china & the west
25 Apr 2008
Hear No Evil, See No Evil...
Western outrage over Tibet is one way to assuage our guilt over Iraq, writes Andre Vltchek
Wouldn't it be nice to live in an ideal world with no violence or brutality, where every individual is free and responsible, where every nation can choose its fate and alliances? Where feudalism and oppression would not burden people like the Dalai Lama? A world where China, the oldest and largest continuous civilization on earth, would become the only country to truly care about the wishes of all of its inhabitants, offering independence to those who would ask for it?This is not the world that I know. Almost all the countries on earth do everything they can to crush independence movements, preventing ethnic groups and occupied territories from gaining self-governance. Particularly in the Asia Pacific region, brutality often knows no boundaries.
After covering conflicts all over the world , I am stunned to witness the hysteria and viciousness with which the world press is attacking China for "oppressing independence movements in Tibet". This is not to defend Chinese actions. It is only to attempt to bring the issue back where it belongs: in the context of the 21st century.
Just over ten years ago I witnessed the aftermath of mass rape by the Indonesian military in a small mountainous town of Ermera, in East Timor. Almost all the men were arrested. The military moved in, raping the female population from very young girls to grandmothers. Eventually I was arrested for being in the area. When I finally managed to reach safe shores, I contacted several major newspapers and television channels in the West. There was no interest in my story or in the plight of the tiny occupied nation. After all, the occupation of East Timor had occurred with the blessing of the United States and Australia.
Several years later I was given information by a government minister in Papua New Guinea about mass rape of small children in occupied West Papua. PNG's cash-strapped Ministry of Education was supposedly running camps for the children who managed to escape the horror across the border. I tried to raise funds and investigate, but I found no interest in the major media outlets in the West. Eventually, the government official indicated that "the issue was settled with Indonesia". (A journalist friend in Port Moresby explained what this meant: Indonesian officials had simply bribed him).
So far, it's estimated that more than 100,000 West Papuans have died in the brutal occupation by Indonesia. Almost nobody abroad is pressing Jakarta to allow a referendum on independence. Fear and oppression in Papua is not comparable with anything that is happening in Tibet: in Papua it is total, the area completely closed to foreign media.
But Indonesia is, according to common wisdom manufactured by the mass media, a democracy.
So is the Philippines. Anyone who has visited Mindanao cannot forget the poverty and oppression. In Sulu and Basilan men suspected of being rebels or rebel sympathisers disappear and their bodies turn up decapitated and mutilated. The US calls it "The Second Front in a War against Terror". There are American troops still taking part in joint military actions, violating Philippine laws. The Philippines may be one of the most dangerous countries on earth for journalists (56 killed since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001), but it is, after all, a "democracy".
There is also Thailand, of course: where the King can't be criticised. The same King reigned over the country that was burning alive its left-wing opposition in oil barrels; he reigned over the country that was fully participating in covert and extremely brutal wars against its neighbors Laos and Cambodia, as well as in Vietnam. And he is still a monarch of the nation where minorities — not being Thai by blood — have virtually no rights and no citizenship. He is a veteran of 18 coups, which he either opposed or supported (depending on his personal interests), but definitely survived.
The same Thailand that sacrifices more than 2000 mostly innocent people in its "war on drugs" and which is holding to its Southern provinces despite increasingly bloody civil conflict.
Thailand can hardly be criticised. It was our staunch ally from the Vietnam War. It killed enough Communists to gain our respect — and a "democracy" sticker. Its Government opened whorehouses in Pattaya for our soldiers and it never doubted market fundamentalist theories. That places Thailand, together with Malaysia and Singapore, well above China.
And then there is us, of course. We; the brave Western front of morally corrupt nations presently fighting two neo-colonial wars; we who prevented dozens of Latin American nations from choosing their own political, social and economic destiny; we, who joined forces with oppressive religious forces and governments in the Middle East and North Africa in order to destroy all progressive movements there.
Forgive me, but I do not believe our intentions are genuine when it comes to Tibet.
No matter how inhumane, how horrible the social system in India or Indonesia; we in the West have to make sure that we portray China's as much worse. Even if Japanese and Singaporean companies do business in Burma, we have to assure that the only country associated with doing business with Burma is China. The same with Sudan: do we ever hear about Malaysian oil investments in that country? Or do we boycott Malaysia for playing footsies with Khartoum?
We need China to be "terrible" — in Tibet and elsewhere — because we don't want to be the only ones defined as oppressors, as colonialists: we need to convince the world (and ourselves) that China is part of the club. So that we can say, as we always did, that brutality is common to all men, no matter what culture they belong to, no matter what economic system is ruling their lives. If Chinese foreign policy is not as terrible as ours, we have to make sure that we make it look like it is. Otherwise, what would justify our star wars and surveillance measures?
What would justify the slaughter of millions in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Algiers, East Timor, Papua, Nicaragua, Salvador, Chile, and Dominican Republic and in so many other places? Tibet is our new hope.
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What exactly is this article arguing? That because the mythical ‘West’ puts up with this long list of other atrocities, that we should also put up with the atrocities in Tibet? That because the previous government invaded Iraq, we who protested against this at the time should now shut up about Tibet because we’re guilty of some monolithic ‘Western’ conspiracy?
It’s all very well to criticise ‘Western’ hypocrisy, but it isn’t very productive.
Firstly, you will find that the attitude of ‘Western’ governments to Tibet are pretty much identical to West Papua etc. They aren’t keen on independence movements anywhere - and it should be no surprise therefore that the DL does not demand independence. It’s one of the reasons he is tolerated.
