Officials from China's ruling Communist Party have dismissed the idea that they could be hit by protests like those that have rippled across the Middle East, but a rash of detentions and censorship of online discussion of the Middle East have shown that Beijing is deeply nervous about any signs of opposition to its one-party rule. The Chinese government is brandishing their big and well equipped security forces (funded by rapid economic growth).

In Shanghai, police bundled away at least seven men, one of whom had been taking photos. Reuters TV filmed several policemen forcing a man in a brown jacket into a Public Security Bureau van, while other police held up an umbrella to block the view. 

In Beijing, China’s capital, uniformed police were joined by plainclothes officers who kept shoppers and journalists moving. Men in sanitation uniforms with armbands that said "Public Security Volunteer" used brooms to sweep pedestrians along. An American news photographer was kicked and beaten repeatedly in the face with brooms and taken into police custody, witnesses said. Many other reporters were detained by police and some were roughed up, including one from Taiwan whose hand was injured, they said.

A U.S. embassy spokesman said he was "disturbed" by reports of foreign journalists being physically harassed. "We call on the Chinese government to respect the rights of foreign journalists to report in China and urge public security authorities to protect the safety and well being of anyone who is subject to illegal harassment or intimidation," embassy spokesman Richard Buangan said.

It was impossible to tell who were just shoppers and who had shown up to silently support the call to demonstrate. Security was evident throughout Beijing's Wangfujing shopping street, one of the venues singled out as a protest site by the website, Boxun.com. Shoppers strolled along, but there were at least 40 public security vehicles at the south end of the pedestrian-only street. Passage was partly blocked by construction fences that went up late in the week outside a McDonald's restaurant, which the Boxun message designated as a place for the gathering. The McDonald's was shut down on Sunday afternoon for about an hour. "A few days ago some people were creating a stir over by the McDonald's, so they have stepped up security," said an employee at a nearby store. She said she did not want her name reported. At least one news photographer was ordered into a police vehicle and forced to delete photos from her camera. 

A similar call for protest a week ago brought out few people, and dozens of dissidents and human rights activists have been detained or warned to avoid such activities. It is not clear who is behind the appeals for protests. The government has blocked text messages and web postings in China that contain references to jasmine.

Live Long and Prosper....

Have You Noticed? Big Brother’s Days are Numbered

Have you been watching all the turmoil in the world lately? From California to Bahrain people are out protesting. The protests are sometimes peaceful, sometimes violent, and sometimes are actual civil war. The things people are protesting change a little from place to place -but at the center of their uproar is a common thread – the universal needs of all human beings, and the promises, and failures, of “big government.” 

It is really something special to watch –and important to take notice of. 

We, here in the United States and in other “Western” countries know all about “big brother” in the form of big government. We have watched our governments historically swing between “big” and “small” (or limited) governments. When the apparatus in Washington gets too “big” or too “small” we go through the political process of changing it/ Part of that process is protesting to let our fellow citizens –and fellow voters- how we feel in the hope of influencing enough people to vote the way we want. Most countries in the Middle East do not enjoy that right, consequently their protests are more forceful and often violent. 

In Libya, for example, there has simply been Big Brother - Muammar Gaddafi and his band of thugs who do the “ruling,” and the population is “the ruled.” Naturally, Libya has a legislative body where members are supposedly elected from among the people. But Libyan elections have never been held freely and honestly, and those who get “elected” always follow the wishes of Gaddafi. Who, by the way, acquired his position by staging a political coup.

Then there was the 2009 re-election of Ahmadinejad in Iran. When they started complaining about voting fraud Big Brother stepped in, investigated and then certified the elections they had just run saying there had not been enough fraud to change the outcome. Then look at the elections of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez in 1999, and former Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak in 1981– both characters were “elected,” but then simply changed the laws so they could hang on to power indefinitely. 

But people everywhere are getting fed up with Big Brother. Mubarak has been kicked out. Kaddafi is desperately clinging on, taking a lot of people with him. Chavez can’t seize enough radio and tv stations and kill enough of his countrymen in the streets of Caracas to quell the discontent over his failed socialistic economy. Even King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is worried about how to silence the youth-led uprising in his country, and is extending $35 billion worth of “hand outs” as a short-term “fix.” 

So what does all this mean? To me it means the turmoil of these countries demonstrates that freedom is a force ingrained in all people. Voting by itself is not enough. People want a say in how they are governed and they are getting tired Big Brother determining every important aspect of their lives. They may not resist at first and are passive in the face of dictators and their henchmen. They may “put up with it” for a while, and may even for a time believe the claims of rulers who promise peace and prosperity. But people in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Libya and everywhere have always known the failures of “big government,” and they’re willing to take enormous risks – in some cases even risking their very lives – to pursue freedom.

There is another aspect of all this we should note and that is when the force of government is utilized to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, the few will stop at nothing to hang-on. Venezuela and Libya and Saudi Arabia have been good for Chavez and Kaddafi and King Abdullah. It has not been good for just about anyone else. Similarly, the relationship between American politicians and government employee unions is good for the politicians and the union members because politicians give union members what they want and union members vote to re-elect their union-loving politicians. However, it is bad for the taxpayer who ultimately pays the bill. 

In the end, Big Brothers big government always results in resection, depression and slogging economies. And that, of course, leads to civil unrest. It’s a vicious cycle that has got the world in chaos. The good news is that people have finally understood that Big Brother has to go –with riots and civil war in the Middle East, with protests and the ballot in the West.

Live Long and Prosper....