NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF: Repression by China, and by Us

[kevinmc]

BEIJING

I’d meant to focus this column on a Chinese woman whose battle for justice has led the police to arrest her more than 30 times, lock her in an insane asylum, humiliate her sexually, shock her with cattle prods, beat her until she is crippled and, worst of all, take away her young daughter.

The case of Li Guirong, a graying 50-year-old who now hobbles on crutches, reflects China at its worst — government by thuggery. But each time I start this column, I feel that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have pulled the rug out from under me. Do I really have the right to complain about torture or extra-legal detentions in China when we Americans do the same in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba?

I keep remembering a heated conversation I had in Yunnan Province when I lived in China years ago. I reproached an official for China’s torture and arbitrary imprisonment, and he retorted that China was fragile and had lost hundreds of thousands of lives in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. “If you Americans ever faced the threat of chaos, you would do just the same,” he said.

“Impossible!” I replied.

Yet I owe him an apology, for he has been proven right. The moment we did feel a threat, after 9/11, we held people without trial, and beatings were widespread enough that more than 110 of our prisoners died in custody in places like Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantánamo......

http://freedemocracy.blogspot.com/2007/06/nicholas-d-kristof-repression-by-china.html

[ninkasi]

1. I am beyond being shocked

just more and more saddened at what we have become under Bush/Cheney. Anybody with an ounce of decency, an ounce of compassion, can only be horrified at our government now. I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to the rest of the world, and it would never be enough. Congress, why haven't you impeached this loathsome duo, Dubya, and the Dick? They represent the very worst of what America is. I pray to all I hold holy that they are in a minority. I pray that somehow, with a lot of work and dedication, we can restore democracy to the United States.

[Briar]

2. I hope so too

though when I think of the way that repression and torture have been swallowed as part of popular tv, I have to wonder. Where was the disgust at Jack Bauer's savagery and sadism? When a character in the 4400 arrested a boy and told him "You've been arrested under suspicion of terrorism. You have no rights" where was the outcry there? In programme after programme, there was tacit acceptance of, if not praise for, torture, knowing commission of acts of violence which would cause collateral damage, illegal detention, the killing of unarmed prisoners held behind bars, and much more. Stark in "Shark" for instance is always delighted with himself when he threatens suspect with "the needle" (and no, he isn't talking embroidery). It's a shocking display of what programme makers know will be approved and supported by their audiences.

[ninkasi]

3. Briar, I am in my sixties

I grew up with heroes who were always on the side of decency, and what is good. This new breed of politicians, this new breed of violence, is so alien to me, that it's hard for me to even relate to it. I just want America back, an America which while never perfect, still tried to be an example of fairness to the rest of the world.