Did 'democratic' Boris Yeltsin pave the way for Putinism?

[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

Whilst recently leafing through the back issues of the now sadly defunct the eXile, I stumbled across this opinion piece by Eduard Limonov, leader of the banned Russian National Bolshevik party and all-round odd-ball, and was particularly struck by this passage:

What should I say? They have forgotten what mighty force are the people. They think they can manipulate our political system and our lives. A small group of comrades from St. Petersburg, untalented and unconvincing small men, following the luck of one of their own. They think they are our masters. But they have been picked up by the most hated figure in Russian history, by Boris Yeltsin. It was no miracle whatsoever. They were just picked up, not arriving at the top of Russian society by the force of mind and talent, no.

Is this true? To what degree does Russia's current generation of leaders owe their positions to Boris Yeltsin, "the most hated figure in Russian history"? Has the Putin era been a continuation of the Yeltsin era but with higher-priced oil? Is the narrative offered by writers like Michael McFaul of a "democratic rollback" under Putin as compared to Yeltsin simply wrong?

Boris Yeltsin came to power in the wake of the failed August coup of 1991. Whilst Russia's economic performance during the nineties was lamentable, the degree to which Yeltsin could have done anything to prevent this considering the inevitable turmoil of the post-Soviet space is debatable, although the general consensus is that what was done in the way of economic policy was an utter failure. What we may be much more sure of is Yeltsin's record as a democrat, and what we see is that it was dubious in the extreme. From the secret dealings involved in the break-up of the Soviet Union, to the assumption of unconstitutional powers to push through economic reform, to the use of military force to destroy both his opponents in the Russian White House and in Chechnya, to his alleged rigging of the 1996 election, to his final act of anointing his successor, there was little sign of any deep commitment to democracy. For each of Putin's acts of autocracy there appears to have been an equivalent, if less effective or decisive act by Yeltsin. The main difference between Yeltsin and Putin seems to have been the relative efficiency and effectiveness of the latter, who also benefited from ruling over a country where expectations had become very low indeed. Far from 'rollback' of democracy, what we have seen is entrenchment of autocracy.

Taiwan Expats and the Saigon Syndrome

[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

It doesn't necessarily involve helicopters flying off the roof or embassies under siege, but the Saigon Syndrome is a real phenomenon: it strikes when people become so invested in a person or faction that seemingly was on the rise but which subsequently failed, and they simply cannot admit that their initial decision to back them was wrong. Instead of backing out like they should, they throw bad money after good, adopt the most ridiculous positions, endorse the most reprehensible characters, and generally make damned fools of themselves. In the end the tangible outcome is the same but the loss of face far greater then necessary - and made worse much worse by the refusal to admit it.

Two big examples of this syndrome have recently come into view. The first are the backers of a certain ex-mayor and now ex-governor. Sarah Palin may have come within touching distance of the White House last year, but if she hasn't imploded in the meantime, she has now. Any further boosting of such an unpopular and incoherent woman is bound to wasted effort, but this doesn't stop people trying. So here we have British-born American commentator Tony Blankley trying to boost a clearly lost cause:

"last weekend, the professionals were sneering confidently that Palin had made a fatal mistake by giving up the governorship of Alaska because everyone knows that an aspiring candidate for higher office clings to his or her current office while running for the next one.

Well, I'm not so sure that being an incumbent is an advantage if the world seems to be going to hell and government is seen to be at least part of the cause for that journey. And though many conventional politicians might be seen as quitters if they resigned their offices, I have a very strong hunch that Sarah Palin is constitutionally incapable of being seen as a quitter. Because she is not. She constantly is taking on the biggest challenge on her horizon."

That's right, Sarah Palin is just 'misunderstood', and someone who quit the position they were elected to is not a quitter because, hell's bells son, they ain't no quitter. This joke is going to roll on right up to the point when Palin loses the Republican nomination to someone who actually knows what they are talking about, and it's going to be fun to watch.

