Myanmar, China, and the unfortunate effects of Censorship

05 Oct

It’s sad to imagine that if brilliant young Chinese minds like Wang Jianshuo are in the dark regarding the situation in Myanmar, how blissfully ignorant must the general population be?

Pardon me about my ignorance, but I didn’t know what happened in Burma until a BBC reporter sent me an email to ask me whether I am happy about China’s reaction to the events in Burma . . . When I try to find out information on the Internet about Burma, all my Internet connection just consistently cut off. I have ways like VPN, or proxy to work around it, but just because of my vacation mood, and the fact that I am not at computer most of the time, I didn’t take the trouble to do it yet . . . Something I know is, most of the links in a Google News Search results are not accessible, and trigger the Great Firewall. Someone doesn’t want people in China to know what is happening, even though it is out of China. Source (Bold added by me)

It’s unfortunate that when people who care, like Wang Jianshuo, try to learn a bit more about global issues in an effort to join an online discussion — well, it’s unfortunate that someone in Beijing thinks that they should be declined that right.

Everybody deserves the right to join what is now a global conversation on a very serious situation.

Even China.

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5 Responses

Falen

October 6th, 2007 at 2:43 am
1

Pffft… please. Blame everything on evil CCP censorship. Only if there’s no censorship people in China would know about Burma… get real

How about you ask the same question to anyone on the street in the supposely free media US of A? “What do you think of the current situation in Burma?” I bet you 200 bucks that the 95% of the answer would be something along the time of “Burma? What’s that? Somewhere in Alabama?” Probably the same for Darfur too. You’d have better chance asking question about Britney Spear’s recent performance.

Ya it is sad but just like most Americans don’t really give a damn about people dying in Darfur or Burma, neither does most Chinese.
admin

October 6th, 2007 at 9:24 am
2

Let me re-phrase…

There’s no denying that many/most Chinese and many Americans don’t give a about world issues. You have my agreement there. Totally.

But you cannot deny that there are some non-idiots who do give a damn about Burma, Darfur, etc…

No matter how few.

But the avenues available to a few non-idiots in China, and a few non-idiots in America are vastly different, especially on the internet.

There are some Chinese people who are actively expressing their thoughts online, despite the restrictions.

Don’t forget about China’s little situation back in 89. The Burma situation may not be as lost on some Chinese people as you might think.

p.s. I’m usually stay clear of name calling but I’ll make an excuse in this case…
Jackass
Jeremy

October 6th, 2007 at 11:40 am
3

Totally agree, Rick - very few people know about many of the atrocities that have occurred right on China’s borders - whether it be the Khmer Rouge, millions of people starving in North Korea, or Burma, Chinese people are completely kept in the dark.

And the guy above (Falen) is a total idiot and dick for such comments. At least for now, there is no hiding of results from the search engines.

But he’s right in one respect - without censorship not many more people would know what is going on in the rest of the world in China, just like in the US.
admin

October 7th, 2007 at 1:37 am
4

Thanks for dropping by Jeremy.

And given the fact that you’re agreeing with me, I’m inclined to say that you’re a very wise man.

But yes, I am saddened somewhat by the amount of people who are in the dark on such things, no matter what country it’s in. But I probably had far less of a global perspective before I first traveled away from home - so I guess we can’t really blame people who live in a small bubble, and care only local issue which affect them.

I think it’s a growth process for everybody, getting a global perspective on life.

But the world is becoming smaller because of the internet, and I’d like to think that growth process is accelerating for people everywhere.
Kim

October 7th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
5

Last week I asked all of my Dawai classes, both undergraduate and postgraduate (about 120 people), and all 30 of my Citigroup students whether they knew what was going on in Myanmar. Nobody did. These are intelligent adults - and young adults - and most of them read the papers and watch the news.

The recent protests in Myanmar were a big story in all the British papers. I think that the equivalent set of people in countries that have a free press would know about what is happening.

It is a big story and it is a fascinating story with its cast of defiant monks inspiring a cowed and terrorised populace. When these people were driven to protest by the greed and stupidity of the brutal military dictators there were some days of hope when I thought that Myanmar might go the way of Romania and depose their paranoid megalomaniac idiotic leader and start to rebuild their country…but no, not yet. We can only hope things will change there soon. A whole country ruined by the greed and stupidity of a tiny minority. Infuriating.