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 Continued

C for China

– China has economically achieved what no other overpopulated soc io-political system has ever achieved in the history of wo/mankind within only 59 years.*

Within this period China has moved from having been a poor nation of opium addicts, seriously loosing gamblers and a soc iety that despite the ban on foot binding in 1911 was still in the habit of making little girls and women suffer from this appalling 1000 years old custom **, to become a soc iety that despite having 20 times the population of the UK has reached a minimum of humanly acceptable living standard and dignity for the general population.

And this is exactly the reason why the need for democratic rights and the freedom of expression has become more apparent in the last 20 years.

Being a system that has encouraged one child only families in the recent decades (it used to be 2 children only families), whereby these families can expect a better living standard than those risking to have a second child (apart from ethnic minorities who could have a second child if the first is a girl, without loosing their special benefits allocated to one child families), the Chinese regime has to also adjust to the fact that the psyche of its new generation is very different to the older ones.

The children of China get not only the total attention and love of their parents, without having to share that attention with another child, but they also get the total love and affection of their grandparents, who seem to be very involved in looking after their grand child/ren especially when retired.

With so much love directed to them while growing up, as adults this new generation demands love and attention from the soc iety as well. One important aspect of this attention is the need to be heard.

But in order to be heard one needs to have the freedom of expression initially.

So, whereas in the western democracy there is at first the freedom of expression – initially for the sake of the bourgeoisie only - and the need to be heard comes perhaps and only later following a bad experience, in China of today the need to be heard is already present hence the freedom of expression needs to follow organically.

This is in a way lucky because once the attention is given and the younger generation feels that they are being heard, the freedom of expression will not need to cause a randomly destructive and chaotic situation.

With other words China has now arrived at the point where it needs and -for the best results- must be responsive to the new needs of the Chinese population.

In reality the need for the freedom of expression is shown initially by people who are more expressive and perhaps more dynamic by nature. And it is usually these people who initiate change even if it means that they only highlight an existing problem.

And what of it if they critic ise the governing bodies?

A government that works for the benefit of the majority of its country need not really be afraid of criticism and should be open to look at each issue from different angles by trying to understand and incorporate other point of views or publish its theoretical argument openly against an opposition that it perceives as reactionary.

As we know contradiction is a part of the dialectism of growth and development.

As a matter of fact the dialectical process needs the contradiction in order to remain dynamic and in movement – towards a better future.

In the present democratic societies not everyone uses their right to express themselves.

Those who don’t vote for instance do not feel that they can change anything, which means that they have given up the hope of being heard.

So the issue is not only about the right to express oneself but also the right to be heard.

When you are heard there follows reforms and when you are not heard there has to be a revolution, or alternatively there will be a downfall and/or despotism with a silent automated majority leading to the stagnation of the soc iety.

The western bourgeois democrats tend to assume that the people who are wishing or demanding democracy in China would find the western economic system an ideal one if they only knew more about it.

My answer is you are mistaken mates.

Here is an example:

One of the complaints that the intellectuals of China have is that the local ruling party leaders live in villas (imagine a nice building, made by the British Empire of those days, in serious need of restoration around Clapham Road) and earn much more than the ordinary people.

This is 1991 – 2 years after Tiananmen Sq events – and having found out that the average population’s income was about100 Yuan and the rent for their home 1 Yuan (at the time the government controlled the price of food and rent only), I asked how much the party leaders earned? The answer was 400 Yuan. When asked they had no idea about the difference of incomes for the rich and the poor in the Western World. The Chinese youth I spoke to, also had no idea that there was such thing as unemployment in the West.

It would be correct to state that just as the western soc iety has little information about the history and the progress of China, Chinese have not enough information about the way the rest of the world is run either.***

The Chinese people consisting of 56 offic ially recognised ethnic groups (circa 92% Han and the other 55 groups are offic ially bilingual) have very good reason to be proud of their national achievements and deserve to enjoy their Olympics. ****

And why shouldn’t they?

They are on their way to achieve democratic rights anyway, and at least are not involved in an unjustified war either.

How UK could possibly manage to have a successful Olympic event in London for 2012 while still having troops in Iraq is not clear to me at all.

Can’t anyone else see the fact that it is this war which has given the excuse to the Moslem Assassins and Nihilists to target London? *****

So do the wise thing for a change and either cancel the Olympics or withdraw the troops now and remove the excuse! Never mind the oil!! Eventually we will all get there - where we ought to go- some as fast as an aeroplane and others as slow as a slug.

– Democracy can only be achieved in time and with the involvement of the communities in spheres that concerns their lives and interests.

