o******d
发帖数: 743 | 1 英国卫报， FYI
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/08/liu-xiaobo-china
Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel, reform loses
China has many unsung heroes pushing for democracy. Their task gets harder
when the west rewards high-profile dissidents
* Nick Young
Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist who has just been
awarded a Nobel peace prize, is certainly a brave man, and his imprisonment
is deplorable. But it is hard to see what contribution he has made to peace,
in China or beyond, or how this award will further peace.
Westerners are so dazzled – and yet, also so perturbed – by China's "rise"
that we easily overlook how painful and precarious its 30-year economic
reform and opening process has been. In many ways, the transition has been
as profound and as traumatic as the UK's 19th-century agrarian and
industrial revolutions, which were accomplished with little democracy and
scant regard for human rights. Yet most Chinese people remain relatively
poor, with average GNP per capita still lower in China than in many Latin
American and African countries.
In these circumstances, Chinese Communist party's fears of instability are
not stupid and the attempt to impose "harmony" by decree is not irrational.
While it remains decidedly authoritarian and determined to nip all
opposition movements in the bud, Communist party rule has become much more
consultative over the last 20 years. Non-party intellectuals and special-
interest groups have been allowed a voice in policy debate; and there has
been gradual recognition of the need for "civil society" organisations, such
as the Chinese NGOs currently participating in the Tianjin climate change
talks.
The line between permissible activism and "unpatriotic" dissidence is never
clear in China, and is prone to shift according to the political mood of the
moment. This naturally encourages self-censorship and caution.
But there are many unsung heroes – within the Communist party and "official
" media, as well as among NGOs and the academy – who are working for
incremental political reform, increased "public participation", greater
economic and social equality and negotiated compromise between competing
interests in the complex and stratified society that is developing. These
are China's real peacemakers. They typically eschew the adversarial approach
of activists like Liu – whose Charter 08 movement threw a gauntlet down to
the authorities – not out of fear, but because they feel there are more
constructive ways to achieve peaceful change in the Chinese social, cultural
and political context.
The Nobel award will embolden those in China who are most inclined to
confrontational tactics. It may well also prompt renewed state security
surveillance of reform-minded academics and NGOs, which may, in turn, nudge
some more of them over the line from pro-reform advocacy to outright
dissidence.
Beyond doubt, though, it will strengthen the argument, within China, that
the west is determined to derail China's progress by promoting internal
strife.
It would be a grave mistake to think that this is believed only by old, die-
hard Marxists, militarists and proto-fascist nationalists. Many educated
young Chinese people, who are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves
and are, by no means, stooges of the Communist party, are highly sceptical
of western prescriptions for China, and want to find a distinctively Chinese
, perhaps "Confucian", form of democratisation. Those who have studied in
the west, and had a chance to see our warts as well as our freedoms, are
among the least inclined to believe that westernisation is the right road
for China.
Symbolic gestures such as the Nobel award for Liu help to persuade such
young people, who will be China's next generation of political and business
leaders, that the west really is fundamentally anti-Chinese and determined
to keep China down. And that heightened tension is likely to prolong, not
shorten, the Communist party's rule: a strange harvest for a prize given in
the name of peace. | m*l
发帖数: 83 | 2 写得挺好。
imprisonment
peace,
【在 o******d 的大作中提到】
: 英国卫报， FYI
: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/08/liu-xiaobo-china
: Liu Xiaobo wins Nobel, reform loses
: China has many unsung heroes pushing for democracy. Their task gets harder
: when the west rewards high-profile dissidents
: * Nick Young
: Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist who has just been
: awarded a Nobel peace prize, is certainly a brave man, and his imprisonment
: is deplorable. But it is hard to see what contribution he has made to peace,
: in China or beyond, or how this award will further peace.
| l****o
发帖数: 2909 | | l*****o
发帖数: 9235 | 4 Wow, I am impressed by the author. Typically, very few westerners can be as
sophisticated and insightful as this author. |
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