It is true that the DL and Tibetan cause is somewhat more popular amongst the ‘Western’ populations (as opposed to govts) than many other equally legitimate causes. But this has little to do with ‘the need for China to be worse’ and everything, quite frankly, to do with the efforts of the DL, Tibetans and their supporters over the last 50 years to win the public debate in these countries.
Also, many of the people who support Tibetan autonomy are probably also the same people who went out and protested at the atrocities in Burma recently, and who would support any human rights cause. But they are only human and have energy to focus on one or other at a time. If, when they march for Tibet one day, you scream at them to remember West Papua, you’re not going to help the cause of either.
But clearly when one wins, it provides hope for the other. And the Olympic flame clearly provides an opportunity to focus on China. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s just plain strategy.
Fortunately, there are some journalists courageous enough to take a balanced view and acknowledge the hypocrisy of the not so mythical "west". Maybe what this article is suggesting is that if we can face our own considerable shortcomings we would not be seen as so arrogant, one-sided and, yes, hypocritical by most of the rest of the world in the causes we choose to support. We don’t need to claim the high moral ground in order to protest our principles, but surely we should not be wading up to our bellicose waists through criminal, bloody wars and invasions of our own making. Maybe then our voice would have some bearing.
Andre Vitchek, I reckon you are just so right! Unfortunately!
The human race is bathed in blood from the very beginnings, and just seems to be getting worse now, day by day, as thuggish Governments are given money and guns to slaughter their own citizens, so long as they give some degree of advantage to the United States of America, Britain, France, Belgium and so many other (now including Australia) countries that swap resources for looking the other way and handing out munitions. I have always railed against the almost supine allowances we Australians, from Whitlam on, give to the horrible depredations of the Indonesians. I am still wondering WHY??? No one can give me an answer! Are we so really scared of their millions of people flooding down here and taking over or something? in reality, us laying down supinely and giving them every encouragement to slaughter, rape and pillage places like Timor, Papua, and other islands long ‘integrated’ into the Indonesian archipelago, is not gong to stop them if that is what they intend. Has no one every heard of ‘face’? One of the major reasons why our Diggers were so badly treated by the Japanese in POW camps etc. was that they had actually surrendered!!! Our people had lost ‘face’ by doing so. Groveling to the Indonesians and the Chinese and the Thais and all of the rest of them is NOT going to get us anywhere.
And I now read that the reason the Police came down so hard on ‘protesters’ in Canberra, but only Anti-Chinese ones, was that we wanted to SAVE CHINA ANY EMBARRASSMENT, and assault and battery of pro-Tibet and pro-other downtrodden peoples, under assault from China at home and abroad, by those Rent-A-Crowd Chinese students bussed in (by China) to totally drown out the anti-Chinese protesters, seems to have gone ahead without any action by ACT Police. We allowed armed Chinese Security to enter OUR Parliament under Howard, and now we allow Canberra to be taken over by the Chinese, TO AVOID ANY CHINESE EMBARRASSMENT, by Rudd and Co.
When are we going to get sick of gravel-rashing our bellies crawling to Indonesians, Chinese, Yanks, and be a bit more like little Kiwi Land which seems to have gumption far beyond it’s relative size. It is very hard, if not impossible, for me to be proud of being an Australian. For being a member of the Human race, for that matter.
Dazza.
I’m not so sure that all, all, all is lost, Dazza. There are excuses yet to retreat to our mountain tops and bay at the world.
So what do we do about oppression and exploitation and imperiliasm wherever we find it ?
1. Demonstrations against the abuse of an ostensibly non-political event like the Olympics for political purposes of chauvinism and ultra-nationalism;
2. Boycotts of goods from oppressive systems;
3. Campaigns for sanctions against oppressive and authoritarian regimes;
4. Counter-information campaigns;
5. Certainly, welcoming refugees from oppressive systems;
6. Keep drawing the attention of highly intelligent people such as New Matilda readers to unfinished business.
In a way, China shot itself in the foot by bringing in busloads of pro-Chinese demonstrators, by demonstrating to the world the very point that their numbers are swamping Tibetans, not to mention the simple fact that, from a human rights perspective, it is up to Tibetans to say yes or no about Chinese control: imagine if the British government had tried to organise massive pro-Empire demonstrations against Irish self-rule in the first twenty years of last century. Oops, I think they did. Which is probably why Irish soldiers after WWI marched under the Australian flag rather than the British one. That thought makes me proud, both as an Aussie and as an Irish-Australian !
See, Dazza, life is not all doom and gloom !
Joe
Sorry, I meant ‘there are NO excuses .. ‘
Excellent article Andre Vltchek.
I endorse the Amnesty Internatonal statement on human rights and Tibet to the UN Human Rights Council that crucially expressed concerns and asked for independent international access and scrutiny (see:
http://action.amnesty.org.au/news/comments/11342/)
However Australia is the LAST country to point the finger at China over human rights.
Thus NOT reported in lying, racist, Bush-ite Australian Mainstream media, but reported by the Shanghai Daily (see: http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2008/200804/20080417/article_356… ): "
The most fundamental human right is the right to life.
According to data from the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the UN Population Division, China has made huge advances in dramatically reducing the mortality rate and infant mortality rate in both the Tibet Autonomous Region and in China as a whole, and to similar levels.
Thus the ”annual under-five-year-old infant death rate" is about the same (about 0.6 percent) in Tibet and China as a whole as compared to 6.2 percent for US- and Australia-occupied Afghanistan, 0.12 percent for occupier Australia and 0.16 percent for occupier United States.
