Horrible histories...

A Doctor Hu Jintao doesn't like....

As an unashamed fan of Doctor Who, I can talk for hours about the hundred and one reasons why the show is so great.

And I'm not just any fan, I'm an old-school fan - one who used to watch Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy shout at Davros from, literally, behind the sofa. I caught up with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker on the repeats and never really let the show die, even when the BBC did.
Now it seems, that Doctor Who, along with other 'time travel' shows, are being banned by the Beijing government. Quite why, is a mystery to me. See if you can understand it.


The NY Times reports here.


Now the reasons I give for thinking so highly of the televised exploits of an alien time-traveller range from good-old nostalgia to the fact that I find it genuinely entertaining, especially now that 'the Grand Moff' is running the show.
But there is far more to it than that.

Students in China fell in love with the Doctor,
as children around the world have.
Photo by: JOE BRISCOE

At it's heart, Doctor Who is an ongoing myth, an epic adventure and a cautionary fairytale. It extolls countless morals and virtues on it's audiences, both kids and adults, and repeatedly tumpets the important things in life, always highlighting how the simple deeds of people here on Earth are just as important and fascinating as the wonders of the far-off worlds that the Time Lord takes his companions to.


Whether it's discovering 'indomitable' humans, struggling for survival in the year one-hundred trillion, claiming that while Earth is most certainly not his home, he has "put a lot of work into it" or actually being banished to our little planet and exiled here during the 1970s, the Doctor is always quick to champion the human race.

The Master controls the Central Military Comission
in Beijing

The show encourages children to question events and to be both curious and wary about everything - be it the perils of modern technology (Cybus ear-pods, ATMOS devices, or Adipose fat-fighting pills) or 'the stranger' in the street. It also goes to great lengths to show how greatness can be found in everyone, whether it's Rose Tyler, who had her eyes opened to a galaxy of possibilities, Martha Jones who saved the world by travelling around and telling stories, or Donna Noble, who regardless of being a 'temp from Chiswick', pulled all of reality back from the brink at the hands of Davros.

The show began as an educational vehicle for children - where the latest advances in technology were woven into the fictional stories in an attempt to get kids interested in science. It was a history lesson too - back in the 1960s William Hartnell encountered pre-historic man, the Romans and even Marco Polo, all the while maintaining the audiences attention with wonderful adventures.

The world's largest standing army -
they all look the same and are controlled by a lunatic.
No change there then.

And it is for all these reasons that when looking for something new, exciting and beneficial to show my Chinese students in class for a treat, I would always go immediately to my Doctor Who DVDs.



In China illegal versions of the show can be found in most DVD shops, and Blink always turned out to be the undoubted favourite, although Tooth & Claw (where the Doctor bumps into Queen Victoria just as a werewolf in unleashed upon the household) came a close second.

In the opening of the latter episode, the Doctor materialises the TARDIS exclaiming:
"1979! Hell of a year! China invades Vietnam. The Muppet Movie. Love that film. Margaret Thatcher. Ugh. Skylab fell to Earth with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb!"

 Now, most of us would chuckle at the Thatcher jibe and get on with the story. But not my students. No, they never heard it. Nor did they hear anything about the Muppets either. They never got that far. I looked around, having half expected this.
They were whispering to themselves, with puzzled expressions and disbelief etched into their brows.
China invades Vietnam?
This was the first they new about it. Doctor Who had taught them more truth about the history of their country within the first 15 seconds, than any of their 'history' lessons had throughout their school lives. The doctor triumphs again.

The continued references to China have always made me laugh... be it the gorgeous 'China Planet' in Turn Left, or the hilarious shots of The Master, having transplanted his DNA into the whole of the human race, lining Tiananmen square and preparing to go to war with the Doctor.

Whether that is a 'they all look the same anyway' joke, or just a genuine comment on the colossal size of the Chinese army I'm still not sure. It made me laugh regardless.

For the Chinese government to ban shows like this, which encourage values and wonderful notions of travel, discovery and amazement is a crime - especially as it's a show that captured the imagination of the thousands, yes thousands of Chinese youngsters I have introduced it to over the years.