It seems that this syndrome has also struck the English-language Taiwan blogs of late (see, that was a great segue there) where people who really ought to know better have been forced into the most ridiculous of positions by their support for a lost cause. Having been swept from power by a landslide election result, Taiwan's vaguely pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party looks set for more electoral woe. As if this weren't enough former DPP president Chen Shui-Bian is currently in rotting in jail due to his alleged involvement in a money laundering scam for which his daughter, son, and son in law have already pleaded guilty as accessories. You would think that all of this would be enough to give the usually maniacally pro-pan-green (i.e., independence-centric parties) Taiwan bloggerati pause for thought. I mean, why exactly is it that people who are most probably more sympathetic to assertively Taiwanese politicians are abandoning the DPP for the pro-reunification KMT? However, you'd be wrong.

No, instead the last year has seen the most amazingly paranoid declarations from otherwise sane individuals. In this piece, for example, Taiwan blogger A-Gu all-but called for a revolt against Taiwan's elected government, and compared the current situation to that in Iran. When not trying to make excuses for racial discrimination, Taiwan blogger Michael Turton has been making comparisons between the current KMT government and Stalin. Even Taipei Times columnist J. Michael Cole has declared Taiwan a "Democracy in peril", apparently as a result of its elections.

Particular odium has centred around the KMT-backed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement with the PRC. Despite the lack of any evidence of the agreement extending beyond the economic sphere, it has been labelled an attempt at 'anschluss'. An often-referenced narrative is of a secret agreement between the KMT and the Chinese communists to annex Taiwan to the mainland, needless to say that there is no actual evidence of any such agreement. The truth is, I'm afraid, much more banal. Whilst the KMT certainly favours re-unification, it stands as little chance of achieving it as the the DPP did of successfully achieving independence. Essentially the requirement under the constitution for a 50% quorate referendum before any significant constitutional change can be carried out renders any such move incredibly vulnerable to a boycott of the referendum by one side. Moreover Ma has repeatedly forsworn any such move whilst the Chinese mainland remains undemocratic. Paranoia is not the way to appeal to the Taiwanese people, and the DPP will remain in the political wilderness until this is realised.

29th

Take it easy, there's whisky in the Jar-o . . .

Rebiya Kadeer and the irrelevence of exile

[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

The line on the Xinjiang disturbances from the Chinese government, whilst initially dabbling with a condemnation of terrorism, has coalesced around the narrative of 'foreign forces' interfering with China and the 'three evils' of 'separatism', 'extremism' and 'terrorism', just as it did after last year's riots in Tibet. Just as with last year's events 'evidence' has been produced showing how the entire thing was organised by the World Uyghur Congress, of which Rebiya Kadeer, an exiled Uyghur businesswoman, is the head. The evidence produced so far would seem to point to the WUC having communicated with people in Xinjiang before the initial demonstrations and encouraged them. Whilst I'm sure this will convince a lot of people in China, at least to the extent that the government can convince people of anything, there is an obvious difference between 'demonstrations' and 'violent riots leading to the deaths of innocent people' , more to the point, large scale demonstrations (such as in 1997) have taken place without any foreign involvement whatsoever.

In fact, there's good reason to doubt that exiled movements can have that much of an impact on circumstances within a dictatorship. Whilst the Tibetan devotees of lamaist Buddhism continue to follow and obey the current Dalai Lama, he owes much of his influence (as did Khomeini pre-1979) on his position as a religious leader. In contrast, the student leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen protests are nowadays either unknown or largely reviled within China. When ethnic-Uyghur 1989 student leader and "China's second most wanted" Wu'er Kaixi (for some reason he prefers to use his Uighur name as transcribed in Chinese characters) attempted to return to the mainland last year he was refused entry. Some might ascribe this to the desire to avoid giving him a public platform or to avoid an open breach with Taiwan where he has now taken up citizenship, but given the way such trials take place in secret another explanation presents itself - that he is more useful to the Chinese authorities where he is.