The annual infant death rate in occupied Afghanistan (6.2 percent) is 51 times that in occupier Australia, 38 times that in occupier US and similar to the ”annual death rate" of 10.2 percent for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese in World War II - a war crime for which key Japanese leaders were tried and hanged."
Indeed I have made a Formal Complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over Australian involvement in Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess deaths over 11 Coalition years), Iraqi Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 2 million), Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths) and Climate Genocide ( increasingly biofuel- and climate-impacted 16 million avoidable deaths annually with Australia the world’s worst per capita greenhouse gas polluter and looking to stay that way under the evidently Coal-beholden, Bush-beholden Rudd Labor Government) (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/ ).
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
I agree whole heartedly, with your opinion. We, in the west, can be a sanctimonious lot. I was pleased to watch the olympic torch but could hardly believe the articles written of - ‘thousands of protestors’. This phrase or something akin to it was everywhere. Our newspapers are corrupted. This world saddens me - it is as if when Bush was elected something was let out, and that something was not a GOOD thing.
Yes, there are so many evil forces in the world today, some of them at each others’ throats like cats in a bag:
* the US
* China
* corrupt regimes like Russia, most of Africa, the ‘Middle East’
* incompetent regimes like in India
* al Qaida (in its own right, and as a puppet of the CIA)
* our own corrupt middle and upper classes
* our own right-wing working classes
* everything and everybody else.
You know, Dazza, you might be onto something. So, as long as we can drag the stinking carcase of one of the above across any other complaint, we can’t criticise anybody or any regime. At least, that’s an interesting logical loop to get trapped in. Sorry, I don’t go along with it. Tell it like it is, where it is. Including China’s imperialism. Whatever others may do, what China is doing is imperialist and evil, out of time with history, and a blot on human rights. But we all know that already.
Joe
Oh Gawd. You amigo are getting are getting very punchy in the morality stakes. Your litany of horrors is a recipe for confusion.
The clues are in the framework of the argument. But let me go to the main reason you’ve got it wrong this time (though no doubt right about everything else crappy about western moral compass): China got the gig on the basis of engagement on human rights. They accepted the rules of engagement - highlighting human rights and lack of democracy as part and parcel of the handshoke to get the IOC Inc business, enriching China Inc too.
So all these undoubted disasters are no doubt real but as I said on a crikey.com.au thread - a fishing net of red herrings. A woman there saying Palestine prevents us sledging the China Peoples Police? I don’t think so champ.
First paragraph, first howler. Oldest continuous civilisation? Get real. It’s the Australian Aborigines last time I looked at my pop anthropology cupboard. 40-80K heritage man. Didn’t you see the GG with his core at the 2020.
Not the Chinese/Han civilisation.
Big clue as to their posturing here: You know I dropped into the local Tibetan culture shop in Marrickville. The guy told me the Panda Bear is actually from the Tibetan speaking areas of ‘Mother China’. So I looked up Wikipedia - yep the national symbol of China was till last few decades the dragon, not the panda. It’s been co opted. And how dumb are we westerners? Take a look at the front cover with the ‘Chinese panda’ of the quality Australian Financial Review today. Sucked in! China Inc pulls off another phoney PR gambit
But I did like your intro tease referring to "assuage", such a nice word far too neglected. Reminds me of my 4th form Latin classes for some reason. Only 250-500,000 marched against Howard (but also Costello and Nelson’s) disasterous "neo colonial" war in Iraq. To suggest ‘we’ marchers ought feel any guilt on that one - well that’s plain wrong. I know, I know it’s a literary device to get us in, and it resonates at a national focus level, but that’s hardly the New Matilda readership.
You or some readers might be masochistic self haters. But me, and many others it was all ‘Not in My Name’ I have a ‘2004 NYC Republican Convention - I SAY NO’ placard stuck on my filing cabinet to remind me.
My advice stay off the jungle juice man and you won’t get so depressed. It works for me.
Sorry about the numerous typos above, "handshoke" was notable. Also was trying to refer to the vaporous "ice core" that the GG had on the stage with him at the GG opening speech.
Anyhoo, what I reckon would be wise, and smart strategy would be to HARNESS the heightened awareness over Tibet human rights to leverage greater interest and involvement generally including closer to home like … West Papua would be my choice too.
Took a walk alone up the Kokoda Track in 1990 (with due malaria) and reckon they are lovely people there in so many cases on either side of the border who deserve every support.
In conclusion as an activist back to 1992 I’ve pretty much learned taking action is guided by tactical opportunity as well as underlying constancy and consistency of principle. That’s real life champ. Otherwise we would be frozen by despair.
So when we demonstrate on behalf of Tibetan rights, we should wave stuffed pandas and make sure they get on the TV. Seriously. Pandas are Tibetan. That would take some of the arrogance out of the Chinese rent-a-crowd, and get across to viewers that Tibet is not just some out-of-the-way tiny part of Asia with nothing but a few mountains and Buddhist monks.
In fact, note how the Chinese government is also trying to co-opt Mt Jolmo Lungma (Everest) as a Chinese symbol - they probably intended to give it a Han name. And will there be a Tibetan runner carrying the torch up the mountain ? Any Tibetans at all carrying the torch ? Or will the torch be flown into and away from Mt Jolmo Lungma by helicopter, to and from Chengdu ?
Running the torch relay through Lhasa - I’d like to see that !
Joe
Andre Vltchek, thanks for a wonderful article.
Dr Polya, yours is a truly thought provoking contribution and Tom, what a rant! It annoys me that Tom’s observations are mostly accurate, albeit a little out of context, but hey, thanks Tom for saving me the bother of posting my own little rant along very similar lines.
I don’t feel quite the social reprobate any longer.
