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Political Religion & the Khmer Rouge
Posted on Nov 21, 2013 in Southeast Asia (Dissertation Reviews)

A review of Pol Pot’s Total Revolution: An Inquiry of Democratic Kampuchea as a Political Religion, by Steven Michael DeBurger.

Pol Pot’s Total Revolution offers a fresh reading of Cambodia’s Democratic Kampuchea period. This dissertation consists of 12 chapters and an appendix. Chapter 1 opens with a gloss on the pre-revolutionary violence that served as the condition of possibility for the emergence of Democratic Kampuchea, and second, the subsequent genocidal violence of Pol Pot’s revolutionary regime. The author follows this opening discussion by helpfully warning the reader that his dissertation will not focus on the questions that traditionally occupy research on Democratic Kampuchea. Rather, the dissertation will focus on what he identifies as critical “aporia” in the literature, namely those “aspects of the regime of terror historians and political scientists have been unconcerned with, or chose not to explore” (p. 4). This opening chapter also introduces Eric Voegelin’s key concept of political religion, which will be deployed in the subsequent chapters’ analyses of Democratic Kampuchea’s violent replacement of Khmer Buddhism with the regime’s totalitarian ideology.

Chapter 2 focuses on the genre of the survivor memoir. The author draws on the harrowing survivor narratives of Haing S. Ngor’s A Cambodian Odyssey (1987), Pin Yathay’s Stay Alive, My Son (1987), U Sam Oeur’s Crossing Three Wildernesses (2005), Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father (2000), Laurence Picq’s Beyond the Horizon (1989), and Denise Affonco’s To the End of Hell (2005), among others, to reconstruct life under Democratic Kampuchea, and more crucially, the political religion introduced by Angkar, the Khmer Rouge’s feared central organization. Khmer Buddhism, the spiritual life-world that was violently suppressed by the regime, is the subject of Chapter 3. After a brief discussion of the place of Khmer Buddhism in pre-revolutionary Cambodian society, the author turns to its near-destruction at the hands of the violently anti-clerical Khmer Rouge, and the regime’s strenuous efforts to indoctrinate Cambodians to embrace Angkar as a quasi-religious totem. This spiritual overthrow was accomplished in part by the mass killing of monks and the forced disrobing of the surviving members of the Khmer Buddhist monastic order. The author briefly discusses the Khmer Rouge’s parallel suppression of the Cham Muslim minority, and returns to survivor memoirs to flesh out the regime’s violent disruption of the traditional Cambodian life-world.

Following Chapter 3’s account of the overthrow of Khmer Buddhism in Democratic Kampuchea, Chapter 4 focuses on its replacement with the regime’s deployment of radical agrarian utopianism as a political religion, which while ostensibly secular, constituted “an authentic religious phenomenon which exhibited the trappings of many Khmer Theravada Buddhist religious experiences yet ultimately led to a construction of an entirely new spiritual identity” (p. 62). For example, the regime’s evacuation of Cambodia’s urban dwellers from cities to forests and collective farms short-circuited the traditional Khmer cultural binary of wild and civilization, and the author reads this forced migration as a means through which the regime undertook the spiritual transformation of its citizens into authentically Khmer revolutionary subjects. Eric Voegelin’s notion of political religion, from his Die politischen Religionen (1938), is crucial to this analysis, and the author draws parallels with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Bolshevik Russia, and Maoist China.

Chapter 5 turns to the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of Democratic Kampuchea. Drawing on the anthropological work of May Ebihara, the author first reconstructs the spiritual life-world of pre-revolutionary Cambodia, in particular its rich dimension of supernatural belief. Following this, the author reconstructs the violent aesthetic life-world of Democratic Kampuchea through a reading of the revolutionary slogans and songs recounted in survivor memoirs and other documents. The author concludes this chapter with an account of the everyday acts of resistance courageously undertaken by ordinary Cambodian believers against the Pol Pot regime’s totalitarian attempt to obliterate their spiritual life-world. Despite the immense danger, these believers continued their forbidden acts of worship in secret, and this helped Cambodia to rebuild its spiritual life-world after the fall of the Pol Pot regime in 1979.

