Friday, January 11, 2008

Bludgeoning of a Blogger


About a month to go before the formal entry of the Year of the Rat (February 7), wild hogs disguised as municipal inspectors, in a village in Hubei province inside the People's Republic of China, went on a rampage and bludgeoned a blogger to death. The blogger's name was Wei Wenhua. He was 41 years old.

Wei was a construction executive. He chanced upon a confrontation involving villagers and municipal inspectors who were trying to dump waste near their homes. Things turned ugly when the villagers attempted to prevent the trucks from disposing the trash. Wei took out his cell phone to record the event when he was pounced upon by over 50 municipal inspectors who beat him up mercilessly and relentlessly for about five minutes. He was dead on arrival at the Tianmen hospital.

China has not relinquished its propensity for using brute force to quash dissent. They have not admitted any wrongdoing nor accepted guilt, much less apologized for the massacre in Tiannanmen in 1989; so how can they learn from a mistake they don't see as such? The predisposition to control by force or military means remains its first option; perhaps its only desired option. For the Chinese authorities, freedom of expression is a threat, just like social, political and cultural freedoms; and the best way, or certain way for them to remove these are by obliterating the source. They would smash them like tomatoes with tanks too if necessary.

This latest display of unspeakable barbarism unmasks the true face and despicable nature of a government that is psyched up for abuse and authorized to oppress. What right did these "Hogs of Hubei" have in attacking a man for documenting a filthy deed? Why all 50 of them? Were they so frustrated at failing to dump the waste that they vented their ire on a hapless blogger? And why would they dump the waste in the village and force the people to accept it? Do they see their own people as pigs and considered making their homes into pigsties?

Last November, an activist named Shi Tao was sentenced to prison for e-mailing a letter critical of the Chinese government. He was uncovered when the heads of Yahoo in the US revealed his identity and profile to the Chinese Authorities. Shi Tao's fate in prison for 10 years is probably worse than hell.

Bloggers in China are outraged by the incident and are mounting larger protest actions against the use of violence. Protests from bloggers worldwide should also be focused against subjection of individual rights to cruel and harsh methods of domination.

The Country's official name is The People's Republic of China. Is it of the people, for the people and by the people? Or is it more like off the people, fool the people, buy the people.? Should there be large scale protests, would there be any people left? The Politburo maybe. Republic? What Republic? It's more of Repugnance and Repression! So perhaps the name should be changed to The Politburo's Repugnant Repression of China. That is what it was, that is what it still is.

Haaarrrwwwwk...Twoooooph...Ting!

3 comments:

iamsorceress said...

Still brings me haunting memories of the last paragraphs of George Orwell's Animal Farm. Pigs to men, men to pigs...where does the difference lie? Oh, I mean Humans. Not just men. :D

durano lawayan a.k.a. brad spit said...

Right on the button. I was thinking the same thing myself when I posted it. You've been hovering on my site! Thanks.

Back to work now? Don't fret, after the job's done, you can splurge on Starbucks. LOL! --Durano, done!

iamsorceress said...

LOL. I'm back from oblivion. Too bad I cant splurge on Starbucks, way too far from where I am.

I'm semi back, comrade. See ya around.