No doubt the Chinese soc iety has many different problems to solve.

For instance there has to be a revision of the policy whereby there is still a priority for a work place’s needs compared to the emotional and social needs of some of the workers in wanting to live in the same town as their families.

This policy is due to the early critic amongst the Marxists regarding the family structure and its negative role in the mechanism of exploitation and power issues within the family that also reflects on the society.

However the patriarchal structure of the family has been going through a general change at least amongst the city dwellers in China.

Modern couples/parents seem to share their duties at home.

For this reason family has become more of a caring place in which the children can learn and see good role models, and not as in the past trained to accept discrimination and despotism.

It is high time to revise and change the policy of separating parents/couples for the sake of work only ******

Having mentioned the city dwellers there is one fact that observers in the western cultures seem to ignore:

Similar to Iran and many other Third World******* countries, in China there is a huge difference between the way the people in the cities live and think, and those living in the country. Although my statement is based on my observation 17 years ago, I doubt that this would have changed in most parts of the country, at least not drastically.

The practice of infanticide (killing of the newborn baby- in this case girls of course) in the rural areas is for instance despised by the people living in the cities, where you can see women in all domains of work, except perhaps on the top political stage that is visible to all.

I could even pick up a kind of apathy towards the ‘provincial’ people and their practices like say the way a Swede would think about an Arab tribe in the 7^th century.********

For this reason one should not forget that although the government of China has reacted unreasonably to new democratic demands put by its city population, the same government is still more progressive in approach let’s say in women issues when it comes to the practice and believes of the people living in rural areas.

As a matter of fact the Chinese government has been even quite inventive in the past.

Although communism in principle is not really family oriented, the Chinese people in general are emotionally quite dependent on their families.

In practice we see for instance that in order to encourage higher education amongst rural young women and to make it possible for the strict elders to let their daughters leave home and attend universities, sexual activities between young women and men in the dormitory of the universities are (were) strictly discouraged.

Many foreign students may see (saw) this as the conservatism of the government, but this is more about the government adjusting to very conservative people rather than the other way round.

The result is that there must be by now a whole generation of educated women who are from rural backgrounds or from small towns, as I met quite a few at the time who were from extremely conservative families with the daughters being quite conscious of it as well.

For this reason the fear of the western media of what they perceive as western style nationalism, that may grow to become imperialistic in nature, is really groundless.

Perhaps what we see is really a new understanding being born, between the young people who are from the urban and those from the rural and small town backgrounds.

One that, from the view point of those outside the country, can be seen as nationalism but it is really about improved communication and understanding between the people of the different urban and rural parts of the country.

– The other factor is that with the economical development there also comes the need for more leisure time.

I believe the Chinese still work 6 days a week – as they did in 1991 - and have very little holidays before they retire, and some seem to have none at all for years.

The whole purpose and the idea of socialism was not really that everyone had to serve the state in order for it to become a superpower in the world, but that the communities could reach a good level of living standard without being exploited and that they could enjoy life in a leisurely manner.

This has nothing to do with becoming financially rich but it is about enjoying life with others in a way that makes them needless to become richer everyday (which is more about obsession and not the result of a real need, as no one person’s life is long enough to reap the benefits of having more than a certain amount of money).

So what the Chinese communities need to move to is the decentralisation of decision making in regards to production, so that every local factory and work place in cooperation with other communities and the various world communities decide about the need and the level of production without following the capitalist aspect of greed.

This greed of course relates to the surplus of manufactured production, which means also more working hours for the workers.

When there is more leisure time through less working hours, there will be also less pollution caused by the factories. And more people will have time to become active in real issues concerning the future world and the generations to come, in particular the environmental issues and the respect for the existence of other creatures instead of remaining human speciesists.

And with the increasing democratic rights there will be more creative ideas ignited by good will and a real holistic and long term progress will set in.

In this way China can play a true leading role in the world, one that does not come through the manipulative games of the speculative capitalist system, but only through genuine global inter-communal relationships.*********To be continued…

___________________________________________________________________

* Next year it will be 60 years

In ancient China 60 years was counted as a century.

The Chinese century consists of 5 times the 12 animal signs years.

Each one of the 5 represents one of the 5 elements: wind, fire, earth, metal and water. This means that next year the element of the Rat/Bull Year will be exactly the same element as it was in 1949, namely the year of the Chinese revolution.