From the macrocosm of Democratic Kampuchea, Chapter 6 turns to the microcosm of the notorious S-21 prison. The author opens with an extended discussion of Eric Voegelin’s account in his Hitler and the Germans (1999) of the existential tension which affects the subject living under a political religion, when the representation of reality constituted by ideology comes into conflict with reality itself. This notion of “second reality” allows Voegelin to critique the Nazi subject as living under a grossly deluded understanding of reality. The author draws on this Voegelinian concept to explicate S-21’s perpetrators – its executioners, torturers, guards, and administrators – as existing in a thought-space constituted by the paranoid fantasies of the Pol Pot regime. As the author notes, this second reality of S-21 eventually devoured many of its subjects: almost 600 of S-21’s employees ended up getting arrested and executed over the course of its existence. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Rithy Panh’s seminal documentary S-21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine, which memorably brought together a group of S-21’s surviving perpetrators and victims on the prison grounds. The author observes that these surviving perpetrators’ testimonials of their past actions and their chilling reenactments of their prison routines recreates for the viewer the second reality that came into existence with S-21.

Chapter 7 expands on the previous chapter’s discussion of S-21 with its focus on the prison’s notorious gallery of prisoner mugshots. After deploying aesthetic insights drawn from Gilles Deleuze’s Francis Bacon (2002), Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida (1981), Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain (1985), and Jill Bennett’s Emphatic Vision (2005) to read the disturbing affect of these mugshots, the author extends his aesthetic analysis by offering a Foucauldian reading of the disciplinary regime instantiated by this photographic archive. Chapter 8 continues with the previous chapter’s aesthetic theme with Schillerian readings of first, Democratic Kampuchea’s kill squads, and second, S-21 survivor Vann Nath’s account of the revolutionary aesthetics of Pol Pot’s regime. The chapter concludes with a deployment of Jacques Rancière’s aesthetic philosophy to read the political theater of Democratic Kampuchea. Chapter 9 extends this Rancièrean theme with a discussion of the Pol Pot regime’s totalitarian aesthetics, which are read alongside those of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

Chapter 10 turns from the aesthetic theme of the previous three chapters with a reflection of the position of the peasant in the revolutionary teleology of Democratic Kampuchea. This is read in counterpoint to the Marxist and Maoist understandings of the revolutionary role of the peasant. Chapter 11 focuses on a key deviation of Pol Pot’s revolution from the Marxist and Maoist models: its Khmer ethnocentrism. This violent ethnic chauvinism, which was accompanied by genocidal purges of the Cham Muslim and Vietnamese minorities, brings the analysis back to the earlier discussions of Democratic Kampuchea qua political religion, by focusing on the regime’s ultra-nationalism as an aspect of the revolutionary state’s political religion.

In the conclusion of his dissertation, the author reflects on the applicability of the notion of political religion, in particular Eric Voegelin’s formulation of the concept, to analyze other regimes of terror, including the genocidal regimes of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He observes that an understanding of Democratic Kampuchea would be incomplete without a consideration of the transcendental dimension of the regime’s ostensibly secular ideology, and he reiterates the importance of survivor memoirs as a source of insight into this dimension of affect. This concluding chapter is followed by an appendix: a study of Nuon Chea, Democratic Kampuchea’s Brother Number Two and one of the surviving defendants in the ongoing Khmer Rouge genocide trials.

With his deployment of Eric Voegelin’s notion of political religion, and with his focus on political aesthetics, Steven DeBurger fulfills in his dissertation his promise of offering a fresh reading of Democratic Kampuchea. Moving beyond the Pol Pot period, this conceptual toolkit offers the means of new readings of other periods in Cambodian history, including the present neoliberal period.

Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim
International and Comparative Politics
American University of Nigeria
alvin.lim@aun.edu.ng

Primary Sources

Democratic Kampuchea survivor memoirs, including:
Affonco, Denise. To the End of Hell: One Woman’s Struggle to Survive Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge. London: Reportage Press, 2007.
Bizot, François. The Gate. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.
Charithy Him. When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000.
Chileng Pa with Carol A. Mortland. Escaping the Khmer Rouge: A Cambodian Memoir. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008.
Criddle, Joan D. & Teeda Butt Mam. To Destroy You Is No Loss: The Odyssey of a Cambodian Family. New York: Doubleday, 1987.
Dith, Pran & DePaul, Kim. (Eds.) Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs by Survivors. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.
Haing Ngor. A Cambodian Odyssey. New York: Warner Books, 1987.
Keo, Sam. Out of the Dark: Into the Garden of Hope. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2001.
Lafreniere, Bree. Music through the Dark: A Tale of Survival in Cambodia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2000.
Loung Ung. First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers. New York: Harper Perennial, 2000.
Lunn, Richard. Leaving Year Zero: Stories of Surviving Pol Pot’s Cambodia. Crawley: University of Western Australia Press, 2004.
Ly Y. Heaven Becomes Hell: A Survivor’s Story of Life Under the Khmer Rouge. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 2000.
Picq, Laurence. Beyond the Horizon: Five Years with the Khmer Rouge. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989.
Pin Yathay. Stay Alive, My Son. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
U Sam Oeur. Crossing Three Wildernesses: A Memoir. Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2005.
Vann Nath. A Cambodian Prison Portrait: One Year in the Khmer Rouge’s S-21. Bangkok: White Lotus, 1998.

Dissertation Information

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. 2012. 279 pp. Primary Advisor: Manfred Henningsen.
Image: Detention and torture room, Security Prison 21 (S-21), Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Wikimedia Commons.
 
Θενκς, Ζαζ. Αν και δεν θυμόμουν το νήμα που λινκάρισες, όχι, δεν νομίζω ότι έχει σχέση.
 

Zazula

Administrator
Staff member
Θενκς, Ζαζ. Αν και δεν θυμόμουν το νήμα που λινκάρισες, όχι, δεν νομίζω ότι έχει σχέση.
Υπέθεσα πάντως πως ίσως και να το 'χες ξεχάσει, οπότε με την ευκαιρία... :)
 
Μια ερμηνεία για την εκτέλεση του συζύγου της θείας του Βορειοκορεάτη δικτάτορα, από το China Matters:

Friday, December 13, 2013
Jong’s Execution Might Be Kim Jung Un’s High-Stakes Diplomatic Gambit


Initial reports on the purge of Jong Song Thaek have understandably focused on his abrupt, brutal execution and the hysterical denunciation issued by the Korea Central News Agency.

Terms like “medieval” and “Games of Thrones” have been bandied about, along with expressions of amused contempt at the crude and barbaric character of the DPRK regime and its power and succession struggles.

I enjoy a bout of condescending sniggering as much as anyone, but perhaps attention should be paid to the risky geopolitical gambit that might underpin the move against Jang.

Jang was the architect of the DPRK’s nascent economic reform movement, which apparently relied to a significant extent on PRC models, PRC assistance and, we can assume, acceptance of the idea that a cost of reform was to allow Chinese companies unfair and resented advantages in exploiting economic opportunities in North Korean mines, factories, animal products, and electrical power (I wish to pause here to address the canard that the DPRK is dependent on the PRC for its energy. True, the DPRK has no petroleum resources to provide fuel for gas and diesel engines and is desperately reliant on imports; then again, so is South Korea. North Korea, thanks to its abundant hydropower, is a significant exporter of electricity to the PRC’s Northeast).

Anyway, Jang was Beijing’s guy in Pyongyang. His removal might mean that Kim Jong Un had it up to here with Uncle Jang’s bossiness, or his way of injecting PRC views and interests into the center of DPRK decision-making.

But it also might mean that Kim Jong Un decided to make a bold move to finally obtain direct U.S. engagement on security and economic talks.

Although it doesn’t seem to be discussed much in Western reporting, the DPRK has tried for decades—ever since its security and economic vulnerabilities were mercilessly exposed by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of Russian aid in 1990-- to wean the United States from its wholehearted backing of South Korea, and its willingness to let the PRC act as DPRK’s impatient patron, so Washington would engage with Pyongyang directly as a significant chess piece in the Northeast Asian great game.