It is exceedingly easy for a dictatorial government to smear a person as being a foreign puppet when their first move on being pushed into exile is to go directly to a country which is a hated enemy and rely on funding from either the government of that country or from an NGO (such as the NED) which may or may not receive government funding, and provides grist to the mill of conspiracy theorists. The fact that these people did not choose to go into exile, that few countries would allow them entry, and that they had no resources to rely on in that country, are not communicated to public. Even those exiles who decide to avoid politics may still be useful in government propaganda. 1989 student leader Chai Ling now runs a software firm in the US with her husband, and has enjoyed a level of success not unexpected for someone who got into one of China's top universities. Pro-government commenters nowadays emphasise her enrichment in the US and abandonment of the democracy movement.

Even where an anti-government movement gains traction inside a dictatorship, this is often little to do with the efforts of exiles. As Chinese exile Wan Runnan wrote about a visit to Poland after the fall of communism there:

"we asked Solidarity Union friends a stupid question: When the Polish military government began suppression, a number of dissidents went into exile overseas. What did these people do in the latter changes inside Poland? They replied without any pause: Nothing whatsoever. Then they sensed our embarrassment and consoled us: "Those exiles served some purpose because they gave us some fax machines and stuff." . . . . I was aware of the effect of overseas democratic movement very early on. I met Dai Qing (戴晴) overseas and she said: "You do not have a place in the future change in China." I replied: Yes. The change in China is like a chemical reaction with reagents and products. We are just the temperature, pressure and catalyst that bring about this chemical reaction and we do not have a position in the final product."

Recent events in Xinjiang show the truth of this, whilst it is possible that the Rebiya Kadeer and the WUC were the driving force behind the demonstrations, all the evidence that we have shows that the initial demonstrations were carried out by university students organised by their lecturers. Whilst it is impossible for me to confirm this, a long-time Xinjiang resident friend of mine described the subsequent riots as being the work of "scumbags from outlying areas who move to Urumqi after being slung out of their towns and villages". The fact that the demonstrations took place in Urumqi only would also point to the WUC not actually being the driving force of these demonstrations, subsequent demonstrations at other towns appear to have been in response to the crackdown, especially the closing of mosques. Should the Iranian government succeed in running Mousavi overseas a similar dynamic is likely to take over.

Are Western journalists working for oppressive regimes 'stooges'?

[Cross-posted at Accumulating Peripherals]

The news that Nick Ferrari, a presenter of Iranian state-owned English-language news channel Press TV, has quit his job at Press TV's London studios in protest of the crushing of demonstrators there, has brought into focus the issue of western journalists working in the state media of oppressive regimes. Whilst it might be natural to simply label all such journalists either has-beens or willing tools of their employers, the fact that a journalist of the calibre of Andrew Gilligan (Telegraph 'London Editor' and he of David Kelly-affair fame) works for them was enough to give me pause.

Iran is just one of the oppressive or authoritarian regimes to launch its own English-language news media in the past few years in an effort to get its own version of the story across. Chinese Central Television (CCTV) launched its English-language station CCTV 9 back in 2000, including news programs fronted by western journalists, one of whom went on to front a program at Press TV. The Russia Information Agency (RIA) launched its Russia Today news channel in 2005, which came to particular prominence during last year's South Ossetia war when one of its western correspondents also quit over skewed reporting. Another channel which might be included in this is the Al-Jazeera news channel, subsidised as it is by the Emir of Qatar, although this channel has gained much more of a reputation for fair reporting than any of the other channels mentioned here.

