Wrapping Up a Moment in Time, For Now
By Rhodo Zeb. Filed in China |Tags: china.politics, china.realities
Well, its already the 8th of June and no rains yet; the hail I mentioned the other day was part of a storm that hit Anhui and thereabouts on the 3rd. Last night I was hanging outside (which seemed novel to me, I have been a bit busy) and the weather was great. I still say this year, which is my 11th summer here, has been the best year in terms of weather.
In some sense, its the calm before the storm. The air can have some tension, a positive charge perhaps. Unless it is all a mirage, and we end up with 干梅, a dry rainy season. That would not be optimal.
I heard tell that the 6th was supposed to be the day the rains hit. So this is strange. Its currently in that peculiar state when it feels like it is going to start raining in just a moment, with the first few drops falling…and it doesn’t, for hours. But I am still expecting a bit of a restorative deluge quite soon.
Wow, I guess I am getting old, here I am blogging about weird weather patterns. Anyway, to turn to more serious issues.
I have thought a lot about the commentary I have seen, and I have read a bunch of solid analysis and good historical content. I must admit, in an environment less overt and hyper than our own, this makes a fascinating story. I have thought of disparate things, of violence perpetrated by many countries at different times, in different ways. Against their own or against others. I have thought of meetings in pajamas and the mistakes that the ‘heady’ youth and ‘over-confident’ leadership would likely make.
I have found my mind drifting, strangely, to stories like the Tuskegee Experiment, where nearly 400 black men were allowed to suffer through late stage syphilis. Just for the sake of argument, if we agreed to a slightly-higher number of those killed that day, would anyone like to argue equivalence? I wouldn’t, one way or another.
And I wonder, how far can a government go? And who is permitted to demand an accounting? And when?
I don’t have these answers, and dammit this is not my problem. All these people talking about right and wrong, and yet my own nation apparently does not believe in rule by law, in fact, when you get down to it. Right now we know the very recent leader of my country and his team have committed crimes. And that’s it. So now I should demand an accounting, of another nation, for another nation? Thanks I am going to set my own house in order.
And I am tired. I am tired because I know the heavy, heavy price that China has paid for the errors of that time. Errors that certainly fell on both sides of the debate. Errors that led directly to the psychological damage of thousands of people. Tens of thousands, in the days and weeks and months and years after this incident. That damage matters.
Errors that led to the loss of stature of China internationally, indeed a great deal of lost face, just as today’s silly games do.
But I fear the slippery slope of moral equivalence. Is this the badest bad of all time? Is this one the unhealable? I suspect it is not, and yet it persists, not in just one mind but in many, not in just one way but too many. And it damages, today. Every day it does damage, this situation.
YOU NEVER KNOW. Never forget that. When someone is watching. And you can never know. Nobody can.
And I don’t care if it is fucking umbrellas or not, (even though I feel that I cleave close to Alan Chin’s excellent analysis) the chilling effect is real, and it is not insignificant. You wouldn’t want to argue with me on this particular point, I would wager. I am quite certain about it.
I am tired because I feel the pressure and I know the continuing damage is avoidable! I know a generation has been all but crushed by what has happened, and I know that many will feel marginalized by the way their nation (still!) treats them.
I am done with this topic for awhile. China will never become a rich or highly-educated nation so long as this condition of no civil rights persists. Note the distinction between C Eight’s language and mine. That, I will return to.
[Update] Restorative Rain is here! Here Comes the Flood!