One element of this struggle has been the DPRK’s nuclear weapons gyrations. Given the U.S. preoccupation with hostile states possessing nuclear weapons, it was considered that developing and testing nuclear weapons was perhaps the best way to attract U.S. attention and negotiate concessions. Unfortunately, this exposed the DPRK to a fatal contradiction, given the absolute U.S. insistence on nuclear deproliferation: to exploit its leverage and gain something from negotiations, the only way was to get rid of its leverage.

US-DPRK diplomacy has been understandably ridiculous since then.

Now, with the Swiss-educated and Dennis Rodman-entertaining Kim Jong Un in power, the DPRK desire for direct, productive relations with the US is stronger than ever.

And Kim can look to two positive developments.

First, Iran, an indication that the Obama administration will pursue diplomatic engagement with a nuclear power without insisting on complete deproliferation as a condition. New guy—Rohani—in Tehran, so open hand. Kim’s a new guy, too. Maybe he can get some of that open hand.

Second, Myanmar. It is safe to say that the United States told Myanmar and is telling the DPRK that it is not going to be suckered into providing security and economic assistance while its interlocutor snuggles comfortably in the bosom of the PRC. A clean break with China is, in other words, the price to be paid for nice words and things from the United States.

In the case of Myanmar, the government sacrificed the Myitsone Dam, a gigantic hydroelectric project funded by the PRC that threatened to orient the country’s power grid permanently toward China in the north and east (instead of west to Thailand, where we want it).

DPRK, instead of killing a dam, killed a guy: “Uncle Jang”.

Even so, a decisive and catastrophic break with the PRC is probably not going to happen. The PRC’s highest priority is probably the continued survival of the northern regime and avoiding a scenario in which the ROK occupies the peninsula, and becomes a world power on the scale of Japan with troops on China’s border. And if the DPRK can parlay a US tilt into economic growth, then the transition from basket case to Asian tiger will have knock-on economic benefits for the PRC that might compensate for the loss of its economic monopoly (thoughtfully created, as in the case of Myanmar, by a counterproductive US sanctions regime).

And, it should be remembered, immediately prior to the purge, the DPRK released American detainee Merrill Newman as a show of good will. And hapless evangelical Kenneth Bae is still in inventory to be released if US-North Korean discussions bear fruit.

It will be interesting to see how the U.S. government decides to play this.
 
Το άρθρο της γιαπωνέζικης Asahi Shimbun για την εκτέλεση του συζύγου της θείας, με διάφορα μεζεδάκια:

Jang had been tried and executed, North Korea said, for “attempting to overthrow the state by all sorts of intrigues and despicable methods with a wild ambition to grab the supreme power of our party and state.” It called him a “traitor to the nation for all ages” and “worse than a dog.”
(...)
The unusually detailed announcement came only days after North Korea said it had “eliminated” Jang from all his posts.
(...)
The KCNA report called Jang a “despicable political careerist and trickster” and “despicable human scum.”
(...)
Jang was described earlier this week by state media as “abusing his power,” being “engrossed in irregularities and corruption,” and taking drugs and squandering money at casinos while undergoing medical treatment in a foreign country.


Κόντεψα να τον συμπαθήσω το θείο!...
 
Το παραπάνω κείμενο (οΘντκ) του Κιμ μού θυμίζει τον περίφημο ισχυρισμό ότι ο Μάο σινοποίησε τον μαρξισμό. Πάντως ακόμα και αυτός λέει "Παλιότερα, η επαναστατική ιδέα του ηγέτη αποκαλούταν σύγχρονος Μαρξισμός-Λενινισμός. Φυσικά, υπάρχει κάποια αλήθεια σε αυτό, όμως δεν είναι ένας σωστός ορισμός, καθώς δίνει έμφαση κυρίως στην κληρονομιά του από το μαρξισμό-λενινισμό. Πλέον κανείς δεν αναφέρεται με αυτό τον ορισμό στην επαναστατική σκέψη του ηγέτη. Ωστόσο, υπάρχει ακόμα η τάση να την ερμηνεύουμε στη βάση του Μαρξισμού-Λενινισμού. " Τέλος, όσον αφορά την πρόζα του ίδιου του ελληνικού λαοκρατικού σάιτ: τον αντιφασισμό ή τον αντικαπιταλισμό ή τον αντιιμπεριαλισμό τον κηρύττει κανείς, αλλά τον αντικομουνισμό μόνο τον "ξερνάει"...