But if having the doctor tamper with history scares the Chinese government, then so be it. Afterall, tampering with history is something they would know all about...


Further reading: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2011/apr/15/doctor-who-china-political-order

"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - China's 'Newspeak'.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050 at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." - Syme - 1984

AND so, we come to it...

Adhering in it's own most reliable way to a self-defined pattern of "one-step-forward, two-steps-back", China has, this week, left the world in very little doubt indeed about two things; The first and most troubling is that the government is, still, attempting to narrow the minds of the Chinese people and actively pursue the indoctrination of them, despite it's desire to publicise the supposed advances in human rights it claims to have made.

The second thing which the evil (and I use that word in all confidence) government has proved, is that Eric Arthur Blair, (otherwise known as George Orwell) was indeed an exceptionally perceptive chap.

Yesterday, China's state press and publishing body said that any words used in it's media which were not Chinese were sullying the purity of the Chinese language. The People's Daily newspaper said that use of foreign words, particularly English had "seriously damaged" the purity of the Chinese language and resulted in "adverse social impacts" on the cultural environment.

Of course, they feel the fact that foreign English language websites are far more accessible than the Chinese translations of them, and the strange tendency for facts in international media to differ greatly to the 'facts' which the Chinese government prints is mere coincidence(!)

Why then has China encouraged so many English teachers into their glorious motherland for the past decade? Why does the government run an English language news channel (the embarrassing CCTV 9)? And if the English language is such a blight on the purity of the Aryan Chinese language, what are we supposed to think of the Chinese propaganda which recently went on sale in our very own WH Smith?!



A screenprint from China's state-run English
language news website, Xinhuanet at
the time the news was announced.
There was no mention of the new
policy on here.



Some may claim that it is right and fair for the Chinese to want to protect their own language and identity in the fear that it will become diluted irreparably. In much the same way, we wish to defend our own traditions from the politically correct madness which seems to be sweeping the UK. But let me explain: Firstly, the Chinese are themselves guilty of destroying language, culture, identity and life in Tibet. On a scale beyond forgiveness.



Secondly, this is but a well recycled excuse by which they will sell such a policy to the masses. The Chinese government does not care about culture. After all, they are personally responsible for destroying it, back in the 60s and 70s, and continuing to this day. 

By limiting the language used to only words they can control - to words which they have even been able to alter the meanings of over the past 60 years, they will reduce the amount of 'reactionary' ideas the people are exposed to. The Chinese will then remain cocooned within the safety of their own language, cut off from any English words which are likely to put ideas into their heads, or which may conflict with the official party line, delivered oh so convincingly, by the state's own China Daily.

Lets pluck an example which is aptly on-topic.

In English, the word 'propaganda' is loaded with negative connotations. One would never refer to a simple fact as propaganda, irrespetive of it's actual definition. The word 'propaganda' has a sinister and manipulative meaning in English.



In Chinese however, propaganda (宣传) is thought of as an innocent and totally acceptable description of information. Of course the actual meaning is the same, but it is used without any negative connotations at all. Such implied meanings of the word have never made it into the Chinese language - for, what should be, obvious reasons. In English, to describe a BBC report as propaganda would be to attack them. In Chinese, to do similarly would be very much the same as to refer to the report simply as news.

If it is still not clear, please click on this Newspeak dictionary, and allow the prophetic writings of George Orwell to explain it far better than I can.



Eric Arthur Blair,
better known as George Orwell.



Words which the government of Ingsoc eradicated from use included: 'bad', 'democracy', 'innuendo', 'freedom', 'lie', and 'thought'. It will be interesting to see which are the first to suffer in China. Although by wiping out all foreign languages, the casualties will be great.



Perhaps we should look upon this horrific move by the Chinese government with hope. After a massive push in schools to teach students English, and the continually improving accessibility of the country to English speakers, maybe those in Beijing have gone too far. It is possible they have, in their eagerness to educate people their way, unleashed a dragon which they cannot contain. Could this be a desperate attempt to rectify the influx of information which they have mistakenly allowed in via the beauty of the English language?



