16 Comments:

So let me get this straight. The purpose of running the almighty torch is to generate excitement for the games, and for publicity. (Heh. They have plenty of publicity!) It's only "traditional" as far as the Nazi Germany games. So this stunt to attract attention is being done almost in secret, by invitation, hidden routes, keep the crowds away, etc. Since so much bad feeling about China is coming out, wouldn't it be better just to call the whole torch thing off? Personally, I'd like to see the games pulled from China altogether. What I'd really like is not only to free Tibet, but to free the Chinese people as well.

By  Bob Sorensen, at 23 April, 2008 17:32  

Amen S.B.

G-d (or insert any higher power of your choice) save us all from restless miserable masses whipped into rages with temporarily convenient truths, which is to say mis-information. G-d save us all from tyrants of every stripe. G-d save us all from the tyranny of our individual and collective delusions. Then maybe we can all seriously party around Olympic time. Meanwhile, I'm thinking, Nope.

I think IOC already tried telling PRC they ought to call the torch trip off. They refused, which would seem to prove it's 'their' torch after all (IOC says it's theirs, or the world's, whichever).

By  Anonymous, at 23 April, 2008 17:50  

To Enrico & all his like-minded " humanitarian activists" :-

Just would like to say " well done" to all of you. But you probably will be a more complete human being if you can stand up as bravely as you are doing now, when your fellow country man kill, rape & burn to death the minority ethnic Chinese of Indonesia next time ! { i am actually wondering aloud now, where were you then when your fellow countryman did these henious genocide: they killed,raped & burned to death thousands of ethnic Chinese without provocation , pure barbaric act ! }. Untill you can own up to this pure classic violation of human rights in your own backyard,your "crusade" to free tibet here is just another farce at most !....the same to CNN & BBC on the poor Iraqi and Palestinian.

For me, you are just a mockery of human race !

You can continue behaving like an ostrich or do the right thing, be a man, say it : who care about Tibetian,Iraqi or Palestinian , I just hate Chinese !!. atleast CNN & BBC indiscreetly let known their real agenda in this matter..i.e. seeding hatre towards Chinese.

By  PC, at 23 April, 2008 21:42  

stormbringer:
Love your icon ;-)

Right, CCP is getting lots of publicity out of this. Plenty of people who don't really pay attention to such things, might be hearing for the first time about the old Chinese Communist Party, and what it likes to do for a good time.

In the tradition of the German Nazis, no less.

The torch thing should be stopped now. It gets to be more of a joke at every stop. Wait til tomorrow...

And then we have Seoul and Nagano. Koreans are famous for vigorous protesting. Japanese authorities say they won't interfere with any protests, unless they become violent. It is people's right.

And Hong Kong too. How much more face can CCP stand to lose? The pro-democracy movement isn't afraid of a few communists, that's for sure.

I appreciate your closing statement, and I hope a couple of other recent commenters will see it. Protesting the torch is about 'keep it out of Tibet', and CCP's ruthless treatment of Tibetans now. It's not criticism of Chinese people, other than the ones who support what the gov't is doing to Tibetans (and some are even calling for tougher measures!).

By  Agam, at 23 April, 2008 22:17  

dava: Amen!

Good point on CCP gov't of China (I'm trying to use this construction more now, as some object if I just say China) taking full ownership of the torch. They'll do what they want with it, over anybody else's objections, so it's obviously theirs, 100%. It's not the Olympic Torch any more.

By  Agam, at 23 April, 2008 22:23  

PC:

It couldn't possibly stand for politically correct.

You want to talk about Jakarta in May 1998, fine.

The protests across Indonesia had been going for months, students in front. They were against the 30+ year old New Order regime of Suharto, nothing more nothing less. Four students (among them a Chinese Indonesian) were shot and killed by police snipers, either on their campus grounds or in the adjacent roadway.

This made people real mad, and when you make people that mad, some of them will want to break things. All it takes are a few to lead the charge, more will follow.

A day or two after the killings, large department stores and malls were attacked and looted. But here's the interesting part; the people living in the kampungs (neighborhoods) near these places (generally not the same people who shopped in them) described pick-up trucks full of men arriving out of nowhere, raising a ruckus in the main street, burning tires, breaking windows etc. With the right slogans, you can get others to join in.

This happened repeatedly across the city that night, and for two more nights. None of the kampung people recognised the guys in the trucks. But they remembered their distinctive look. Muscular build, short cropped hair, street clothes with military-type boots, and radios. (who know with that one, it could have been handphones and repeated as radios, but they were communicating with someone)

Oh yeah, all these big stores and malls are owned by local ethnic Chinese business tycoons. People know that. The Chinese commercial class (particularly the big boys) were Suharto's best, and most necessary allies. (Business relations with the armed forces, too complicated to get into here.)

The houses of some of the richest ones were also targeted. And so the violence began to be turned toward Chinese in general. It's depressing, it's horrible, but that's what happened. I know a Chinese American who went through that, when gangs were roaming around looking for Chinese to chase down or beat up. A large part of Golok Market, packed with small businesses (ultra-small mostly), was burned. Shop houses were torched or ransacked, and people died in some of them.