Τέλος πάντων, για όσους έχουν γερό στομάχι ώστε να ασχολούνται με το καθεστώς αυτό, τα juche και τα songun του, υπάρχει το σάιτ Sino-NK, π.χ.:
It is this curious admixture of socialism, militarism, nationalism, and third-worldism (the belief in helping third-world based socialist struggles for national autonomy) that makes up the contemporary North Korean worldview—and very much has since the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s.
και επίσης [αυτό] το κείμενο.
 
Για όσους δεν γνωρίζουν για το καθεστώς της Βόρειας Κορέας (όπως ο Χριστόδουλος δεν γνώριζε για τα βασανιστήρια της δικής μας χούντας γιατί...διάβαζε), υπάρχει στο YouTube το κανάλι North Korea Today, καθώς και στο νέτι το Korean Central Television. Ίσως έτσι διαλυθεί ο...γνόφος αγνωσίας.
 
Καθώς η δολοφονία του Jang Song Thaek ενόχλησε βαθύτατα την Κίνα, οι αποτροπιαστικές λεπτομέρειες για τα ήθη και έθιμα του...αντιιμπεριαλιστικού βορειοκορεατικού καθεστώτος πρωτοδημοσιεύτηκαν, προτού κάνουν το γύρο του κόσμου, σε έντυπο που ελέγχεται πλήρως από την επίσημη ΛΔΚ, το wenweipo. Σύμφωνα λοιπόν με άρθρο τής 24 Δεκ. 13 της σιγκαπουρέζικης The Straits Times, η παραπάνω Χονγκ-Κονγκέζικη εφημερίδα περιέγραψε σε άρθρο της της 12 Δεκ. 2013 τον τρόπο εκτέλεσης του άντρα της θείας του Κιμ Τζονγκ Ουν, από 120 άφαγα από 3 μέρες σκυλιά, μαζί με άλλους 5 συνεργάτες του και παρουσία 300 αξιωματούχων και του ίδιου του Κιμ (τζεϊμςμποντική ταινία θυμίζει αυτό). Και σχολιάζει η The Straits Times:

Beijing's displeasure is expressed through the publication of a detailed account of Jang's brutal execution in Wen Wei Po, its official mouthpiece, in Hong Kong, on Dec 12.

According to the report, unlike previous executions of political prisoners which were carried out by firing squads with machine guns, Jang was stripped naked and thrown into a cage, along with his five closest aides. Then 120 hounds, starved for three days, were allowed to prey on them until they were completely eaten up. This is called "quan jue", or execution by dogs.

The report said the entire process lasted for an hour, with Mr Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader in North Korea, supervising it along with 300 senior officials.

The horrifying report vividly depicted the brutality of the young North Korean leader. The fact that it appeared in a Beijing-controlled newspaper showed that China no longer cares about its relations with the Kim regime.

Two days later, the Global Times, associated with the People's Daily, a Chinese Communist Party organ, followed up with a sternly worded editorial saying that the abrupt political change epitomised the backwardness of the North Korean political system. It warned the Chinese government not to coddle North Korea any longer, saying that the majority of Chinese were extremely disgusted with the Kim regime.

The incendiary story, plus the stern editorial, provided a measure of the extent of Beijing's loathing, which is quite understandable.

(...)
Recent developments have posed a number of issues for China.

First, China's own security is at risk. The erratic and ruthless behaviour of Mr Kim Jong Un suggests that China should not underrate the likelihood of a nuclear threat from Pyongyang.

The Internet version of the Global Times carried an article last Monday by Lieutenant-General Wang Hongguang, former deputy commander of Nanjing Greater Military Region, saying that the recent incident showed North Korea had become increasingly provocative and was getting out of (Chinese) control. He urged a complete reassessment of security threats originating from that direction.