Soon it might even be safe for Newmatilda to come right out of the closet and start to publish authors who warn us of the true agendas behind most of these peculiar global events which we, the common plebiscitum, so unsuccessfully struggle with every day!
We all know the mainstream media certainly won’t.
Thanks NM,
Hi George,
Do you mean, for example, China’s ‘true agenda’ in staging the Beijing Olympics ? Hey, if the Nazis could get mileage, influence, legitimacy, out of ‘their’ Olympics, why not the Chinese ?
Cheers,
Joe
It doesn’t matter what political system a country has or claims to have, all they have to do is play ball with the multinational companies to make a quid and then they’re instantly good guys. Greg Palast didn’t call one of his books "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" without reason. Trade is more valued than democracy.
Follow the money, rights come a distant second.
Not only that Graeme but the same observations are easily found right across the globe in dosages too obvious to ignore and yet entirely glossed over by every media outlet associated with big business which, in Australia’s case, is as good as 100% of our media.
After Palast’s book Graeme you may want to read this from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:-
http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=20002…
"Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making" by David Rothkopf, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
See this recent article in a German website:- > http://www.radio-utopie.de/2008/04/24/der-eu-vertrag-illegal-nichtig-nic…
Although it is a German site, you will find an interesting video presentation in English
- Go Hezbo! Yay the Irish!
Or try this:- http://www.eudemocrats.org/23/article/76/
And so the same thumbprint is seen in every corner of the world.
Clearly somebody does not believe that we, the scruffy dumb working class plebiscites of the world, should have much say over our governments nor should we rely on an independent judiciary as the sole authority to judge our rights which is why we are thrown this cauldron of Red Herrings too big and too tough to chew on, and as we argue over this sick Bouillabaise, Le Grandes Chefs du Monde change the world without consensus right under our stupid distracted noses.
I put it to you that before we can think of saving the Tibetans or the Palestinians, or the Gazans, or the Sudanese that we should seriously consider the very real prospect of saving ourselves first!!
George Vickers
Hi George,
I don’t know about you but I think I can walk and chew at the same time: there is no either/or in terms of human rights - indirectly, an advance in the human rights of one group (Palestinians, Sudanese, Togolese, Tibetans) is a step forward in the human rights of all of us: it isn’t a zero-sum, win-lose game. Improving the democratic rights for Tibetans is a step in the right direction for all other groups, surely ?
But perhaps you’ve shown us something about saving ourselves first: perhaps, as you imply, we would do well to remember, as we sit back in our ergonomic chairs, sipping our Traminer-Chardonnay (2004, not a bad year), after an excellent Marinara at the best local restaurant, that the people of Darfur, in their tattered, wind-swept tents, living always with the threat of murderers and rapists appearing over the hill, scrabbling for water and scarce rations, don’t have it so bad compared to some. Is this what the Left has come down to - look after yourselves first and foremost ? Shame, George.
Joe
What a pointless article.
"We need China to be "terrible" — in Tibet and elsewhere — because we don’t want to be the only ones defined as oppressors, as colonialists: we need to convince the world (and ourselves) that China is part of the club."
Only one thing can be inferred from this statement: the author thinks ‘we’ are all neurotic. That ‘we’ all suffer from the active repression of historical hypocrisy.
Well done to those well-adjusted types (Tom and apaul) for picking this up in your own way.
This year, the Olympics present a fantastic opportunity to expose, if only briefly, the reality of contemporary China: a state that easily takes first place as one of the most despotic, opportunistic, exploitative, and corrupt regimes around. A purer form of fascism than that which exists in present day China is hard to find.
‘We’ should feel guilty for exposing this regime because other governments (including our own) have displayed similar tendencies? Smells like snow job to me. At least I hope it is, because it would harder to believe that this kind sentiment was actually genuine.
What a pointless article.
I think this artilce is good, because it is raising questions that are usually too difficult to answer and exposes the double standard and hypcricy not only of Western Govt. (which we already know) but many so called ‘liberal’ thinkers in the west.
The most disgusting and also amusing thing during the whole ‘ban the torch realy.boyciott the olympics’ debate is no one actually demanding serious sanctions such as Australia no longer exporting a great deal of raw materials, fuel etc to China and us not importing their products. I didnt hear one person demand that from the Rudd Govt. and no one that found the fact that China was given the olympics so wrong, questioned our govts trade dealins with China.
And no one is questioning the Dalai lama, whether he actually represents a truely free form of govt, or will he replace communist buerocracy with buddhist theocracy?
The history of Tibet and its previous rulers (the monks,lamas etc) needs to me questioned too, and ppl who are quick to argue the Tibets should have the ‘right’ to be governeed by an unelected man-god, wouldnt accept the same rule by the pop or an ayatollah in a muslim country. The dalai lama’s history with the CIA also needs to be examined.
I think many times the real ‘liberation’ forces in all these oppressed regions around the world are ignored if they are TRULEY autonomous and democratic. not only are they let down by the govt that oppress them, and the govt that support their opressors, but alos byfake, corrupt and complicit leadership and ppl in the west who support certain figures as though they speak for everyone in an oppressed region.
We need to keep questioning those that try and wipe the bloods off their hands by wiping them on another countries back. And China could rightfully tell Rudd to have a look at one of his countries territories for an exapmle of oppresing a indeginous peoples right to autonomous existence.
I guess in the end its governemnts and hierachal forms of governing that are destined to oppress anyone necessasry, and all these politicians have more in common with each other than their ppl.
apologies for the typos. My keyboard is nearly obsolete. Just another note I forgot to add in my rambling rant… The whole idea that the Olympics is some sacred genuine human endevour that represents the best of us is a sick joke. To be honest no country embodies the ‘olympic spirit’ more thatn China.
