"Lies, Damn Lies, and...

...Statistics:"

"...[B]efore the adoption of the German term Statistik, [the work] was referred to, in English, as 'political arithmetic.' "


-The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand, p.186.

China's Great Wall of Silence

                                                                        

Below are links to two articles written by Dr. Youqin Wang of the University of Chicago and recently published in media in China.

http://nf.nfdaily.cn/epaper/nfzm/content/20101021/ArticelE23002FM.htm

http://www.yhcqw.com/html/qsp/2010/1010/101010112417DF54180554FA78I8KIHIGJ74.html

English:

http://tim.z.infzm.com/2010/10/27/%E6%96%87%E7%AB%A0%E7%BF%BB%E8%AF%91%EF%BC%9A%E2%80%9Cyou-set-a-good-example%E2%80%9D-a-red-guard-apology/

Dr. Wang is the world's preeminent scholar on "Red August" violence. She is routinely attacked by Red Guard apologists such as Dr. Weili Ye.  For many years Dr. Wang has maintained a website dedicated to the memory of Cultural Revolution victims: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/ywang/history/ .  Her website is blocked in the PRC.

Two points, briefly, so as not to detract from Dr. Wang's writing:  Published in China? Power is exercised arbitrarily. Remember the scene in Schindler's List where the Nazi is in bed with his Nazi-ess and decides arbitrarily to pick up his rifle and shoot a Jew in the courtyard of the concentration camp?  Power is arbitrary like that. Whenever the mood strikes. So Hu Jintao's internet police block Dr. Wang's American-based website and permit publication of two of her articles in prestigious outlets in China. The exercise of power is not logical. Maybe they'll get around to censoring the articles some day, maybe they won't. Or they can shut down the newspapers that published them, as they've done before.  Or not.  Who knows.

Second, when I met with Professor Xu Weixin in Beijing in November, 2008 we discussed ways Chinese could face the CR honestly. Trials? I suggested.  The government would never allow it, Professor Xu replied. Permit study by scholars and in universities?  Same. How about a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like they had in South Africa?  We were at lunch at the time, Professor Xu was seated to my right. Without looking up he raised his left hand in the air and pointed with his index finger. "That we could do," he replied. Dr. Wang writes about a new phenomenon that is occurring in China: the apology. Red Guards--like my friend in Red Art--are apologizing.  That is, categorically, wonderful.

Seeking the Soul of America: The Pursuit of Happiness.

“What? What did you say, Fuli?  Americans are not happy?"
"Oh, an American profess-seur says zey are not happy, eh Fuli?  Zat what you read, Fuli?  Zis another of your trans-lah-zee-ohns?  You better at translating ze English zan ze Chinese, Fuli?"

                                                                          

                       “YOU EE-DEE-IT!  OF COURSE ZEE AMERICANS ARE HAPPY!"

                                 "AMERICANS-ARE-ZEE-HAP-PI-EST-PEO-PLE-IN-ZE-WORLD!”

                                                                                

"TOCQUEVILLE?!  Tocqueville, Fuli?  Alexis DE Tocqueville? DAT Tocqueville, ze girreat Frenchman? Fuli, play some of La Marseillaise."

"Tocqueville said ze Americans not happy, Fuli?  Let me examine zis document more closely."

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon0921jw.html