Have no illusions: the Nobel Peace Prize that has been awarded this year (2010) to Liu Xiaobo, the primary drafter of Charter 08, has nothing to do with human rights. It is a direct attempt to harm the largest non-Western economy and socio-political system in the world.
The West has absolutely no interest in human rights in China or anywhere else. How could it, considering that it is violating them on basically all continents, worldwide? Human rights are camouflaging the West’s support for every group of people willing to antagonize, fight against or destroy any country or state that is Communist or Socialist by name or by deeds.
Support for human rights is often synonymous with direct intervention in internal affairs, a hostile act against sovereign nation or with actually oppressing human rights or forcing a country to the brink of civil war. This approach had been ‘perfected’ in Nicaragua, Cuba and Chile, among many other places and it is now being put to work in an attempt to destabilize China.
‘Support for human rights groups’ helped to bring down Soviet Union, it destroyed at one point almost all revolutions and popular movements in Latin America (except in Cuba) and it was used as justification for some of the most horrid interventions (by the West), that included acts of mass murder/genocide against people of Vietnam and Laos.
Tactics that were at work – to first discredit and then destroy all Communist and Socialist, progressive and nationalist states, governments and movements including Soviet Union, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, Chile, Tanzania, and recently Venezuela – are considered useful until this day. Now they are more refined, (more people and technology are involved) and much more effective than anytime in the past. After all, the task that Western global dictatorship defined for itself is tremendous: China – the most populated nation on earth.
The fact that China is historically peaceful, non-confrontational and very successful makes the task much more difficult. On top of it, China violates human rights much lesser than all Western allies in Asia Pacific including Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand and definitely much lesser than the West itself. After all, the West is presently (indirectly) involved in massacres in Congo/DRC (at least 5 million have died there), in destabilizing entire Horn of Africa and parts of Latin America and in aggressive wars in Iraq, Afghanistan to name just a few lethal adventures.
To discredit China takes enormous effort, but it seems that no task is too great for those in the West who would happily sacrifice the entire earth for their unbridled desire to control and rule.
Equipped with the ‘world language’, limitless funds and absolute access to, and control over, the media, Western propaganda planners are managing to twist facts and manipulate global public opinion. In the meantime, China is playing clean and fair, hoping that its good intentions, deeds and non-confrontationist attitude will win friends and allies. But in our world controlled by colonial and post-colonial empires with hundreds of years of experience in conquering and oppressing the planet – being good and peaceful is not always a guarantee for avoiding confrontation, even for survival!
The Western population is increasingly hostile towards China and it is not because it knows about it or understands it, but because of propaganda by which it is being bombarded day and night. Tens of thousands of men and women in media and academia have no other purpose in professional life than to bash China; to discredit it, to make it appear as evil. China bashing is now an excellent career, one of the best ways to get academic or research grants or rise in media corporate ladder.
Public has almost no alternative sources of information. What Noam Chomsky calls “Manufacturing of Consensus” is now close to sad but ‘successful’ completion. Unless some people are very much determined to find alternative sources of information and unless they are fluent in searching for them (tiny minority of the population even in Europe and North America), they will be simply spoon-fed by thousand times repeated lies, manipulative half-truths and clichés about China, about non-Western and even Western (self proclaimed ‘democratic’) world. They will not have to search for their own world-view – it will be cooked and served to them as pre-cooked meal.
Almost no place on earth is free from propaganda produced by global Western regime. In Africa where China offers great alternative to Western plundering (by building schools, social centers, hospital, government buildings, roads and railways), many local people feel deep gratitude towards this enormous Communist country that says ‘it wants to be a friend to developing world’. In Kenya I heard testimonies of hundreds of workers on Chinese projects saying that they were ‘treated like human beings by foreigners for the first time’, and that they ‘never had to negotiate wages with the Chinese bosses as they were offered 3 times higher salaries than they expected right from the beginning’. However, more positively China gets involved in Africa (or in Oceania or in many other places in the world) more it has to face dark sarcasm and attacks of the Western media outlets that pervert and drag through dirt all attempts to create alternative world where solidarity and internationalism stands above pragmatic interests.