A movement that was begun by eurpoean elitist and aristocrats, and embraced and taken over by CERTIFIED facist, has NO principals or morals. I’m sick of the aveagre aussie talking about the olympics as if they have ever done anything great for the world.
Any athlete, country or person competing or supporting the Olympics ANYWHERE is wrong, confused or a supporter of oppression and elitism.
Wow, Surdo, so many red herrings that I’ll have indigestion for a week - I only hope that the chilis were not too strong, otherwise I’ll also have to put up with the ring of fire as well.
1. Whatever crimes China, or the US, or Britain, or al Qaida, or Australia commits, should be condemned for the crimes they are. But the crimes of one can’t be used to excuse those of another, and to crush dissent.
2. How Tibet is to be ruled is the business of Tibetans, not yours or mine. Whether this turns out to be a brutal bloodthirsty theocratic-feudal dictatorship, as the Chinese have been fond of claiming for at least fifty years, or a mild Buddhist autocracy, is up to the people of Tibet. Perhaps a plebiscite could be held under UN auspices ? Perhaps the question to the Tibetan people could be something like:
‘Do you wish for Tibet to remain part of China ? If so, as part of a federation with China (or some other country), or as an autonomous region (under central Chinese authority), or as a province of China ?’
Joe
The Olympics are irrelevant, as are the historical hypocrisies of the "the West."
Here are some straight forward questions that the Australian government could ask of this years’ Olympic host without feeling too guilty:
How many state sanctioned executions were carried out in Australia last year? How many were carried out in China?
How many people were forcibly dislocated from their homes (without any compensation) in order to make way for high-end development in Australia last year? And in China?
How many Australian citizens were imprisoned by their government for expressing dissent last year? How many Chinese citizens?
How many Australians are forced to subsist in an overtly toxic environment without any access to clean water or air so that multinational companies can make a buck? (Sorry to the folks in Broken Hill and Mount Isa but the industrial parks of China make your towns seem like Pleasantville.)
Nope, no hypocrisy here. No guilt to assuage. Just the actions of fascist Chinese state.
P.S
Forum dwellers may do well to reflect on Lawrence Britts’ 14 points of fascism:
http://www.favreau.info/misc/14-points-fascism.php
No, I don’t think the Olympics are irrelevant: they have an enormously positive role to play. But in a recent article in The Australian, Barry Cohen suggested that the IOC choose only countries which have a more or less good record on human rights to host the Games. This may force countries like China, with a very poor human rights record, to lift their game if they want the privilege of taking them on. In other words, only countries with good human rights records would have the right to gain any kudos flowing from the Games. Sounds good to me.
And the comparisons which Bob makes so admirably are precisely relevant in Barry Cohen’s argument.
Joe
How many state sanctioned executions? Well Bob, at the last count our state sanctioned complicity and direct involvement with the murder of over 1 million Iraqis and Afghans is fairly well known, a much worse record than China’s hey Bob?
How many people were dislocated from their homes? The last count done by Amnesty for which Australia shares complicity was somewhere in excess of 4 million Bob.
How many Australians were forced to subsist in an overly toxic environemnt? Well, given that our contribution to the toxicity of the global environemnt is arguably the highest in the world per capita I don’t think that question is seriously something you really want anybody to answer Bob.
While you’re at it Bob, you may want to ask which country boasts the highest extinction rate for mammals in the world today and if you continue to ask questions of this nature the log in Australia’s eye tends to grow forever, but we’ll confine the list of questions for the sake of brevity and not mention children overboard, termination of liberties guaranteed since the Magna Carta, the consent to torture and other crimes defined by the Geneva convention by our allies with our direct participation and consent.
Fascism? Apart (arguably) from points 5, 8 and 14 of Britts’ list we don’t do too badly for a qualification cum laude ourselves.
Somehow I think it’s all lost on you though Bob, after all, Laurence Britts’ "national pride" comes so much easier than guilt and shame hey Bob?
How far can you stretch an elastic band ? It depends how hard you pull, hey George ?
How far? Don’t you think that depends on how far you can stretch prejudice and hypocrisy Joe?
Sorry, George, prejudice against what or whom ? And hypocrisy is never served well by hyperbole.
I thought my questions were pretty specific, but I guess I was wrong.
I thought I asked how many state sanctioned executions were undertaken IN Australia. According to Rockjaw, Iraq now constitutes part of Australian territory (if so, perhaps we could name the the new electorate of ‘Gone-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket.’ I wonder if they would vote Labor?)
In my travels around Australia last year I must have missed the four million internal refugees Rockjaw has made reference too. None of my friends at Amnesty International thought it pertinent to draw my attention to it either.
My question regarding toxicity is debatable (I kind of alluded to that after I made it) and I welcome such a discussion.
As for the mammals: that’s only a valid point if you can provide the Chinese records on extinction for comparison?
The ‘log in the collective Australian eye’? Now whose thinking in terms of national pride… I think even the originator of that euphemism limited its use to individuals.
Forgive my ignorance, George, but I took it that the great majority of Iraqis and Afghanis who have died violently since 2001 have been killed at the hands of the CIA puppets, al Qaida and Taliban, with others murdered by supporters of Moqtada al-Sada and assorted pro-Baathite groups. Certainly, US troops (and perhaps the Australians as well, but we would need some evidence) have been guilty of many murders, but perhaps not in the millions.
And didn’t conservationists just concede that the Yangtse River dolphin had become extinct ? And the Tibetan panda is very close to extinction due to land clearing sanctioned by the Chinese people’s state.