Winston, as played by John Hurt in the
film version of George Orwell's 1984



I hope so. If this is the case, and the Chinese have unknowingly been absorbing English as a weapon with which they can arm themselves in a fight for truth, then perhaps the pen is truly mightier than the sword.

In any case, George Orwell saw it coming. I only hope it all ends better for the Chinese than it did for Winston.

Doubleplusungood indeed...


[Update: a former student of mine in China just sent me this link which may be of interest]
http://news.qq.com/a/20101222/000763.htm

Who on Earth is Carl von Ossietzky?

You're watching BBC news and suddenly the TV screen goes blank. You flick over and the other channels are working. You get to Channel 4 news and suddenly - blackout again.

Carl von Ossietzky - 1915

 You sit down at the computer, bring up your favourite news website and for some bizarre reason it says the 'connection has been reset' and refuses to take you there. How strange - it was working fine yesterday.

Welcome to China.

A good friend in Washington contacted me yesterday to point me in the direction of an article in the Washington Post. Although the article was interesting and pretty on-the-money, buried in the text was a small piece of information that most other news corporations either didn't know about, or had neglected to mention. It concerned a man by the name of Carl von Ossietzky.

[NB. the Media have since picked up on it]

I will reveal the significance of this little-known German a bit further down.

In a few hours, the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will be held. It will not however be handed out to winner of the award Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, as he remains in a Chinese prison - and will do for many more years.

China has recently been outraged by the decision to award Mr. Liu the honour, even going so far as to try and discredit the Nobel committee by creating their own 'Confucious Peace Prize'.

But is the situation in China really all that bad?

As dissident Ai Wei Wei said on the BBC yesterday "People can be monitored, their phones can be tapped and you can be followed. They can find you, they can intimidate you or scare you - or wrongly accuse you," he added.

In THIS previous post, I talked about the petty childish actions of the Chinese government, and the events of the last twenty-four hours have proved me right. The hilariously shambolic Confucious Peace Prize which the Chinese Government cobbled together did make me laugh for a long time, whilst also saddening me by how pathetic it was.

 

An unnamed girl dubbed the angel of peace accepts the Confucious Peace
 Prize on behalf of the winner Lien Chan who didn't attend the ceremony
and said he only learned of the award through media reports.

 While the BBC website's Chinese version has always been blocked within China, the main English site was made available a few years ago. It was subsequently blocked during the Beijing Olympics, and became available again soon after.

But yesterday the entire BBC online service, along with BBC World News (only available via satellite anyway) was blocked throughout China. One person I spoke to in Shanghai, who did not wish to be named, told me what they thought this means: "Sometimes things like this happen in China, but Shanghai is usually the last place for websites to stop working. This time it happened at the same time.

"I use the BBC website every day and find it a very useful way to hear about news which China doesn't think is important.

"The reason BBC and other news websites have stopped working is because the government feels embarassed about Liu Xiaobo. He has become famous by revealing the truth about the government. But they can just cover it up and lie. Most people don't know."

So while Aung San Suu Kyi offers sympathy to Mr. Liu, the BBC works its diplomatic magic, and the organisers of the Nobel Prize attempt to clarify their position, China will just have to sit and watch uncomfortably as the governent loses face in front of the world later today.

Another Tiananmen Square veteran, Wu'er Kaixi will collect the award on behalf of Mr. Liu, and there's nothing that the Chinese government can do.

It's just a damned shame that Liu Xiaobo won't be able to collect the prize himself.

 

So now, the question you've all been waiting for...

Who on Earth is Carl von Ossietzky?

 In 1935, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky. Sadly the laureate was unable to attend the ceremony to collect as he was in prison.

When Liu Xiaobo doesn't attend the ceremony today, it will not be the first time a laureate has been unable to collect.
And who was it that had imprisoned Mr. von Ossietzky - the winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace?
The Nazis, of course.

 

Carl von Ossietzky -
Nobel Peace Prize winner 1935
Pictured in a concentration
 camp in Esterwegen, 1934



Liu Xiaobo - Nobel Peace Prize winner 2010
Currently imprisoned in China.



