Here is my latest post for Canada.com
In a sad ending, the toddler run over twice last week in an market alley in Foshan, China and ignored repeatedly by people passing by has died.
The tragic incident has caused the world to question the state of morality in China.Outrage and accusations of heartlessness have been directed toward the 18 everyday citizens going about their business who ignored the broken body of little Yue Yue, leaving her bleeding and alone to die.
It has even caused some to question the mass consumerism and drive for wealth in China, as if economic growth has somehow transformed regular, working class people into cold, morally bankrupt monsters.
These questions and outrage have been misplaced. The true culprit here is not economic greed, selfishness or the moral bankruptcy of a few people on the street that day. What we should be questioning is the police state, and the ugly reality of what life in a country controlled, policed and monitored by a corrupt regime does to the average person.
Watching the CCTV footage of person after person ignoring Yue Yue fills us with rage. It is especially difficult seeing the image of a mother leading her child away by hand, quickly scurrying past the small body, another mother’s baby, laying hurt only a few feet away. When interviewed later, this mother explained that she didn’t stop to help because she was scared.
Welcome to life in a police state, where the notion of helping an injured child actually invokes fear. In a country where rule of law doesn’t exist, human-rights activists mysteriously disappear and the power of the corrupt ruling Communist Party is limitless, a chilling effect is bound to seep in.
In China, asking too many questions can get you and those close to you thrown into jail or worse. Keeping your head down, staying off the government radar and minding your own business becomes a survival mechanism, and even a way of daily life.
The Chinese government wants us to believe that what happened in the Foshan alley was the result of “moral anomalies.” For them, it is easier that way.
Coincidentally, around the same time as the Foshan hit-and-run, the Central Committee of the Communist Party stated it wants to build a “powerful socialist culture” to improve “the nation’s ideological and moral qualities.” Senior Politburo member Li Changchun stated “venality, lack of integrity and moral anomalies” are on the rise in China.
What happened in Foshan was not a “moral anomaly.” It was wrong and unforgivable, but it was also systemic—the outcome of what life in a police state does to the human spirit and conscience.
In the wake of all the international media attention, it is no surprise that the Communist Party officials have called for tighter controls over the reporting about the incident.
Maybe there have been too many questions. It is a police state, after all.
5 Responses to In China’s police state, even helping a dying toddler is scary
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I don’t think that’s it… your piece is based on pure speculation. The Chinese government is very conscious about the country’s image; the person who helps his or her fellow citizen would be seen as a hero, not as a troublemaker.
Certainly it can’t be fun living under an authoritarian regime. But have you lived in China, visited the country, or let alone speak to Chinese people who have actually lived there? Some people say it’s quite restrictive; others say it isn’t that bad, so I think your explanation is too simplistic.
Or perhaps, the people shown in that video just succumbed to a psychological flaw that is present in all of us. There is a theory in psychology where people who are in a public place with lots of others around are less likely to give aid to someone who’s obviously in need of help. This is present in all of us.
In Niagara, there was the case where an 82 year old woman fell and broke her hip… and didn’t get help she needed for almost 30 minutes. I am NO apologist for the Chinese government; however, it’s easy to blame another country when the same problem is alive and well in our own country.
Years ago, I remember reading that – in some Eastern cultures – if you saved a person’s life, you were forever after responsible for that person. If this is true, then it would go some way to explaining the actions of the passersby. I have also read that, more recently, a ‘good Samaritan’ in China was punished by the courts on the grounds that he only helped because he was responsible for the original injury. That would be a real chiller.
meanwhile in “caring Canada”
Christie Blatchford: The plight of our unbending health-care system
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/10/22/christie-blatchford-the-plight-of-our-unbending-health-care-system/
“There are already examples galore — just one the case of 82-year-old Doreen Wallace, who this month was leaving a Niagara Falls hospital where she was at her dying husband’s bedside, when she fell in the lobby and was left there, with what turned out to be a broken hip, face-down on the floor because 911 had to be called and an ambulance dispatched.”
I had a conversation with my son who had dated a recent arrival from China over the past two years. His impression is that the Chinese are terrified of their own police state. My son, of course, is well versed in the crimes and misdemeanors of the Chinese communists, especially Mao Zedong. His girlfriend would not want to hear any of it, and would never venture an opinion about anything to do with the Chinese government. It was strictly: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
So I think you have a valid point. If they are not involved, they cannot be blamed. The authorities cannot be trusted, and there is no recourse from their capriciousness, so avoid agents of the state at all times.
I know of a case in America where a man accused of sex offenses overheard neighborhood children talking about something that sounded like one of their little playmates was being sexually abused. This man was so afraid of being accused of complicity that he did not dare speak a word of it. Because of the American police state, someone spent their entire childhood being raped.
The man was later discovered to be innocent of the accusations, but since not reporting child abuse is a serious crime, he STILL was not able to say a word about it for fear of being imprisoned. After seeing this case, I now see lots of pots calling kettles black. “Protect the children” they say, but nobody really cares about the children, they care about the power that being the sole official protectors of children gives them.
All the talk of punishment for the drivers and passersby in Yue Yue’s case is simply the blame game. A whole society does not walk indifferently past a dying little girl unless there’s something wrong with the whole society. It’s not the driver’s fault, it’s not the parent’s fault, it’s not the bystander’s fault – IT’S EVERYONE’S FAULT.
At first, I think people realized that, with all the talk of “soul searching”. Then the hate machine gears up, looking for a fresh victim to blame so there will be warm meat to add to the body-pile, and THAT’S when all hope is lost.
This isn’t China’s problem. This is OUR problem. Yours, mine, and everyone with a heartbeat still in their chest. Blame is useless and counterproductive. A single child just paid the ultimate price for the benefit of a little education for all of humanity. Sit up straight, and pay attention.