Local newspapers in Africa and elsewhere are overzealously printing pieces tailored for local consumption but designed and paid for from abroad. Journalists who join anti-Chinese choir get rewards – frequent trips abroad for ‘training’, awards and visas to the West. The same is happening in Oceania and in Southeast Asia. Temptations are too great, punishments for stepping out of line too harsh.
“People see concretely what China is doing”, explains Mwandawiro Mghanga, former Kenyan MP, member of Defense and Foreign Relations Committees, poet and prisoner of conscience under brutal pro-Western regime of former dictator Moi. “If you travel throughout the country, you’ll see Chinese constructing and building roads, stadiums and housing projects which are very good. They are also very closely involved with people in spite of all propaganda being spread by the West. The reality of what China is doing is being seen and appreciated by our citizens. But there is great pressure on Kenyan government not to cooperate with China. In fact, there is great hostility towards Kenya – the West is punishing this country for having relatively close ties with PRC.”
That’s the standard – the way we ‘democratically’ rule the world (we force, corrupt and if we find it necessary – depose the governments), but you hardly hear it from local politicians. And god forbid, do not associate these practices with violations of human rights or with infringing democracy abroad!
During Moi dictatorship, regime that can be described as politically and economically very ‘pro Western’), Mr. Mandawiro and tens of thousands of other Kenyan activists, opposition politicians and dissidents were savagely tortured. He stood firm, he fought for his country but he never received Nobel Peace Price.
Pramoedya Ananta Toer – the greatest Indonesian writer who spent more than ten years in Buru concentration camp – died without receiving Nobel Price for either peace or literature. Naturally, the concentration camp he was locked in was our own concentration camp – our ally Suharto who killed between 2 and 3 million people after 1965 US-sponsored coup built it. Most of those killed were Communists, people belonging to Chinese minority, opposition intellectuals, atheists and teachers! Before he passed away, Pramoedya shared with me his Marxist ideals and the fact that for decades he was defending people of Chinese minority in Indonesia. That had not qualified his for any Nobel Price. He was not even a member of ‘civil society’ or pro-Western NGO!
None of the men and women resisting beastly military dictatorship in Chile ever came close to receiving Novel Peace Price. Pinochet’s men were killing and raping on our (Western) orders. Why would one of our institutions give more than a million dollars to those who would want to stop the carnage? Instead, Nobel Peace Price was given to Henry Kissinger who was one of the masterminds of Chilean carnage.
Western institutions simply do not make mistakes, or at least not too many. The art of manipulation had been perfected throughout the centuries. Philosophy, logic and the language itself had all been twisted, while analytical thoughts were discouraged. Idols had been erected and analyzing them in depth was discouraged. Solzhenitsyn, former feudal lord Dalai Lama and now the new one: Liu Xiaobo! The same year the Nobel Price for Literature has been awarded to Maria Vargas Llosa, originally Peruvian, naturalized Spanish anti-Communist novelist who is definitely much more admired in Europe than in his native land.
And don’t you dare to ridicule the idols! Our press only dares to laugh at Muslim saints, not at our own. Manufacturing our heroes (read: ‘heroes’ who serve our political and economic interest) is sacred act that can never be ridiculed. Naturally, our media can and is expected to ridicule all iconic figures, symbols, even the songs of Latin American, Chinese or Russian revolution. In the meantime it wrapped our anti-Communist and anti-Left Wing ‘heroes’ in such velvety gowns and attach such divine auras and qualities to their existence that almost nobody who cares about his or her reputation, career or even safety would dare to analyze true motives behind actions of these saints!
You see, the President of Rwanda – Paul Kagame – is a good man and there can be no discussion about it. He did not attack his own country Rwanda from Uganda on several occasions; he did not kill hundreds of thousands of people in Congo and Rwanda (“Do you have proof – have you been there? Do you have footage of rapes and massacres?” Well, actually, I have some proof and some footage, but that is beside the point). If you disagree that Kagame is a good chap, you are ‘denying genocide’ of 1994. Why? – Well simply because he is our man; because his troops are for years killing on our behalf in DRC/Congo. Now that the UN Report claims that Rwanda and Uganda might have committed another genocide in Congo, we keep quiet, hoping that the storm will pass and that main ‘donors’ to the UN (us – the West – plus our former colony and present ‘ally’ – Japan) will manage to maneuver the UN to withdraw the document or at least to rephrase the findings – something that was already partially done, given that servile attitude of Secretary General of the UN – Ban Ki Moon. Do we give Nobel Peace prize to Rwandan opposition? Not in a blue moon, although their leaders were murdered, imprisoned and some disappeared before the recent Presidential elections. Mr Kagame is our friend and people like Tony Blair – former British PM – are his personal advisors! Mr. Tony Blair may one day get his Nobel Peace Prize, too, but definitely not Rwandan opposition.