CONGRATULATIONS LIU XIAOBO!
WINNER - NOBEL PEACE PRIZE 2010

Free Speech has a number!! 88.80.13.160

‎"We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction." - Julian Assange

PRETTY much the most exciting thing happening in the world right now, is the fallout from the release of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables. The founder of the website that released them is on the run, and the debate rages as to whether or not Wikileaks should be allowed to continue in it's mission.

With the main wikileaks website having been shut down, the IP address, 88.80.13.160,  is now being publicised as the best way of accessing the leaked material. Indeed it has now become the 'number of free speech'.

If you are struggling to be sure of your own opinions on the dangerous whistle-blowing phenomenon, you're not the only one. Most of the world is currently wrestling with exactly the same question - a moral question in fact, as all the best ones tend to be;
    If you have access to documents which expose political or corporate wrong-doing, should you publish them, even if doing so puts national security and international diplomatic relations at risk?

On Friday, The Guardian secured an online chat with Julian Assange, founder of the controversial Wikileaks website. As web-chats go, this one was particularly enlightening, and the variety of questions fielded to him were suitably chosen.

I had begun to lose faith in such methods of interaction after participating in the BBCs recent online 'chat' with Ai Wei Wei, in which the moderator embarassed those of us taking part by actually submitting the question "what is your favourite Dim Sum" to the famous Chinese artist and dissident - as if that was somehow relevant to the discussion on human rights which was taking place.

Thankfully Assange was not insulted in such a way, and the replies he gave left us in no doubt as to his reasons for maintaining the terrifying website which gives governments nightmares. Unfortunately, with this particular debate, merely understanding both sides of the arguement offers no help when it comes to placing yourself on either side of the divide.

Few can doubt the necessity for greater accountability, especially amongst governments - elected bodies - which massacre thousands in our names.

If you watch the 'Collateral Murder' video, filmed from an Apache helicopter gun-sight, released by Wikileaks and showing the unprovoked slaying of a number of Iraqis along with a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers, it is very hard not to be extremely thankful for the process which, through WL, brought such an injustice to the world's attention.

The video can be found here:



The 'Collateral Murder' leak - an example of why Wikileaks is important

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

For those who witness atrocities such as this to be able to safely 'leak' such footage to the world without fear for their own safety is a service that Assange provides and the importance of which cannot be over-stated.

The website was the recipient of the 2008 Economist Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award and took home the 2009 Amnesty International human rights reporting award, and yet Assange is unlikely to be up for a nobel peace prize any time soon.

 Wikileaks has released more classified intelligence documents than the rest of the world press combined, which rather than making him a hero, has put Julian Assange right at the top of many countries most wanted lists.

His current lifestyle is reminiscent of a Hollywood spy film, with reports from those that have been in contact with him in recent days claiming that he is continually on the move, checking into hotels under false names and "changing mobile phones as other men change shirts."

Many claim that, through making sensitive information available, Wikileaks has placed the lives of many who rely on diplomatic security in danger, and that those who work for the mysterious website have blood on their hands. Indeed it is difficult to see how diplomacy itself can function as we know it when the threat of publication hangs over every cable, document and conversation.

Whilst the odd unpleasant remark about Berlusconi or Prince Andrew can be laughed off, it would be fair to say that making public information regarding the current situation in Korea is irresponsible and potentially catastrophic.

It is also worth noting that absolutely none of the ongoing 'cablegate' affair has been reported by media in China - a country which has suffered heavily from the hemorrhaging and whose silence on the matter can be seen only as an indication of their embarrassment.
The Communist-in-name-only superpower was exposed in cables detailing American fears of Chinese cyber-warfare, complaints from Britain, India and Japan of Beijing's aggressiveness and African anger at China's coercion in aid-for-resources deals. Though not at all unexpected there were also revelations that cyber attacks on Google, which led the internet giant to leave the Chinese mainland, actually originated from within the Chinese government's Politburo itself.

 One thought repeated throughout the internet at the moment is that the time and investment that governments are suddenly putting into censoring Wikileaks highlights a far more troubling point than the content of the documents themselves:  "All the censoring of WikiLeaks is more alarming than the actual content of the leaks. It only further justifies WL's actions," reads one widely distributed comment.