The question is, why would anyone who is aware of the nature of the governments behind such channels wish to work for them? Firstly, some would seem to have an almost child-like ignorance of the potentially compromising position that their work puts them in. When asked in an interview with the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post why he would work for CCTV, Eddie Maher, a New Zealand-born who achieved a degree of fame whilst working as an weatherman in Australia, replied that he saw his job as:

"not trying to read into the news, not thinking about what is behind the content. Politically sensitive news, like any other news, has to be read clearly. That is my bottom line. Because I'm in China, some news may be regarded as politically sensitive or whatever, but that doesn't affect my interpretation of it to the audience."

Others are clearly ideological fellow-travellers of their employers. For example, self-styled 'anti-zionist' and host of Press TV's "The Real Deal" George Galloway presumably sees nothing wrong with Press TV's hosting of articles denying the Holocaust on its website. However, there are those who seem to genuinely believe that they can make a difference through working for what are little better than government mouthpieces. Richard Burger, long-time China-blogger and, until recently, foreign editor and columnist for the Chinese state-owned Global Times said in a recent interview that:

"My own conclusion is that they sincerely want to present the foreigners and English-speaking Chinese here and abroad with a different type of newspaper experience. Sure, they toe the party line on certain topics, but even on the most sensitive of these, they seem willing to present alternative viewpoints, even if they are directly and outspokenly critical of the government.

I think this will be their signature, a panoramic view of the news with lots of analysis and discussion. As I said, it does tow the party line, but they seem genuine about allowing
serious dissent and disagreement "

Indeed, Global Times has made some relatively liberal moves, such as an editorial which, whilst not actually describing the events, dealt with the impact of the Tiananmen square massacre in a sympathetic way. All the same, the taint of having worked for the state media of an oppressive regime and rendering overt assistance to government policy, as compared to the tacit assistance rendered through working for such a government in education or industry will be difficult to avoid.

Return of the Il-matic

[cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

Nuke tests, missile tests, and now what appears to be a massive denial-of-service attack on South Korean government websites? Whilst the thought of Kim Jong-Il commanding an army of robot computers brings forth thoughts of 'ronery' dictators in people like me who've seen way too much Team America: World Police, the real question should be: why?

The answer until recently has been that this posturing is motivated by the North Korea elite positioning themselves ahead of a transfer of leadership, but now that the Il-est is back (even if looking distinctly Il-er) then we have to ask whether it it's actually Kim who is driving these moves. B.R. Myers suggested a possible answer in a recent WSJ article:

"North Korea is a state more interested in enhancing national pride and strength than in raising the masses' standard of living. Its militarism is ideologically driven and not a reaction to U.S. policy shifts. This runs counter to current thinking on the left in Washington, which argues that North Korea, a chronic violator of contracts and treaties, would have adhered religiously to the Agreed Framework of 1994 if U.S. had only kept its side of the bargain. This is worse than mere naivety. The "military first" policy was premised on the principle that a normalization of relations with America was neither possible nor desirable. It proclaimed a mere 10 weeks after that agreement was signed."

This could explain the missile shots and the nuclear test as moves to show some result from the Korean people's sacrifices, but it doesn't explain the latest web attacks (presuming that they come from NK) which are necessarily both secret and hardly a show of strength. In fact if they were announced at least some North Koreans might be given cause to think that their relative invulnerability to such attacks is far more a sign of how much they are missing out on due to their country's backwardness and isolation. On the other hand, if this move is all part of some preparation for war, you would need to explain why they used a method more commonly employed by killjoy geeks to put offline websites they don't like. As always with North Korea, we are unlikely ever to know what is going on, let alone why.

Xinjiang - The limits of nationalism?

[Cross-posted from Accumulating Peripherals]

First off I'd like to thank Matt for allowing me to blog-sit whilst he's away in France. When he first approached me to stand in for him I came up with a list of possible post topics, but last weekend's events in Xinjiang, where more than 156 people have now been killed in ethnic violence, have blown these to the four winds and will no doubt dominate posts over the next few days.