Second, China's political and strategic influence on the Korean peninsula has been drastically reduced. China was widely considered to be able to rein in the unruly Kim regime, thus acting as a force for peace in the region. But it now appears China's influence over its neighbour is close to zero.

This is clear from the fact that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi telephoned his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov for urgent consultation on Dec 13. This was followed by Ambassador Wu Dawei's trip to Moscow. Both moves suggest that Beijing realises it can no longer tame the Kim regime by itself.

Third, China had hoped to nurture a less belligerent neighbour by encouraging reform, open-door policies and economic development in North Korea. Jang had been working closely with China to bring about a Chinese-style transformation in his own country. With Jang brutally executed, the idea of a peaceful transformation seems unrealistic.
 
Μα συγγνώμη, πρέπει να είναι κανείς φιλικά διακείμενος προς τους Κιμ Ιλ Τάδε για να καταλάβει πόσο μούφα είναι αυτή η τζεϊμσμποντική φαντασία;

(Όχι: το λέει και η Washington Post).
 
Όχι βέβαια, ο καθένας δυσκολεύεται να πιστέψει τέτοιες ιστορίες. Ωστόσο, όπως λέει το λινκ σου,

Ωστόσο, ο συντάκτης παραδέχεται ότι παρ' όλο που η ιστορία φαντάζει εξαιρετικά απίθανη, δεν υπάρχει τρόπος να διαψευστεί, ενώ ακόμα και αναλυτές που είναι ιδιαίτερα επιφυλακτικοί απέναντί της, δηλώνουν ότι δεν μπορούν και να την αποκλείσουν.
Αυτός είναι άλλωστε και ένας από τους λόγους που θα οδηγούσε τόσα πολλά μέσα ενημέρωσης να μεταδώσουν μια τέτοια ιστορία: Σχεδόν κάθε πληροφορία, όσο παράλογη και αν ακούγεται, θα μπορούσε να αποδειχθεί αληθινή, δεδομένων και των ελάχιστων πληροφοριών που έρχονται από τη χώρα.


Και αυτό είναι το φοβερό. Άλλωστε, ποτέ μην πεις ποτέ, αφού, όπως επισημάνθηκε νωρίτερα, εξίσου ασύλληπτες και απίστευτες ήταν οι μαζικής κλίμακας βαρβαρότητες των ναζί στον Β' ΠΠ. Επίσης θυμάμαι τη δεκαετία του '70 τις ιστορίες που κυκλοφορούσαν για τον Ιντί Αμίν Νταντά της Ουγκάντας, τα κομμένα κεφάλια στο ψυγείο του και άλλα τέτοια.
 

LostVerse

Member
120 Dogs: Chinese Satirist's Tweet Takes All English News Media For A Ride

Το παραθέτω κυρίως για το παρακάτω ενδιαφέρον απόσπασμα:

What do I take away from this? One, I'm reminded that language is always a barrier. Nowadays I think we imagine that global news organizations probably have multilingual experts from a wide variety of backgrounds covering all the bases. Maybe that's not the case. The ability of any one party to navigate fluidly across linguistic barriers will always be an advantage. Two, many Chinese news providers do sometimes play a little bit fast and loose with their sources when there is something that backs a viewpoint they support. Regardless of whether the tweet's content was true or false or whether the writer was aware of the source's reputation as a known satirist, Wen Wei Po saw it as something worth legitimizing. If Wen Wei Po is a government mouthpiece as some of the articles have said, then maybe that is telling. Or maybe not.
 
Κι εγώ απομονώνω ακόμα περισσότερο:
If Wen Wei Po is a government mouthpiece as some of the articles have said, then maybe that is telling. Or maybe not.