Do we award Novel Peace Price to Thai dissidents? Our friendly Thai establishment recently murdered many of them – some were shot from the roofs by snipers; shot to their heads. (I have footage, I was there – do you want to see? Are you interested to see how friendly and peaceful were opposition Thai Red Shirts?) Of course, the Prime Minister who ordered the carnage is British-born and British-educated man. He is real gentleman, our gentleman. The US born Thai monarch may be, even according to the US press, the most corrupt king of 20th century, but he made sure that his country killed so many Communists and Leftists that we have no choice but to love him and to protect him from any criticism at home or abroad. He also helped us to bomb Vietnam and Laos, so who cares about human rights. Nobel Peace Price to Thai opposition? Get lost! Don’t make silly jokes!
Or maybe we should give Nobel Peace Price to poor indigenous Papuan freedom fighters? Their country was annexed by Indonesia with our help so our mining and logging companies could plunder it indefinitely, while Indonesian elites were and are building their mansions and employ dozens of drivers, gardeners and maids just for fun as they don’t know what to do with all that cash in their impoverished country. Even Western human rights organizations admit that more than 100 thousand Papuans were butchered so far. Suggesting one of them should be awarded Nobel Peace Price? Do you want to get on permanent blacklist of Western mass media, or what?
Then maybe we should consider giving Nobel Peace Price to defenders of democracy in Venezuela – to those people who heroically stood against military coup which was organized by the US and had one single purpose – to depose democratically elected President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez? Do you see it coming?
Let us seriously, once and for all, drop that ridiculous term – Human Rights! It is stained by invasions, interferences with internal affairs, by the military coups and consequent killing, torture and rape.
Or if we are not ready to drop it, let us apply it equally, to every state and to every situation. Let us determine who is the greatest violator of such rights! Let us also determine what the term ‘Human Rights’ means. What are the most basic human rights? Aren’t they those to life and to self-determination? And if they are, aren’t we the ones who violated most of them in an ancient and recent history?
Mr. Mwandawiro once declared that many of the NGOs, ‘civil societies’ and human rights organizations are often serving direct imperialist interests of the West in poor countries. They are Fifth Columns in Venezuela, in Cuba and in China – in fact in any country that we are failing to control. Naturally, not all of these organizations are some foreign implants, but many of them are and others are frequently bought and manipulated from outside.
It is natural that if the West would be at least fractionally serious about so called Human Rights, it would stop its own brutal aggressions and foreign wars, it would discontinue supporting the most appalling fascist dictatorships worldwide and it would restrain its companies that are regularly committing murder (direct and indirect) all over the planet – murder against mostly defenseless and poor people or, paradoxically, against the genuine defenders of local human rights.
To expect it would be, however, ludicrous! There is nothing altruistic in the Western system of power. The structure is extremely brutal and self-serving. It had no heart and no compassion – definitely no solidarity. It already triggered hundreds of wars and conflicts, taking lives of hundreds of millions of innocent people.
Peaceful and mighty China is naturally a danger to Western expansionism.
The West is panicking. Its panic borders hysteria. It does not clearly know what it is doing. Western planners are using the same tactics to break China as they used to break Chile in 1973 and Indonesia in 1965. They are provoking it and pushing it to the corner as they did with Soviet Union and with Cuba. They try to disseminate propaganda, to discredit the system at home and abroad. They try interventions and infiltrations; they try bribes. They are attempting to isolate China, by encompassing Mongolia and other neighbors to its sphere, even attempting to seduce Vietnam to confrontational attitude towards its enormous neighbor. Nothing seems to work!
It is open and extremely hostile game. Its purpose is to isolate China, provoke it and finally break it, preferably internally.
