Well, the Olympics start this coming Friday. And the media is reaching fever pitch in its reports on how oppressive China is along with various bourgeois politicians queuing up to condemn the country.
I agree with what Madam Miaow argues in her post about the hypocritical condemnation: “Oh, and did I mention Nick Clegg? Demanding Gordon Brown boycott the Olympics. Boycott yourselves in 2012, warmongering jerks with a million dead Iraqis on your lily-whites and the prospect of a nuclear strike on Iran”.
What amazes me about these people and their condemnation is the sheer rank hypocrisy. I saw a BBC news report last week where the British secret service has informed athletes and politicians to carry disposable mobile phones as if they don’t the Chinese secret service will be listening into conversations. And up pops Sir Geoffrey Howe with his mutterings about “totalitarianism”. The same Geoffrey Howe who was a cabinet minister in the 1980s Tory government which backed Pinochet, Contras… though they described them as, laughably, ”freedom fighters” and everyone else as “terrorists”.
So, when the likes of Howe preach about totalitarianism he should remember the nasty organisations the government he was part of that overthrew democratically elected governments and eroded freedom. And lets not forget both Labour and the Tories dirty tricks in the north of Ireland.
When it comes to it, good old Blighty is well versed in imperialism and colonialism. The other issue from that news report that was galling was spying on telephone calls. Er, not like the British secret service indulges in that behaviour, does it? Under the US constitution the American secret services can’t listen into their citizens’ phone conversations. So how do they jump that hurdle…? They rely on GCHQ in this country to spy on the Americans. And as we are “subjects of our majesty” and not “citizens” we can do nothing as, unlike the States, we have NO written constitution. Therefore no accountability.
There’s an erosion of democracy in this country by an authoritarian government that argues that we need that extra security as the “risk” exists. The passing of 42 days, another body blow to democracy and dashing civil liberties against the wall that also increases secrecy and opaqueness.
So when bourgeois politicians bleat “totalitarianism” and “freedom” I would ask them to look in their own war mongering imperialist back garden, that includes Afghanistan, Iraq (not content with destroying the infrastructure of that country but stealing the oil) and the sabre rattling towards Iran.
And criticism of the Chinese bureaucracy should come from the Chinese people. When the Chinese people take on the bureaucratic misrulers of their country they will deserve our solidarity. The western bourgeoisie do not need our help in their hypocritical and cynical attacks on China.
August 4, 2008 at 10:47 pm |
Great post, Harpy.
The call for a New Labour Prime Minister to boycott the Beijing Olympics when they’ve created such devastation in the world is hypocritical beyond belief! China-bashing makes an effective diversion from all the military and economic disasters closer to home.
August 8, 2008 at 3:27 pm |
1) There is a huge difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism. It is true that Britain is increasingly authoritarian, but the idea that we are drifting into anything close to the lack of basic rights that the Chinese experience is nonsense.
2) Just because our record is, to say the least, blemished, does not mean we should not speak out against the poor records of others. True, Howe has no moral authority whatsoever, for the reasons you say, but it is still incumbent on British people to call for the human rights of Chinese people. Our crimes do not excuse theirs.
3) “And criticism of the Chinese bureaucracy should come from the Chinese people. When the Chinese people take on the bureaucratic misrulers of their country they will deserve our solidarity.” In fact, there are strikes, uprisings and other attacks of subversion in China, which are brutally suppressed, and all news of them silenced. To act in solidarity with the Chinese people is not to support the Western bourgeoisie.
August 8, 2008 at 11:15 pm |
The distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes was invented by the right wing to justify their hypocrisy in allowing right wing regimes to use torture etc while comdemning the stalinists for the same thing. Someone opposing the regimes in latin America in the 70’s and 80’s risked an extremely nasty fate. Totalitarian theory is a way of equating stalinist regimes with the nazis. Not much is made of the nazis presiding over a capitalist economy which of course would tend to equate it with other pro-capitalist regimes.
Certainly the populations of advanced capitalist countries tend to ahave a fair degree of freedom and for the time being reasonably good civil rights. This is assuming of course that the individuals concerned have been granted immigration status.
All this disappears once these countries invade or otherwise dominate other parts of the world. Then civil rights go out of the window. Yes the methods are different: proxies of one kind or another do the dirty work instead of a secret police. No this is not to justify one oppression with reference to another, simply to understand what is going on.
The importance of calls for human rights being in terms of solidarity with the activity of the Chinese people is important for two reasons. First we havea duty of solidarity with workers who are fighting against their oppressors be they capitalists or bureaucrats. Secondly though the West has a track record of using abstract calls for human rights to impose their own, often far more brutal, rule. Examples include the Belgium led campaign in the 19th Century against the “Arab slave trade” in th Congo to Operation Iraqi Freedom of more recent times.
August 11, 2008 at 11:34 am |
TonyB- Just because the terms “authoritarian” and “totalitarian” were popularised by Cold War ideologues does not invalidate the distinction. There is a difference between a state where the police and executive have too much power, and a state where you get put in prison or dissappeared into the gulag for voicing any kind of dissent or opposition. In a totalitarian state, the state has eaten up all of civil society, leaving no room for free thought. Britain is many, many miles from being totalitarian; China is not.
Some of the regimes described by Cold War ideologues as “authoritarian” were in fact totalitarian. The Cold War ideologues who called for support for SOuth American police states because they represented a bulwark against Communism had no moral compass; the same is true of people who defend China because it is somehow a challenge to Western capitalism.
Of course Britain has a heinous record in terms of its treatment of migrants. But this is true of all nation-states: non-nationals, non-citizens, have no civil rights in nation-states. Britain is far from exceptional in this. If British people cannot speak out on any non-domestic issue until we abolish borders, we don’t have much hope.
I am not disagreeing with the idea that solidarity with the victims should be the basis for a genuine human rights campaign. But there is a human rights movement in China – barely breathing and desperate, precisely because China is a police state. The fact that Geoffrey Howe says the same thing does not mean we should ignore their pleas.
August 20, 2008 at 8:15 pm |
[...] 6. Olympic level hypocrisy [...]