Whilst the immediate cause of these disturbances appears to be what was perceived as an inadequate response to the killing of two Uyghurs in a factory riot more than 2,000 miles away from Xinjiang (itself sparked by the posting of a rumour on the internet, as one Chinese Tweetnik put it, a better example of the 'butterfly effect' cannot be found) the roots of this conflict extend much further into the past. The Chinese claim to Xinjiang stretches back as far as the establishment of garrisons in the region by under the Han dynasty, pre-dating the sacking of Jerusalem by the Romans. Whilst the Chinese presence in the area has ebbed and flowed along the Silk Road over the years, they have never entirely left the region but also, until relatively recently in historical terms, never entirely dominated it.

In contrast to the trade-driven expansion of the Han, the Uyghurs arrived in the region as nomads amid the shifting sands of Central Asia some time before the 4th century AD, and established their first Khanate during the 8th century. At the same time the region was and is populated by many other peoples, from the Kazakhs to the Zungars, and Uyghurs nowadays make up only a bare plurality of the region's population, with the Han a close second. Since the Chinese de-facto control over the region was re-established following the Second World War the region has rarely been entirely peaceful, but the reasons for this are complex.

Whilst the Muslims of Xinjiang are no less oppressed than the Muslims and Christians in any other part of China, the regular outbursts of violence in Xinjiang as compared to other Muslim-majority regions requires explanation. The first and foremost cause is the distinct ethnic identity of the Uyghur, whilst Muslims in other parts of China are either ethnically Han or can pass as Han, the Uyghur remain a visible minority to whom the worst characteristics and stereotypes are applied. Outside of Xinjiang the Uyghur constitute a poor minority who seemingly make their living through the running of kebab stalls and Xinjiang-themed restaurants. Perhaps driven by poverty or alienation, some drift into petty crime, and it is the stereotype of Uyghurs as pick-pockets and violent knife-wielding thieves that is most prevalent in China today. Otherwise respectable Chinese lawyers, teachers, professors, and accountants think nothing of repeating these stereotypes in polite conversation, or of loudly complaining about the positive discrimination policies applied to all ethnic minorities in selection for university or government positions, and this attitude informs Uyghur-Han relations both inside and outside Xinjiang.

Added to this should be the absolute failure of the nationalist rhetoric adopted by the Chinese government in the wake of the tacit abandonment of communism to make any significant impact on the Uyghur. Whilst the Muslims in the rest of China are mainly the descendent of merchants and share the language and history of the majority, the Uyghur have their own separate history. Talk of the "genius of the Chinese race" has little appeal to them, nor does the characterisation of China as a happy family in which the Han and the Uyghur are "brother races" convince. Attempts to assert the Uyghur identity through the revival of traditional customs have only been haltingly accommodated by the Chinese state. The definite streak of misogyny in Uyghur culture as compared to the relatively socially liberal, modern, and feminist attitude of the Han majority is also a significant factor.

Finally, Xinjiang's position as a border region drives conflict. A battleground during the 'Great Game' of the 19th century, and then a definite candidate for Soviet expansion for much of the 20th century, it now lies in the heartland of the war on terror. The large-scale settlement of the region through military colonies known as bingtuan from the Sixties until the Eighties was carried out to counter the Soviets, and government propaganda across China still urges people to go west "where the people and the Motherland need you", which, joined with Xinjiang's status as a California-like place of opportunity, drives Han migration. It is for this reason that the Chinese government will not act to accommodate Uyghur sentiment, or in anyway risk its hold on the region, and since the policy of marginalisation and settlement is going to continue, so will these occasional outbreaks of violence.

Uprising in Xinjiang?

Only just heard about this myself, but New Dominion has the low down:

The BBC, the AFP, the Times of India, and Radio Free Asia are all reporting riots in Urumchi (Urumqi). RFA says that protests against the events at Shaoguan, Guangdong began at People’s Square, People’s Theater (presumably the one in Nanmen), and Döngköwrük/Erdaoqiao at 5:00 PM local time and are still in progress. The 3000 or so protesters consist of university students and other youths. About 300 protesters have been arrested. Protesters have overturned a traffic guardrail and blocked traffic, as well as damaging vehicles. Some news outlets have reported two fatalities thus far.