I suppose we can always pretend to make a case by massively over-stating it: I could rabbit on about ‘the hundreds of thousands of Aboriginal people brutally murdered and raped and shot and beaten, and then herded into missions by the thousands by brutal missionaries who ripped their tongues out to stop them speaking the hated Indigenous languages and forcing them to work for feudal pastoralists (who had paid nothing for the land that they had stolen) for scraps of bread and pannicans of dirty water etc. etc.’ Hey, it’s quite easy, and you don’t have to prove anything ! Let emotion do the talking ! Thanks, George.
Cheers,
Joe
Bob, your argument holds no water, but I suspect you already know this.
Australia represents an invading and occupying force and the areas which it occupies as well as the population living in those occupied territories are the responsibility of Australia so don’t wax lyrical with the concept that our participation in a genocide is defensible because it was committed against foreigners in foreign territories under Australia’s direct control.
Actually, as you will gather from the Nurembourg trials (prosecuted with the direct participation of Australia) occupied territories represent a greater responsibility to the occupying nation than the national territories of the occupying nation itself.
It is also interesting to note that the Nurembourg trials recognised the culpability of civilian citizens of an occupying force and that ignorance or action under orders or threat were not considered a defence.
How would you be judged under those same laws Bob if, for example, the USA and UK military complex collapsed in an emasculated heap and China and Russia judged our Iraq and Afghan invasions under precisely the same laws which we used at the Nurembourg trials to prosecute the Nazis?
Subsequent international laws which have since evolved from those trials (with Australia’s direct participation) and to which Australia became a signatory have bound this nation (and it’s citizens) to those laws.
Since the above clearly exceeds your cognitive abilities Bob, let me assist you with the thought that it would make no difference to my culpability if I were to murder you in your own back yard or if I were to murder you in your neighbour’s yard. Contrary to your rather weak argument the fact that I have murdered nobody in my own back yard makes absolutely no difference to the crime whatsoever.
This really is lost on you isn’t it Bob?
George
Russia judging US actions in Iraq and Afghanistan ? I thought that any international war crimes commission would not be beholden to any particular power, but that if anything, Russia may have something to tell a commission it about its thirteen years in Afghanistan.
Guilt by association: People are dying in Iraq. US and Australian troops are in Iraq. Therefore US and Australian troops are guilty, jointly and severally, for each death. Therefore each US soldier and each Australian soldier is guilty of the murder of each and every Iraqi. Therefore every Australian has as good as planned, executed, and celebrated every murder in Iraq.
It has a certain logic to it, but I don’t think it would get much of a run at an IWCC.
And Rockjaw’s conclusion - that therefore China is no worse than Australia, on those grounds - is perhaps drawing a long bow.
We need China to be terribly good at making cheap disposable crap for us to gorge on, in Tibet and elsewhere — because we don’t want to have native manufacturing industries. "As colonialists, we need to convince the world" (and our population) that Banking is the true creator of wealth. China is part of that club, it provides the cheap labour that increases the margins on loans made to industrial corporations. "We can say, as we always did (have), that brutality is common to all men, no matter what culture they belong to, no matter what economic system is ruling their lives". If it is our economic system, then all the better. That way we can point to conditions, and like a self fulfilling prophecy, imply that all human life is governed by rational action. In China this rational action leads from a life that is poor, nasty, brutish, and short. How wonderful that those words are still true, somewhere. We need China, like the Olympic flame, to light the way to our fascist hearts. In an orgy of celebration, surrounded by plasma screens, we need to embrace difference, and then exterminate it. Imagine, if Thorpy was Chinese the fatherland could have given him a ‘new’ heart. This to go with his undies, which we can already thank China for. Finally we need the Olympics. Imagine how many medals Australia would win if we had China’s population. ALL OF THEM. HOW GOOD ARE WE. And if the Dali Lama has a problem with China he should take it up with him on the field. Remember, what goes on on the field, stays on the field. Is it somewhat ironic that the present day Olympics, a glorification of the global fascist financial complex, began as a celebration in one small, but significant fascist state? Or, was the kernel of our present day already sown, and the Nazis just bloomed out of season? Really, what we need China for is to show us what an advanced, real ‘living and breathing’ fascist state looks like. This way we can hold our government accountable to the job that they are elected to do, govern for all. Don’t point to China as a vindication of what the west does, or has done. Point to china as a bellwether of things to come if we continue to embrace the orgy that the Olympics represents, with our eyes closed.
Onya George!
The nexus between Australian troop presence in Iraq and the genocide taking place in that country is indeed a difficult one for some to grasp from the safety of their cute little urban Australian homes.
Picking up on your comment about Nurembourg, it reminds me of the citizens of the various towns a mere stone’s throw from Nazi death camps who protested their ignorance and disbelief at the incredible atrocities which took place right under their apathetic noses and so close to their own safe cute little urban German homes.
As you so rightly point out, today it is we who are guilty of those same crimes we prosecuted the Nazis for only 60 years ago.
In the modern world there is no morality or outrage, there is only power, and humanity can be divided into two groups, those who seek power at all costs and those too meek and timid to resist.
It is my interpretation of Andre Vltchek’s article that we are the mild and timid who are eager point out China’s very real flaws but to little effect because we lack the moral foritude and courage to bring our own thugs in power to task for their crimes against humanity.
Rogerio
Okay, Rogerio, as someone guilty of war crimes of the most heinous sort, give yourself up to the War Crimes Tribunal: we’ll try to find a good defence lawyer for you. Huff and puffery !