** In 19^th Century 40%-60% of the China’s female population was subject to this torturous mutilation.

Considering the fact that the Chinese (ancient) traditional medicine aims to ensure the free flow of the energy in the channels (meridians) –which connect toes and fingers to the different organs in the body – in order to maintain health, I see the introduction of foot binding in the 10^th century as a particularly vicious patriarchal attack on the Chinese female population.

The court as well as the population of China had usually reasonable access to physicians. For this reason the introduction and the spread of this inhumane custom must have happened with the full knowledge and consent of the physicians.

Once we know that even the physicians had become corrupt, we can reasonably conclude that it was in 10^th century China that ruling system became particularly corrupt. And as this practice continued for many more centuries and no Chinese medicine physicians really challenged it, we can see that the corruption continued until perhaps some concern amongst the early 20^th century medical authorities –educated in the West - leading to its initial abolition.

***Although I must add that I have noticed a lot of Chinese tourists coming from P.R. during the last few years; here in London in particular. This I see as a good sign, that travelling abroad is now easier for the Chinese than it used to be during the last decade. In this way people can see for themselves and make a more realistic comparison and also share their observations with their relatives and friends when returning to China.

**** Hopefully with enough oxygen for all and less pollution as well.

A word of warning to ALL athletes:

Constant deep breathing, in your case due to vigorous physical activity makes you more vulnerable to air pollution, simply because you get more of the poison. In Teheran for instance those who work out in gym during the heavy smog tend to suffer more from stroke etc. So, please stop by the first sign of discomfort felt in your head, chest or unusual sensations in the limbs. If you see smog (it looks like a shaped fog/cloud and moves towards one like an airy monster) wet a tissue with cool water and stick it in your nostrils. To be sure preferably sleep with one in your nostrils during the night.

I once opened the window in Teheran before going to bed and saw suddenly the monster in the dark moving towards the window. A part of it got in. I shot the window in panic and instinctively wet a tissue and pushed it into my nostrils. I feel that was the only way I survived that night. Some years later I read that an Iranian medical doctor was now recommending this against smog.

***** Don’t worry if you don’t see it that way. I always used to think that some educated people merely pretended not to understand certain points because of their class interest, and it is only in the last 3 years that I have realized they’re not pretending at all. After all there must be a limit, even to the class interests or is there?

****** I knew a female doctor, whose husband –also a doctor – had been working in Shanghai for 2 years. She and her child were desperately waiting for the authorities’ to decide if they also could move and for her to work in Shanghai. The family managed to see each other only about twice a month at weekends.

******* The word ‘developing country’ I would only use if a 3^rd World country acts responsibly and future oriented in environmental issues and does not imitate the 1^st world in its creation of banal needs and the abuse of the nature and the environment hence carelessly adding to this global problem.

******** This reminds me of a macabre sentence I might have read decades ago: There are 2 countries in the world, where if you leave you suitcase on the pavement and come back hours later it will still be there: Sweden and Saudi Arabia

I don’t assume this is still true about Sweden. The Saudi potential thieves found a way around it some years later when they attacked Iranian pilgrims, looting and raping women. They created a situation of tribal conflict and according to the ancient tribal laws these activities are allowed in tribal battles.

As a result no one was punished for the crimes committed against the pilgrims.

Let us hope the Saudis have revised their laws in the meantime.

As one of the richest countries in the world with only 22 M population there should be neither a right to cut hands nor a need for anyone to steal or loot in the first place.

Poverty is not god’s will. It is the lack of good will by the ruling class.

********* PS And by the way, whatever you do please do not let chain supermarkets into China. We don’t care about Tesco’s, Sainsbury’s, MacDonald’s and their like’s freedom of expression.

I liked the idea of farmers’ own market in Nanjing very much.

Islington followed the example a decade later for a one day a week market, but they made sure that the supermarkets wouldn’t lose by charging the farmers a high fee for the stalls, so that none of the produces were actually cheaper - if not more expensive - compared to the prices in supermarkets.

I am not sure if that Sunday Farmers’ Market still exists, especially now that most those market areas are bought by a large corporation that has targeted all famous London markets which were originally owned by small businesses.

Nowadays to have a small shop in London is indeed a very risky business.

And China p-l-e-a-s-e forbid opening of chain coffee/ and cake shops at all costs!!

This is because the customary low intake of sugar and disuse of flour amongst the Chinese population will be negatively effected, leading to the rise of new health issues.

I cannot say that 17 years ago I saw more than one or two people that could be described as only relatively overweight, and I hope very much that this has not changed in the meanwhile.

Green tea and cabbage in your daily diet are the best in protecting against cancer, as the recent researches have repeatedly shown.

All in all prevention is always better than cure. But there has to be effective communication for this to be understood by all