Posts on Chinese-language message boards describe the protesters at People’s Square as around a thousand Uyghurs shouting slogans in both Uyghur and Chinese. There are also reports of explosions in the Döngköwrük area.

The protest may have been broken up. Reports from Uyghur activists in Japan suggest that about 400 people are trying to reignite them. We will keep you updated.

Check out the videos over at New Dominion, when you remember the Tibetan riots of last year, as well as the recent Iranian protests, it all looks very familiar, especially with scenes like this:



The demonstrators seem organised and purposeful, it looks like the result of a definite decision to follow Rebiya Kadeer's order to protest in response to last week's Shaoguan incident, where Han Chinese and Uyghur workers clashed amid rumours of the rape of a Han girl by Uyghurs at a factory in Guangdong (more than a thousand miles to the south of Urumqi), rather than anything spontaneous, but it's hard to tell.

[Update]

New Dominion have a Twitter feed, give them a follow here.

Black Mass

[Photo: Charles Graner poses with the body of a dead Iraqi prisoner]

" . . . the picture of post-war Iraq that neo-conservatives disseminated was a tissue of disinformation and wishful thinking, while the willingness to use intolerable means to achieve impossible ends showed the utopian mind at its most deluded."

- John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia, my emphasis

"The model is cracking because it must "

[A country road on Jiangxin Island, Nanjing]

"China cannot build its economy for ever on a savings rate of 40 per cent of GDP, or exports growing at such a rate that by 2020 they will constitute half of the world's merchandise exports. The model is cracking because it must."

- Will Hutton

My question here is "why?". Not, of course, why Will Hutton believes these trends cannot continue forever - because they cannot (although they might go on for quite a long time), but why does he think that the slowing of growth in exports and the loosening of savings necessarily spells the end of Chinese growth? Exports make up a third of the Chinese economy, but domestic consumption is not growing so much more slowly than the rest. Savings act as a safety-net in absence of a proper welfare state, so until a welfare state is properly constituted they will remain high, and once this happens taxation is likely to step in to absorb the money which would otherwise be saved. All of this seems good reason to believe that Chinese GDP growth will slow from its 10% yearly average, not that the west will draw ahead of "a China facing political turmoil and increasing economic difficulties".

Is this for real?

[Above: The front page of yesterday's Beijing Daily, showing (left-to-right, top-to-bottom) Hu Jintao meeting with the presidents of Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and the Prime Minister (mislabelled 'Premier') of India]

Anyone familiar with the Chinese print media will be used to seeing front page stories like these. They all follow the same pattern:

"Today [insert CCP official here] met [insert foreign toady here], agreeing that [insert propaganda spiel here] the two said that Sino-[insert country name here] relations and mutual friendship are unbreakable"

Indeed, if you can be bothered to read all of these stories (doing so gave me a headache though) you will see President X reaffirming his country's commitment to principle Y and the peaceful development of Z. But why print them out in this obviously ridiculous fashion? Is it a joke? Or is it impossible to relegate any of these meetings to the inside pages?

Thoughts for 6/4

Go where those others went to the dark boundary,
for the golden fleece of nothingness is your last prize

go upright among those who are on their knees,
among those with their backs turned, and those toppled in the dust

you were saved not in order to live,
you have little time, you must give testimony

be courageous when the mind deceives you, be courageous
in the final account, only this is important

and let your helpless Anger be like the sea,
whenever you hear the voice of the insulted and beaten

let your sister Scorn not leave you,
for the informers executioners cowards — they will win,
they will go to your funeral, and with relief will throw a lump of earth,
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography

and do not forgive, for truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn

beware however of unnecessary pride,
keep looking at your clown’s face in the mirror,
repeat: I was called — weren’t there better ones than I

beware of dryness of heart, love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown, name the winter oak

light on a wall, the splendour of the sky,
they don’t need your warm breath,
they are there to say: no one will console you

be vigilant — when the light on the mountains gives the sign — arise and go,
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star

repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words, repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand

and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter, with murder on a garbage heap

go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit, and the city of ashes

Be faithful - Go

Zbigniew Herbert, "The Envoy of Mr. Cogito"

