4.08.2008

Snuff out Beijing's Trolls

In reviewing the local national media's coverage of China's brutal crackdown in Tibet and the subsequent worldwide protests of the Olympic Torch relay, this page has noticed a chilling trend among the online discussion threads and letters to the editor stemming from the coverage - the high volume of disgusting posts from Chinese people in Canada supporting the actions of the Peoples' Revolutionary Army. This page does not consider these people to be Chinese Canadians. Chinese Canadians are Canadians, and Canadians respect the values inherent in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Some bloggers and commentators maintain there are two sides to every story, so as a public service, here's the Communist side of the story:

"In 1949, our little ragtag group led by Mao Tse Tung took over the country, and we're still in charge. We'll be damned if any other little ragtag group, be it Falun Gong, the Tibetans, or those annoying students in Tianman Square get anywhere near to challenging us, no matter how many of them we have to send to the prisons, the hospitals, and the executioners!!"

What these wannabe Jintaos and the Jiabos don't grasp is that for all their demonizing of the Tibeatan people and the Dalai Lama, it's not like anyone who stands in their way has any actual firepower. Having been through a few similar threads occupied by Chinese trolls, I've noticed that they work from a script more than likely drafted by the Xinhua News Agency. Here's a sample of some their regurgitated talking points:

-The Dalai Lama and his 'Dalai Clique' are terrorists, funded by the CIA.
-Any protest against China and the Beijing Olympics is 'violent'.
-Tibet is 'historically' part of China (for those of you scoring at home, this would be in the same way that parts of France 'historically' belong to England).
-China 'liberated' Tibet in 1952.
-The Dalai Lama wants Tibet to secede from China (for those of you scoring at home, the Dalai Lama has insisted that Tibet should function as the 'autonomous region' promised by China).
-China should be allowed to brutalize Tibetans because the U.S. brutalized Iraqis.
-China should be allowed to brutalized Tibetans because Canada brutalized First Nations people.
-China should be excused from its excessive brutality because of its unique cultural and slow adaptation to change. At the same time, Beijing should host the Olympics because China feels its ready to take its place among the 'advanced' nations of the world.

Anyone else sick of Communist Party hacks who refuse to tell the difference between democratic freedom and dictatorship capitalism? People may hate the opinions expressed by this page, but there's a huge difference here: I'm not pulled by anyone's strings, I'm not on anyone's payroll, and you can count my contributors on one hand. Freedom of expression is one thing, but just like we didn't hear Japanese Canadians whooping it up after Pearl Harbour, Chinese Canadians aren't celebrating the Communist beatdown in Lhasa. Anything else, as far as this page is concerned, is coming from the propaganda wing of the People's Republic, and if it continues to show up in Canadian media outlets, the RCMP and CSIS should investigate.

1 comment:

Rob Cottingham said...

Heh. So far, I've only had the one guy come by my blog - he seems extremely active; a web search turned up similar comments under his name over and over again - and he nailed practically every talking point you mentioned.

It's intellectually dishonest as hell... but then again, so much of the political commentary on blog posts is just regurgitated talking points that couldn't withstand more than a moment's scrutiny. Maybe it's no surprise that China's partisans are weighing in so clumsily; there are hit squads out there for pretty much every point of view, and few do it with any level of finesse.