matters far away
21 Feb 2008 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiThis is another issue I can't resist commenting on, even though I really don't know enough to.
How many people in China really gives a damn about human rights problems going on outside their cosy dens? Even to the amorality occuring on their own downtrodden soil - the range of poisonous toys and food and cosmetics, the sad reality that many female university students resort to prostitution, the string of mining tragedies, the persecution of political activists or outspoken bloggers - they shrug in resigned apathy and point out how much it is beyond their power to help.
Maybe one thing we should admire about Americans is how they're not afraid that it looks beyond their power. Even just one man, wherever he stands in society, believes his one voice has power, and isn't afraid to let it be heard...(even though sometimes one must admit, some men have very stupid words to utter).
Spielberg isn't someone who brandishes banners at whim, and his willingness to make a stance against a country increasingly regarded and feared as holding enormous economic and political power deserves at least respect.
Over the weekend, the Guangming Daily, also published by the Communist Party, ran an editorial saying Spielberg "broke his promise to make his contribution to the Beijing Olympics and betrayed the Olympic spirit".
What is the Olympic spirit? Isn't it a reconciliation with our humane qualities? Like those interlocking rings, bridging across superficial differences to compete in the spirit of fairness and equality?
Isn't it about finding that goodness in our hearts to care for those of another culture, another land, another colour, like we might do for one of our own? ...Or is it because, as I said above, Chinese people can barely care for those suffering on its own soil, let alone those impacted by its government's investments across the continents?
An editorial in the China Youth Daily was equally scathing.
"This renowned film director is famous for his science fiction. But now it seems he lives in a world of science fiction and he can't distinguish a dream from reality," it said.
This cracked me up. What did it regard as a dream? Spielberg wanted China to stop supporting human rights abuses in Darfur..........that was the dream that he couldn't distinguish from reality???
What's wrong with a dream?
Martin Luther King had one.
========== I, the divider, is back ==========
Nothing spells inconvenience like a lecturer, whose lectures you had intended on skipping, who remembers not only your name, your face, but also the fact you're meant to be there, at the lecture.
In-con-ve-ni-ence! =/
Yeh, I'm exactly one week into the course and I've skipped 2 lectures already...muahaha......(nothing to be proud of).
How many people in China really gives a damn about human rights problems going on outside their cosy dens? Even to the amorality occuring on their own downtrodden soil - the range of poisonous toys and food and cosmetics, the sad reality that many female university students resort to prostitution, the string of mining tragedies, the persecution of political activists or outspoken bloggers - they shrug in resigned apathy and point out how much it is beyond their power to help.
Maybe one thing we should admire about Americans is how they're not afraid that it looks beyond their power. Even just one man, wherever he stands in society, believes his one voice has power, and isn't afraid to let it be heard...(even though sometimes one must admit, some men have very stupid words to utter).
Spielberg isn't someone who brandishes banners at whim, and his willingness to make a stance against a country increasingly regarded and feared as holding enormous economic and political power deserves at least respect.
Over the weekend, the Guangming Daily, also published by the Communist Party, ran an editorial saying Spielberg "broke his promise to make his contribution to the Beijing Olympics and betrayed the Olympic spirit".
What is the Olympic spirit? Isn't it a reconciliation with our humane qualities? Like those interlocking rings, bridging across superficial differences to compete in the spirit of fairness and equality?
Isn't it about finding that goodness in our hearts to care for those of another culture, another land, another colour, like we might do for one of our own? ...Or is it because, as I said above, Chinese people can barely care for those suffering on its own soil, let alone those impacted by its government's investments across the continents?
An editorial in the China Youth Daily was equally scathing.
"This renowned film director is famous for his science fiction. But now it seems he lives in a world of science fiction and he can't distinguish a dream from reality," it said.
This cracked me up. What did it regard as a dream? Spielberg wanted China to stop supporting human rights abuses in Darfur..........that was the dream that he couldn't distinguish from reality???
What's wrong with a dream?
Martin Luther King had one.
Nothing spells inconvenience like a lecturer, whose lectures you had intended on skipping, who remembers not only your name, your face, but also the fact you're meant to be there, at the lecture.
In-con-ve-ni-ence! =/
Yeh, I'm exactly one week into the course and I've skipped 2 lectures already...muahaha......(nothing to be proud of).