But those malls and dept. stores, that is where nearly all of the deaths, over three days, occurred. That was really horrible too. When the roving gangs had worked up enough of a mob, while the rest of the kampung stood around bewildered (think, old people in sarongs, little kids, families), they broke into the big store(s), opened them up. More people rushed following the mob, then more followed those. All those things they saw on tv but couldn't possibly buy, were right there waiting to go.

So these huge buildings filled up with poor people, having a shopping spree fit for a tv gameshow. I saw a picture of a boy, about 6, walking out a broken window with a soccer ball under one arm and a book under the other. How can I blame him?

Fires were set in these buildings, full of hundreds of people. Most of them died, it took days and days to get them all out. They didn't block gruesome news pictures on the Indonesian networks then, it was all on tv. The final death toll was upwards of 1500. It happened in dozens of locations.

Even before the recovery was finished, those poor people started bringing back the stuff they took. I've never seen anything like it, in any country! They brought back fridges, tv's, clothes, everything, and started putting them in front of the stores. The city gov't had to set up reception locations in parking lots, where it could be more organised. I don't know what proportion was given back, but it was a lot of stuff.

In the weeks after this, Global Huaren was formed. I've ever seen the young, connected overseas Chinese anywhere near as organised and angry as they are now, but they were then. Heart-rending accounts were posted all over the internet, Usenet forums, and terrible pictures of torture too. It was all about the barbaric nature of those dark savages, according to what I read from many Chinese cyber-activists (many of them in Malaysia. And Singapore, where the top tycoons had all fled with their money).

Some of the stories were true and some weren't. Some contained enough details that they were discredited, and some really happened - though often not the way the story was told.

Of the torture pictures, those were quickly shown to be photos from the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, and they were terrible. A lot of these were circulated with the claim that they showed Indonesian atrocities against Chinese in Jakarta in the Black Days of May. It wasn't true. Some people were trying to pull a deception, and obviously it's still working.

So never mind where Enrico was. Foundations like his, and the Legal Aid Foundation, whose people were detained yesterday for speaking their conscience, were at the front of civil society groups pushing for justice before and after Suharto's fall. You just know nothing about it.

You sound like a bit of a loon with your conclusion (tell the story completely wrong, and then fly off the handle for the big finish). But I do appreciate your bringing up the subject, so there's that.

I was watching these events on every Indo network, and I was in Jakarta shortly afterwards (very similar things happened in Solo, where I also stayed, and other big cities). My Indonesian friends protected Chinese people, and you are very very wrong about them.

I'll just add one more thing about PC. I usually like to know if my commenters have blogs, and PC does! You just need a prior invitation to read it.

By  Agam, at 23 April, 2008 23:44  

This comment has been removed by the author.

By  Bob Sorensen, at 24 April, 2008 17:05  

Agam, you're wasting your time on PC (Probably Communist), but perhaps people capable of rational thought will get something out of your comments. It's amazing and amusing when clowns like that will hide behind some imagined form of racism.

Sorry, Probably Castrated, but your crying about excuses for hating Chinese do not change the situation at hand. Injustices against the Chinese in other parts of the world are not the discussion, and it's just a smokescreen here because the Chinese treatment of the Tibetans is still contemptible.

By  Bob Sorensen, at 24 April, 2008 17:08  

How to reply to Dava directly?

Before you condemn someone you should do research first. During the May 98 riots I was there too with my camera, just as I was there for the torch relay. I was also in East Timor in 1991 and during the Referendum in 1999...

From the above dates you should be able to see that the enemy is not China or Chinese or anybody else for that matter. The enemy is a military that uses violence against innocent civilians...

By  Unknown, at 02 May, 2008 16:24  

Enrico:

It's an honour to have you here.

I really need to do something about the formatting of comments, they're difficult to read under the article (better to hit the "comments" link for ease of reading, until I get that fixed).

It was "PC" who wrote that, not Dava. PC has a blog, but one needs an invitation to read it. Dava is a kind and intelligent reader here.

I completely agree that the enemy is not China per se, nor the Chinese people. I've tried to explain that to several of our Sino-patriotic readers, and have even adjusted my writing style to accommodate their concerns.

Enrico, if you'd like to get in touch directly, my email is at the top of the sidebar. I'll be coming to Jakarta in the near future, and it would be a pleasure to meet you, talk about Tibet, Indonesia, art, and anything else. Thanks for the Roof of the World Foundation, and please give my very best regards to Gus Dur next time you may see him.

Agam

By  Agam, at 02 May, 2008 17:10  

Oops my deepest apologies to both you and Dava.
I had thought I read Dava who made that Ostrich comment...

The honor is all mine Agam. It's nice to see someone doing a proper Blog of all the WTN News with photos et al... And your posts are so well written. Hats off to you...

I do such a measly job on my website!

We are planning to get a group of Indonesian photographers that have been to Tibet and have an educational exhibition with seminars and lectures.

