Chinese Freedom
I’ve been passing time watching documentaries. Along the way, I’ve discovered
that Errol Morris is incredible. Yesterday
though, I watched the BBC’s take on Auschwitz followed by PBS Frontline’s
excellent Tank Man. Tank Man is the Chinese Citizen who stopped a column of
tanks holding two plastic shopping bags.
Seeing how few people stood up
to the Nazis and their death camps and the difference that those who did made,
it was even more striking seeing Tank Man. It is clear that one concerned
citizen can make a difference. In China, huge economic reforms were taken
after the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising at the cost of any political reform.
In essence, the city people traded freedom for wealth. I suppose the root of
the idea is as old as giving the people their quotient of circus and bread,
but China took it to an extreme. The fact that it was so easy and the people
went along so well made me examine my own country, the U.S.A. We’ve heard a
lot lately from Ben Franklin’s quote, “Those who would give up Essential
Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety.” We’re all still trying to find the right balance here after 9/11, and
it feels like many people feel we went a little too far trying to find elusive
safety, giving up essential freedom along the way. Beyond safety though, it
seems that we all are willing to give up essential liberty for purchases. Give
a citizen a cell phone, an iPod, cable TV, and a nice car, and he’s not going
to be concerned with politics. Most revolts seem to stem from widespread
economic disparity. After all, the American revolution was started over unfair
taxation. For all of China’s booming success, the economic disparity is
growing daily. The capitalistic approach has largely been benefiting the
cosmopolitan city dwellers, with the peasants providing near slave labor in
the factories. How bizarre that a country that started out as Communist is
only increasing the differences in the classes. In fact, in the country most
peasants can’t afford to send their children to school. Frontline gave some
statistics on the confrontations happening between the Chinese government and
the peasants and they have been increasing dramatically every year. There is a
good chance that there will be another Chinese revolution if the economic
reforms don’t move to more people in the country. One can hope that it will
give the Chinese people the freedom that they deserve. Seeing Tank Man stand
up to those tanks made me want to stand up for the Chinese people too. It is
distressing that many companies helping China oppress their citizens are
American. Google’s China presence censors out all references to Tank Man in
their image search:
It is heartbreaking to see how much this one man was willing to do to stand up
for freedom and then seeing American companies with American employees going
along with censorship because they are making a lot of money. They clearly
took the same bargain with the devil that many Chinese did. As long as their
stock options increase, what does Google care that they are helping to oppress
people on the other side of the world. Do No Evil as long as you can Get More
Money. Ten years from now are we going to see Google employees claiming they
were “just following orders?” Tank Man is going to stay with me for a long
time. 