But the West is dealing with the greatest culture on earth, with over 5.000 years of history. It is dealing with tremendous minds, with intellectuals and strategists – people they never encountered as antagonists before.
The most significantly, the Chinese dragon refuses confrontation! It listens to all this frustrating barking down below, to provocateurs and manipulators who ruled the world for centuries and who suddenly feel that they may lose! Chinese dragon listens but keeps walking his own way, certain of its course. For him or for her, the main goal is to lift all of its citizens out of poverty and by doing this – to show example to the rest of oppressed world how it could get on its own feet after centuries of subservience to Western colonial rulers. Despite what is said in Western media, the Chinese Dragon’s skin is rough, but it is not only big but also gentle and caring creature.
Despite some errors, the Chinese experiment is based on solidarity. Great majority of its citizens are supporting it and that is in essence proof of democratic core of the process. That’s how majority of Chinese people see it and that’s all that matters.
China will never again move according to Western puppet-masters. It was already invaded, divided, plundered and raped. Majority of its people will never again trust Western formulas. China has its own system and if its people will believe that it has to be modified, they will make sure to change it at their own pace. They will not need Westerners to tell them how and when to do it. There is no need for it: Western system is morally corrupt as the rest of the planet could testify (if it would be allowed to) and those nations that are free to study it independently are not necessarily eager to face its deadly embrace any longer.
The fury of the West is understandable. For the first time its guns, propaganda and destabilizing tactics seem to be useless and impotent. They do not appear to be able to conquer or to break China. Attempts are plentiful: read Chinese books translated and published in the West: ‘dissidents’ write 99 percent of them (almost exclusively, dissidents are being published in English). Still it does not work – China is in one peace and united. Sour and increasingly irrelevant former colony – Hong Kong – is allowed (by the West) to shape opinion of foreigners about the country of 1.4 billion inhabitants. It is no secret that Hong Kong bookstores, particularly those at its airport are carrying exclusively anti-Chinese propaganda. In the light of that, Chinese people inside China (PRC) have access to the much more diverse views about their country than those folks living outside and relying on English-language sources (almost all negative and hostile).
Other frustrating factor for the West is that very few Chinese people are willing to commit treason. In PRC there is no Suharto, no Yeltcin and no Pinochet in sight – no ‘leader’ or some general willing to sell his country for cash, for booze or for power.
China is patient. It is shockingly patient. The West would never tolerate such direct interventions. Imagine Communist China suddenly and openly supporting Communist Party of the United States that would be planning to overthrow the political system of the United States. In the US and in Europe hundreds of people end up in jail for much smaller ‘crimes’. Imagine China actively isolating the United States, bribing and antagonizing governments in Mexico and Canada. Or placing nuclear warheads just one hour flight from its capital!
It seems that citizens in Europe and North America are used to it when such injustice is done (by them) to any other country on earth, but would scream murder would it be directed against them. China seems to be aware of this pathological (Gustav Jung wrote many essays on the topic) mental state in the West – its inability to curb longing for control and dominance of the world. By all means, China is very patient and understanding, at least for now. It understands that the West has no way to control its longing for dominating the planet. But there should be a limit. All hostile attempts to destabilize the country should be met with determined resistance of the Dragon who should and will, would there be a need, defend its people and sovereignty.
Granting Nobel Peace Price (1.5 million dollars from the fund of inventor of dynamite) to Chinese opposition figure is grotesque. There are thousands of people resisting Western terror all around the world. They should be noted and rewarded first. Let’s not scream: “Neighbor has cockroach crawling on his floor” if we ourselves are living in a pigsties!
ANDRE VLTCHEK – writer, filmmaker and journalist. Author of various fiction and non-fiction books including his latest novel “Point of No Return’ and non fiction book about neo-colonialism in South Pacific – “Oceania”. He lives and works in Asia and Africa. http://andrevltchek.weebly.com/
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1 Comment
I also have lived in China and agree with you about their government and my own. I grew up sucking at the American Propaganda teat as most every other American. But when I grew to be a man and faced what we were doing in Viet Nam I began to hate my government and try as I might never could accept what we do around the globe.
This is not democracy, this is totalitarianism and nothing less than any other tyrant in history has done.