I will try to find your email and contact you directly with the details and find out when you are coming to Jakarta.

Thanks again.

By  Unknown, at 04 May, 2008 11:18  

This comment has been removed by the author.

By  Unknown, at 04 May, 2008 11:45  

Enrico, I don't know why I didn't see your last comment. I have them forwarded to my email, but I missed that one. I came back here to reply to your earlier one, and saw it. (you might want to delete the one with your address, or the web robots will find it)

I thought you might be interested - the Ostrich came back in yesterday's (oops, Saturday's) post ["Hong Kong ejects..."], with a couple of nearly as silly comments. I know he never saw either your reply here, or my own time-consuming reply on May '98 either. I told him he owes you an apology, but I doubt he'll see that either.

Thanks for your kind words. I'm not sure I deserve them, but I'm doing my best. It's great to hear about your proposed exhibition on Tibet - I'll certainly publicize it here once the details are ready. And I'd love to be in Jakarta when it happens!

Email coming...

By  Agam, at 05 May, 2008 02:27  

"Probably Communist", "Probably Castrated"….Wow..i like all these names calling, it really open up my eyes on how much people here hated me, a nonconformist.

Stormbringer : after reading your comments, I realized (at least your comments made me feel so) that you really hated Chinese, for whatever reason best known to yourself, in fact i respect that !

Agam : you did an excellent work in trying to explain what happened in Indonesia on May 98, but somehow I think it backfired a bit when you tried much too hard to justify what had happened then on behalf of the indigenous Indonesian (well, at least that is the impression given to the readers).

Enrico : sorry but no apology whatsoever for you. Instead, a challenge for you to log on to www.chinadaily.com.cn and http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4eecdc1c01009ciz.html.( i am not trying to prove anything here, just hope you can spare a minute of your time looking at these sites, that's all), and for this, i believe you are more liberal than Agam & stormbringer, please don't prove me wrong. Enrico,your noble intention is very much launded but then remember the saying " charity always start at home", there are many many more people at home in Indonesia that need your noble help. And please, try to understand what I meant by “ where are you, Enrico “, it doesn’t mean only about where are you physically then with your video camera taking scenes but rather as a whole, what have you done, will do & fight for the victims, then, now & in the future ?

By the way, Agam , if you allow public viewing of your blog, then please be prepared to accept the facts that there will be someone out there that do not share the same inspiration like yours; otherwise, just block out the nonconformist , invite & enjoy the company of your like-minded souls, simple as that !

By  PC, at 05 May, 2008 23:24  

PC: You got that flack from stormbringer because you are such a conformist, as are all those mindless drones who blessed all those Asian cities lately with their cries of "Go China! Beat up more Tibetans! Let's get that one and kill him!" That's the worst type of conformity.

And stormbringer told you that your falling back on the "racism" card is lame, not to mention false. So what do you do? Play it again. Doubly lame.

You didn't see me make justification for any preman gangs who actually did mistreat local Chinese in Jakarta, so another red herring there. I just gave you the context that the riots took place in. And mainly wanted to clear up the issue of who were all those approx. 1500 people who died. The overwhelming majority were poor kampung dwellers caught inside the department stores when they were set alight.

But there was a boatload of disinformation flooding the internet at that time, claiming thousands of Chinese were murdered, and all sorts of other trash. Much of the lies were disseminated by the Global Huaren internet group - like the East Timor photos they claimed were Chinese. I hope you weren't one of them, but you were propagating these same lies in your first comment.

I told you that you owed Enrico an apology, I sent you back here to read his reply, and frankly I didn't expect you to apologize either. So you're fulfilling all expectations! Now you're praising him a little bit for his compassion, and for probably being a better person than stormbringer or I. But in your first comment, you write of Enrico, "you are just a mockery of human race!"

Are you sure that doesn't require an apology? I could have trashed that on the basis of the commenting requirement clearly stated right above the comment box. I left it because it clearly marks you as a person with no integrity.

And of course I know that some readers won't agree with me, and I don't delete people simply for disagreeing. But I do if they're disagreeable, abusive or insulting. I've only had to take out the trash twice or so in the past couple of months, and we've had a number of people posting opposing views.

Why don't you allow public viewing of your blog, hmmm? Only enjoy the "like-minded souls"?

By  Agam, at 06 May, 2008 10:54  

To PC:

No need for apologies (especially ones not really meant) as I guess your reading of my very short comment is not deep enough.

Charity does begin at home and that's why I mentioned those dates and places. I was there and saw the barbaric crimes and hence have done work representing and for those victims too...

The other saying about how charity should be anonymous is more apt here, every good work we do shouldn't really broadcasted as it will lead to hubris...

But the saying (told to me by a recently deceased Communist friend) more appropriate for you is: "I might not agree with you, but your right to exist I will defend with my life". Try to apply this to people you disagree with everyday and your life, I guarantee, will improve...

Or try reading The Dalai Lama...

Peace On Earth!

Rico

By  Unknown, at 25 June, 2008 17:30  

Post a Comment