Many of us marched against the war against Iraq: how can we be guilty ? Apart from the Australian soldiers who have actully killed or mistreated any Iraqis, how are they guilty of war crimes ? God, it rolls off the tongue so easily, to accuse someone (or all of us) of terrible crimes, it allows us to launch blanket arguments (We’re/You’re all guilty ! There’s nothing anyone can do! Anyway, China is no worse ! etc. etc.) which save us from thinking through the finer points of arguments.
Apart from the Iraqis murdered by al Qaida, Moqtada, sundry other criminal groups, US troops, ‘contractors’, how many Iraqis have Australian troops killed ? Certainly, some - a group of innocent people in the street last year. But how many are we guilty of ?
And, even if it were true, would this absolve the Chinese from their executions, their female infanticide, their torturing and killing of ethnic dissidents, their millions in lao-gai ? Should we be silent about China, just because terrible crimes have been committed in our name ? No. This is the most contemptible opportunism.
Joe
George and fellow neurotics,
Firstly, you have no premise on which to judge my cognitive abilities so there is no need to deviate from my point if you are not certain about you own.
Secondly, to employ a rhetorical slight of hand myself: the moral purity of the Nuremburg trials George? What reality are you living in?
If I may be so bold as to suggest that you take off your rose coloured glasses for a moment and come to terms with the following reality. The Nuremburg trials (like the subsequent Tokyo War Crimes trials, and the antecedent ‘terms of peace’ dictated to Germany at the end of the First World War) only paid lip service to ‘higher principles’ like reciprocity and occupiers responsibility.
You seem to be implying that Nuremburg was a great moment in the reconciliation of ‘values’ and justice. I think that the reality of Nuremburg (Tokyo and Versailles) is something completely different: the vanquishing powers dictating the new rules to a powerless and disordered conglomerate of the vanquished. The rules of Nuremburg are articulated and applied in accordance with the specific desires of victors.
Power politics demands that the ‘rules’ be temporary and mailable. This is the reality. Higher moral principles have no place here, they are vacuous. Rigid principles are about as effective as the Easter Bunny.
However, we can ask questions that aren’t hypocritical. Just as we can (and do) make rules that are SPECIFIC. This is what we should be doing.
The ‘spirit’ of Nuremburg is irrelevant. We can’t ask that the US conduct itself according to the Nuremburg spirit in Iraq. That’s like asking the Easter bunny for eggs before Easter. Both end up in disappointment. Sure, if that makes you feel better then maybe you should look at why that is the case.
What we can do is ask pragmatic questions that not hypocritical precisely because they are LIMITED in their scope. For example we don’t blame the Easter bunny if we don’t get eggs. (We blame mum and dad). Likewise we don’t invoke Nuremburg (or some other kind of ‘rules of war’) when talking about Iraq, we look at the motives of the people that make the decisions on the ground there. (Why did you kill innocent civilians in this case? Why did you drop a bomb on this orphanage? Who authorized the torture of POW’s at this prison? Why? Etc. Etc.)
We simply cannot ask that China hold itself to a standard so high that we cannot ourselves live up to it. It is hypocritical. This is the premise of the above article, and I agree with it.
What I do not agree with is the justification of this premise. Asking lofty questions of China is not hypocritical because ‘our nation’ is run by idiots (that may well be the case, but that too is irrelevant). Its hypocritical because the standard is too high. However by limiting the scope of our questions, by making them specific we can actually take advantage of opportunities to ‘force’ an honest response.
The standard was not too high at Nuremburg (the victorious power was exempt from any meaningful reciprocity), and that’s why we had a Nuremburg (not because ‘we’ all thought ‘never again’).
So, just for you George, I’ll relate this to your example about the responsibility for murder. Indeed it would not make any difference if you were to murder me in your backyard or in mine. That’s because of the context. As taxpayers and willing members of this society we (I and you) expect that the state enforce this kind of territorial reciprocity. If I didn’t acknowledge the state’s rules, I may well think it is ‘worse’ if you kill me in my own backyard. I might feel the same way if your backyard were on Mars or in Malaysia. We (I and you) are not global taxpayers, and international agreements are no more binding than the Geneva Convention. I have no expectation of global reciprocity. The only expectation of reciprocity at the global level is in your head, George. This doesn’t make it real, although it may suggest something about the focus of your reading.
It is neurotic to want to control or impose and order on the world according to some kind of misguided understanding of justice. And by neurotic I mean the problem lies with defender of global justice not with the perpetrator of this justice. All people have the right to self determination and this is the only universal principle worth defending. Not reciprocity, not egalitarianism (its all pie-in-the-sky as far as I’m concerned and a sneeky way to manipulate people)
Bob, how well you rant! A peculiar blend of incoherence and convincing eloquence, despite which your post lacks both wisdom and substance.
It may please you or amuse you to learn that I do not doubt your cognitive abilities, merely the manner in which they are employed.
I won’t add much after both our lengthy posts, but I will indulge myself with the observation that if your assertion is correct that International Laws and "international agreements" are "no more binding than the Geneva Convention" well then Rogerio’s comment that "humanity can be divided into two groups, those who seek power at all costs and those too meek and timid to resist" is entirely correct.
Since your assertion is incorrect, however, I will also admit that your arguments are entirely lost on me because the rule of law is not the mere projection of "might is right". If it is, and if we continue to attempt to judge China, well then God help us for the criminals the law of "might is right" will make of us all one day when our moat, the US Military, runs completely dry.
Thanks George.
Ranting did feel good (at least whilst I was doing it). It is a shame that NM won’t pull the finger out an add an "edit function" so that at the very least my rants can become more coherent.