Στην Κίνα, με βάση τις καινούργιες οδηγίες για την καταστολή των κακόβουλων φημών στο ίντερνετ, εδώ και μερικούς μήνες αν δημοσιέψεις μια κακόβουλη (ή "κακόβουλη") φήμη που προωθηθεί πάνω από 500 φορές ή διαβαστεί πάνω από 5000 φορές, κινδυνεύεις ποινικά με έως 3 χρόνια φυλακή. Ο νόμος αυτός έχει ήδη οδηγήσει σε συλλήψεις, (αυτο)κλεισίματα μπλογκ κττ. Οπότε το ότι μια τέτοια φήμη αφέθηκε να δημοσιευτεί στη συγκεκριμένη εφημερίδα maybe is telling. Or maybe not. Αυτό έλεγε και το άρθρο της σιγκαπουρέζικης The Strait Times. Μια τυχόν ρήξη Κίνας-Β. Κορέας θα αποτελέσει μείζονα αλλαγή σκηνικού στην περιοχή.

Edit: Το κομμάτι της Wikipedia για τον χαρακτήρα της εφημερίδας είναι το εξής:
Wen Wei Po is a Hong Kong-based Chinese language newspaper, first established in Shanghai in January 1938, with the Hong Kong version launched on 9 September 1948.

The publishing of Wen Wei Po aims at supporting New China, that is the People's Republic of China and delivering the latest Mainland developments, especially over the last 20 years. A rare exception was in 1989 when the editorial board openly objected to the use of force in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests. As a consequence the editorial board was replaced shortly thereafter.
 

bernardina

Moderator
 
Έχω στην NYT ετούτο τον τίτλο:
Cuban Vendors, in Rare Move, Stage a Protest
In a rare demonstration of dissent, dozens of Cuban artisans and vendors protested government inspectors in the...

αλλά εξάντλησα τον αριθμό άρθρων σε ελεύθερη πρόσβαση, οπότε, αν ενδιαφέρεται κανείς/-μιά, ας πατήσει το λινκ του τίτλου κι ας μας πει τι συνέβη.
 

bernardina

Moderator
MEXICO CITY — In a rare demonstration of public dissent, dozens of Cuban artisans and vendors protested in the city of Holguín this week, marching to local government offices and demanding the right to work without government harassment, witnesses said.

The march — which took place on Tuesday in a provincial capital just an hour or so from Fidel and Raúl Castro’s childhood home — was a surprising and spontaneous response to a crackdown earlier in the day at a local market, residents said. Inspectors enforcing rules prohibiting the self-employed from selling products that are either imported or possibly pilfered from government shops confiscated a variety of items from several sellers, prompting them and many others to take to the streets.

Some residents said in telephone interviews that the protest involved just a smattering of people who were lawbreakers with invalid complaints. Others, especially those who identified themselves as government opponents, said there were 100 to 150 protesters, whom they described as brave and justifiably angry.

“The government revoked their licenses and took away their resources, their work,” said one local dissident who declined to be named for fear of reprisals. He added that several protesters were beaten when confronted by the authorities, and that at least three people were detained and then released. “It’s one of the most important things to have happened in Cuba in 54 years,” he said. “It was a protest by workers; it wasn’t dissidents. We support them, but we didn’t do this.”

Analysts differed on the significance of the protest. Some noted that the group promoting the protest, with a YouTube video supposedly showing marchers shouting “We want to work,” is known for being militantly anti-Castro, and possibly infiltrated by Cuban security forces.


Video purporting to show street marches in Holguín uploaded by CID, the group promoting the protests.
But even pro-government residents in Holguín — including a taxi driver and an employee at a hospital near the market — acknowledged that the protest occurred and was led by people licensed to work for themselves as part of Cuba’s limited effort to encourage private employment.

Ted Henken, a professor at Baruch College and president of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, said that any worker revolt in Cuba, however small, reflects frustration with Raúl Castro’s attempt to improve the nation’s communist economy through calculated, cautious economic openings. Though around 445,000 Cubans now legally work for themselves, according to government figures, growth among the self-employed has plateaued and complaints about stricter enforcement have been growing for months.

“It’s been so far fairly easy for the government to dismiss or defame most dissidents given their small number and total lack of exposure in the mass media,” Mr. Henken said. “It will be much harder to control and contain everyday citizens who are protesting not about the lack of political freedoms but over their rising frustration at the on-again-off-again pace of Raúl’s so-called economic reforms.”


 
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