Translated by Bogdana and John Carpenter

Worse things have happened in the twenty years since the massacre in central Beijing. Thousands were killed by terrorism in Northern Ireland and New York, thousands more died in genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and yet more thousands are dying still in warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet I still cannot bring myself to forgive the Chinese Communist Party for what its leadership did. Yes, I know people in the party, a long-term girlfriend of mine was even a member. This does not mean that I will ever forget the character of that organisation, or forgive what they have done. I do not have the right to do so.

[Update: Thanks to the Telegraph's Shanghai correspondent Michael Moore for the picture of the Tiananmen vigil in Victoria Park, Hong Kong. The organisers estimate that 150,000 people gathered there to commemorate the massacre, whilst the authorities place the number at just over 60,000]

Self Pwnage Redux

China just blocked Twitter. As Kaiser Kuo said in an interview today:

"The whole Twitter community in China has been exploding with it," said Beijing-based technology commentator Kaiser Kuo.

"It's just part of life here. If anything surprises me, it's that it took them so long."

Here's Twitter's reaction:



As one Chinese Tweetnik put it:

其实，fuck 墙不重要。重要的事情有两件：1.告诉周围的人有GFW的存在。 2.传播翻墙工具，甚至开发翻墙工具。 化愤怒为智慧，才有力量。

Really, fuck the great fire wall isn't that important. There are two things which are important: 1. Telling everybody that the great fire wall exists. 2. Spreading knowledge about devices for getting around the great wall, even hastening development of devices for overcoming the great fire wall. Spend anger to gain knowledge, this is the only way to be effective

You can follow Twitter users protesting the block here.

Gun Law

For anyone who thinks that widespread ownership of guns is a good idea, read this and tell me that you cannot possibly imagine it happening to you:

"It started with a dinner party which was thrown for my grandparents' fortieth wedding anniversary. Towards the end, we all had a lot to drink and our guests had left and I told me Dad I wanted to leave the army. He disagreed with me and started to outline his reasons for disagreeing with me. It was obviously set for being a long discussion so my mother, my sister and grandparents went to bed. We had a couple more drinks while the discussion went on and I was very drunk, and I suspect he was as well. At this point I have to become vague because the conversation came round to personal prowess and in particular with a shotgun. Me Dad claimed that he could not only outshoot me but outload me, outdraw me, i.e. he was faster than me, and claimed even with a crippled left arm he was still faster than me. I disagreed with him and said: 'Don't be silly' or words to that effect. In fact we were swearing at each other at this time. So he said: 'We'll prove it. Go and get two of the shotguns.' He has four, I have one. So I went upstairs and got my shotgun and I got his shotgun. I gave him his shotgun and he told *916 me to get two cartridges out of a box in the cupboard. I gave him one and took the other myself. He opened his gun and started to remove his snap caps. I opened my gun and removed two empty cartridges which I use as snap caps as I don't have any. I inserted the cartridge in the right hand barrel, closed the gun, took off the safety catch and pulled the trigger of the left hand barrel, and told him he'd lost. By this time I don't think he'd even cleared his barrel of the snap caps. He looked at me and said: 'I didn't think you'd got the guts, but if you have pull the trigger.' I didn't aim the gun. I just pulled the trigger and he was dead. I then went and called the police and told the operator I had just murdered my father, and that's the story."

R v. Moloney [1985] A.C. 905, P. 915-916

Moloney knew how to use guns, and had lived around them all his life. He had no mental problems, no criminal history, and no animosity towards his father. But he still killed him.