“the rule of law is not the mere projection of "might is right".” George, what is the rule of law then? Are we to assume that the rule of law is the function of some underlying essence that exists in all humans? If this was the case then we would all live in absolute harmony. I am sorry to break it to you, but no such thing exists. If you want to go back a favorite pet topic, lets look at Moses. He brought the ten commandments down off the mountain. They were given to him by GOD, who stands for all things true and ethical and right. See the connection, although it may not be explicit, but you can see that by invoking god as our creator he is alluding to an underlying essence to humanity to which these laws relate. BUT THERE IS NO DIRECT CONNECTION. Jump forward to your Geneva convention, the French revolution and the declaration of the rights of man. Once again, yet this time out of the enlightenment, people try to link the LAW with the highest moral authority (philosophy now) and to some essence underlying humanity. However it is just an invention, the law does not flow out of that essence. The law exists as a bridge to a concept, it is not the plane upon which that concept forms. Law is always an imposition of the powerful upon the powerless. It is always discursive. Your assertions just leave me to wonder, do you practice a form of fundamentalist humanism?
Ryip - well said but we can live in hope. Our behaviour is hard-wired through natural selection of DNA-composed Genes and through societally-transmitted and selected Memes (ideas).
We must still cling to the dream stated by Professor Richard Dawkins (Oxford University) in the last few sentences of his seminal book “The Selfish Gene” (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976; p213): "We have the power to defy the selfish genes [DNA] of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes [societally-transmitted ideas] of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators."
For huge painting-ILLUSTRATED discussion of related matters see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18122/42/ and http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17895/42/ .
Peace is the only way but Silence kills and Silence is complicity.
Haha, that last line should read “peace is the only way OUT”.
As far as I’m concerned Dawkins has still got it wrong. He sets up fundamental oppositions; to defy. It is not to defy by which we evolve, but to create. We need to create new structures; pathways. To absorb the old within a structure that circumvents the oppositions and rewires the neurosis. The conceptual plane to do this on already exists. The enlightenment, and Dawkins who appears to come out of this tradition put a break on this development. To quote Deleuze, sorry about the length
“Perhaps this is the supreme act of philosophy: not so much to think THE plane of immanence as to show it is there, unthought in every plane, and to think it in this way as the outside and inside of thought, as the not-external outside and the not-internal inside – that which cannot be thought yet must be thought, which was thought once, as Christ was incarnated once, in order to show that one time, the possibility of the impossible. Thus Spinoza is the Christ of philosophers, and the greatest philosophers are hardly more than apostles who distance themselves from, or draw near to this mystery. Spinoza, the infinite becoming – philosopher: he showed, drew up, and thought the “best” plane of immanence - that is, the purest, the one that does not hand itself over to the transcendent or restore any transcendent, the one that inspires the fewest illusions, bad feelings or erroneous perceptions”
Ryip,
"To quote Deleuze…"
Now we’re getting somewhere.
To my mind Dawkins embodies the hypocritical tradition of the Enlightenment. Don’t you judge (or impose distinctions), but I’ll judge (and impose distinctions). Dawkins is not hypocritical because he’s science is wrong (and it is) but he is hypocritical because he assumes he can be right. As you (Deleuze) have said the aim is not so much to think THE plane of immanence as to show it is there.
Dawkins, like Plato, like Hegel, like Frege and even Wittgenstein are too busy imposing pluralism to actually draw out the implications of there position.
They don’t want pluralism, they want purity. Dr Polya’s quote is a fantastic example of this. We can achieve (or even discuss) a pure altruism. Yeah right! Just like we could understand the mind of God (Hegel) or elevate our selves to absolute truth (Plato and Frege). The concepts of Platonic Truth and the Hegelian God (The Absolute) were also conceived of in there time as "something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed before in the whole history of the world."
Thanks again, ryip for directing the discussion to were it belongs.
‘We must cling to the dream’ of a global justice. No. I’m sorry Dr Polya, I will not drink the Kool-aid.
Well, that’s all right then, I’m sure the Tibetans and all justice-loving people down here in the real world will take comfort from these profound words.
Yes Joe - spot on. What is the cash value of all this high fallutin’ talk?
What it boils down to (if it can be boiled down): is dare to think! Think about thinking. Align what is thought inside with what is done outside. Think it through! Make radical the categorical imperative! This is the path to praxis.
Marx new it (he just thought you shouldn’t dwell on it). Dwelling means your not thinking it through. Dwelling means your not clear on what should be done. Dwelling means your ripe for the misdirected activity that comes from hope.
And whatever you do, don’t hope! If your hoping, you ain’t thinking, so you can’t possibly be doing!
Put theory into practice, yes, Bob, of course, praxis. So many thinkers/talkers/theorists have been awfully good at telling us to do this, but have been a bit light on the how side.
Putting it into practice is far harder than one might think, partly because it needs a life-change over a long period of time, during which you get older; I tried it for forty years in relation to Aboriginal self-determination, and I’m not sure how far I ever got.
I think I followed up on a theoretical path which didn’t actually exist in practice, politically-guided self-determination, back about 1973, then identified and tried another one, Indigenous tertiary education, in the early eighties which had more promise.
But it’s not so easy to put theory into practice, not just because of time (wasted, lost, ‘experienced’) but also because it takes a hell of a lot of time to realise that the feeling that you are not quite on the station is actually a sign that you are well off it, and by the time you realise this, many more years have gone by - plus the time it takes to back-track, to work out where to start again, to reconfigure oneself, as it were, in the context of the real world of paying bills and fixing the toilet.
But we have to keep trying :)
Joe