And if our governments are happy to lecture China, North Korea and Singapore on the wrongs of censorship, then how can we stand back and watch as Julian Assange is vilified for merely providing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth....?

Indeed, I think that the threat of being censored to such a degree by our own elected officials scares me more than the threat of sensitive documents being in the hands of those who shouldn't have them.

As Assange deftly moves to keep the documents online - even posting massive encrypted files titled 'insurance' on bittorrent sites - he writes during The Guardian's webchat that he sees the attempts to shut him down by the US as a good sign:

"The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be "free" because a change in politics will rarely lead to any change in these basic instruments. Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free.

"In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it. We should always look at censorship as an economic signal that reveals the potential power of speech in that jurisdiction. The attacks against us by the US point to a great hope, speech powerful enough to break the fiscal blockade."



The most exciting modern debate in international security and censorship continues...

   



Are Wikileaks hands stained, or does Assange's mission highlight a
serious lack of transparency in governments around the world?

"....do you believe everything you read in the paper?"

IF THE above masthead doesn't frighten you, it really should.

Unfortunately we wake up today to the horiffic news that the English language version of China Daily will henceforth be sold on shelves in the UK.

As of today, if you so wished, you could now go down to the newsagents, skip past The Guardian, ignore the poor old Independent, hurry quickly past The Sun and decide instead to read your news directly as the Communist Party of China gives it to you.




China Daily: Europe costs £2, has a print run of 25,000 in the UK

 and is on sale at a number of outlets, including WH Smith.

  So, should you decide to become a regular reader, what changes are you likely to see?

Well, for example, no longer will the Dalai Lama be known as 'Nobel Peace Prize Winner'. In this publication (available from all good newsagents!) he will be known as a 'terrorist'.

THIS is the official website of the publication, which as you will note neglects to mention anywhere either the ongoing crisis in Korea or the recent revelations about China from the Wikileaks documents.

As both of these stories are of massive importance to China and Europe, you would think that a newspaper calling itself 'China Daily Europe' would carry them.

But of course, China's newspapers are no ordinary publications.

In fact, as you would expect, the headlines are all unanimously positive about China:

China fueling European economic recovery!

Companies unfazed by new taxes!

Royal engagement excites Chinese!

Chopsticks becoming a popular gift!

Chinese train breaks speed record in trial use!

But does this matter? Afterall we have been able to read propaganda from all around the world for as long as it's been written, and many have been checking what news is being invented by Chinese State News online for years anyway.

I personally feel, however, that with this new step forward for Chinese media, we in England may be taking a giant leap backwards.

I have been shocked by those who are blaming the UK press for FIFA's decision not to award England the 2018 World Cup. Some seem to think that exposing corruption and operating a free press should be secondary to appeasing the bent FIFA executive committee members(!)

That a reminder of such media power by Sepp Blatter influenced them in their vote is a testament to the strength of our media. Friday's comments by The Sun writer Neil Custis on the free press should remind people of what is important: 

"We have a free press in this country" he said, "In Russia the 'free press' involves somebody who critiscises the regime, enters a lift and doesn't come out the other side."

Speaking about the controversy surrounding the failed bid, Custis added:

"I am proud in this country that we have a free press, I am proud that people like myself can speak like this, I am proud of what we've done in the papers this morning, critiscising this outrageous scandal."

So, how does picking up state-run Chinese propaganda at the local news stand fit into this free press that we supposedly have?

I understand the argument that if we stop publications such as this from being sold here, we too are controlling what the British people read. But I disagree.

There can be nothing gained from trusting the words printed by the Chinese government. Everything written within the pages of CDE will have been done so solely to benefit China through the manipulation of its readers.

This is not the media that England has grown to be proud of. This is not the type of material we should be educating our people with.

In short, for shops such as WHSmith to stock publications such as this is a disgrace.

If anyone is interested in what it's like to work in China at the China Daily, they would do well to read the following blog: http://leakingstatesecrets.blogspot.com/