I just saw this article, by Professor Xiao Han, from a few days ago. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/opinion/confessions-of-the-cultural-revolution.html. This is pretty close to my own view. When this latest Song apology came up I wrote in an email to Dr. Jennifer Ruth "Chinese do not seem to me a very forgiving people." Of course, we write more unguardedly in emails than we do publicly, even on a blog. I caught myself writing that but let it stand in the email. I've thought about it since. Very general statement, I allow; might be wrong; certainly individual exceptions if generally true, yada yada; that is how it seems to me.When I wrote imagining question-and-answer sessions with Song Binbin at Peking University I had this specific image come to mind:
Actually, that specific image without having been washed in olive oil. That's a peasant denunciation of a landlord. I thought, but did not write, "Would Chinese question Song, or would it degenerate into...that?" Ironically, I had just written ("Oh my God, Weimin Mo") that Chinese do not ask questions well (interview with Ben Kingsley, "Omg, W.M."). They have little experience doing it. There is no civil society in China, which means that there is no forum for, ahem, landlord-tenant disputes and the like and no outlet for grievance. So, the Party wants to bulldoze your apartment building, you stand in front of the bulldozers until the cops make tumbleweed of you.
That's why there are 500 protests a day in China and why I, at least, don't view those 500 protests a day as a "simmering cauldron" of unrest. That's all the Chinese people can do! If they could file for a "temporary injunction" I believe they would do that rather than get their asses beat. I make an assumption there. Anyway, they have experience doing tumbleweed, they do not have experience doing questioning. On their first opportunity to do questioning, of Song Binbin, I could see it ending up in olive oil. They did have one formal trial over the Cultural Revolution, we recall.
Objection! Your Honor...Honors. How many Your Honors did they have there? Didn't go well. That trial did not go over well with us foreigners.
They are also missing what underlays Anglo-American law, the Bible. There is a "cycle of redemption" in Christianity, something like, sin-punishment-forgiveness-redemption. "Christian charity." Chinese are not religious much less Christian; they don't believe in that shit. It was that and my memory of Olive Oyle that "informed" my comment to Jennifer, which I now make to all of you'uns. I entirely agree with Professor Han and my friend Zhou Jineng that it is a good thing that Song and others, including Zhou, are apologizing. The Chinese people are credited with this for it was not the Party. It seems to me, a foreigner, as it does to Professor Han (a non-foreigner) that it is in the Chinese people's interests to encourage more of this. Professor Han says the vitriolic reaction to Song's latest will discourage others. I confess that I have had the same thought but I think the Chinese people (including the confessors (including Song)) have handled this astonishingly well so far. There is nothing in the Bible or Anglo-American law that compels forgiveness or redemption. There is no forgiving some crimes (see People v Charles Manson, Leslie van Houten, Patricial Krenwinkle, Susan Atkins). You can still be damned for eternity after apologizing. Song's case may be one of those and I vehemently disagree with Professor Han that Song Binbin does "not appear to have committed very serious crimes." It appears to me she has committed the most serious crime. However, we will never know if she is cowed into (back into, I should say) silence for there is no formal apparatus compelling her to talk. So, no compulsion to forgive, but Christianity says, if possible, that would be "nice." Do the Chinese people have it in them? They don't seem to me a very forgiving people.
Actually, that specific image without having been washed in olive oil. That's a peasant denunciation of a landlord. I thought, but did not write, "Would Chinese question Song, or would it degenerate into...that?" Ironically, I had just written ("Oh my God, Weimin Mo") that Chinese do not ask questions well (interview with Ben Kingsley, "Omg, W.M."). They have little experience doing it. There is no civil society in China, which means that there is no forum for, ahem, landlord-tenant disputes and the like and no outlet for grievance. So, the Party wants to bulldoze your apartment building, you stand in front of the bulldozers until the cops make tumbleweed of you.
That's why there are 500 protests a day in China and why I, at least, don't view those 500 protests a day as a "simmering cauldron" of unrest. That's all the Chinese people can do! If they could file for a "temporary injunction" I believe they would do that rather than get their asses beat. I make an assumption there. Anyway, they have experience doing tumbleweed, they do not have experience doing questioning. On their first opportunity to do questioning, of Song Binbin, I could see it ending up in olive oil. They did have one formal trial over the Cultural Revolution, we recall.
Objection! Your Honor...Honors. How many Your Honors did they have there? Didn't go well. That trial did not go over well with us foreigners.
They are also missing what underlays Anglo-American law, the Bible. There is a "cycle of redemption" in Christianity, something like, sin-punishment-forgiveness-redemption. "Christian charity." Chinese are not religious much less Christian; they don't believe in that shit. It was that and my memory of Olive Oyle that "informed" my comment to Jennifer, which I now make to all of you'uns. I entirely agree with Professor Han and my friend Zhou Jineng that it is a good thing that Song and others, including Zhou, are apologizing. The Chinese people are credited with this for it was not the Party. It seems to me, a foreigner, as it does to Professor Han (a non-foreigner) that it is in the Chinese people's interests to encourage more of this. Professor Han says the vitriolic reaction to Song's latest will discourage others. I confess that I have had the same thought but I think the Chinese people (including the confessors (including Song)) have handled this astonishingly well so far. There is nothing in the Bible or Anglo-American law that compels forgiveness or redemption. There is no forgiving some crimes (see People v Charles Manson, Leslie van Houten, Patricial Krenwinkle, Susan Atkins). You can still be damned for eternity after apologizing. Song's case may be one of those and I vehemently disagree with Professor Han that Song Binbin does "not appear to have committed very serious crimes." It appears to me she has committed the most serious crime. However, we will never know if she is cowed into (back into, I should say) silence for there is no formal apparatus compelling her to talk. So, no compulsion to forgive, but Christianity says, if possible, that would be "nice." Do the Chinese people have it in them? They don't seem to me a very forgiving people.
