{"id":781,"date":"2008-05-16T06:34:17","date_gmt":"2008-05-16T14:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bbrace.laughingsquid.net\/wordpress\/?p=781"},"modified":"2008-05-16T06:34:17","modified_gmt":"2008-05-16T14:34:17","slug":"artist-works-35-years-without-support-or-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/?p=781","title":{"rendered":"Artist tragically denied support and pay for 35 years!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Regime-Quakes in Burma and China<\/em><\/p>\n

When news arrived of the catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan, my mind
\nturned to Zheng Sun Man, an up-and-coming security executive I met on
\na recent trip to China. Zheng heads Aebell Electrical Technology, a
\nGuangzhou-based company that makes surveillance cameras and public
\naddress systems and sells them to the government.<\/p>\n

Zheng, a 28-year-old MBA with a text-messaging addiction, was
\ndetermined to persuade me that his cameras and speakers are not being
\nused against pro-democracy activists or factory organizers. They are
\nfor managing natural disasters, Zheng explained, pointing to the
\nfreak snowstorms before Lunar New Year. During the crisis, the
\ngovernment was able use the feed from the railway cameras to
\ncommunicate how to deal with the situation and organize an
\nevacuation. We saw how the central government can command from the
\nnorth emergencies in the south.<\/p>\n

Of course, surveillance cameras have other uses too like helping to
\nmake Most Wanted posters of Tibetan activists. But Zheng did have a
\npoint: nothing terrifies a repressive regime quite like a natural
\ndisaster. Authoritarian states rule by fear and by projecting an aura
\nof total control. When they suddenly seem short-staffed, absent or
\ndisorganized, their subjects can become dangerously emboldened. Its
\nsomething to keep in mind as two of the most repressive regimes on
\nthe planetChina and Burmastruggle to respond to devastating
\ndisasters: the Sichuan earthquake and Cyclone Nargis. In both cases,
\nthe disasters have exposed grave political weaknesses within the
\nregimesand both crises have the potential to ignite levels of public
\nrage that would be difficult to control.<\/p>\n

When China is busily building itself up, creating jobs and new
\nwealth, residents tend to stay quiet about what they all know:
\ndevelopers regularly cut corners and flout safety codes, while local
\nofficials are bribed not to notice. But when China comes tumbling
\ndownincluding at least eight schools in the earthquake zone the
\ntruth has a way of escaping from the rubble. Look at all the
\nbuildings around. They were the same height but why did the school
\nfall down? a distraught relative in Juyuan demanded of a foreign
\nreporter. Its because the contractors want to make a profit from
\nour children. A mother in Dujiangyan told The Guardian, Chinese
\nofficials are too corrupt and bad%.They have money for prostitutes
\nand second wives but they dont have money for our children.<\/p>\n

That the Olympic stadiums were built to withstand powerful quakes is
\nsuddenly of little comfort. When I was in China, it was hard to find
\nanyone willing to criticize the Olympic spending spree. Now posts on
\nmainstream web portals are calling the torch relay wasteful and its
\ncontinuation in the midst of so much suffering inhuman.<\/p>\n

None of this compares with the rage boiling over in Burma, where
\ncyclone survivors have badly beaten at least one local official,
\nfurious at his failure to distribute aid. Simon Billenness, co-chair
\nof the board of directors of U.S. Campaign for Burma, told me, This
\nis Katrina times a thousand. I dont see how it couldnt lead to
\npolitical unrest.<\/p>\n

The unrest of greatest concern to the regime is not coming from
\nregular civilians but from inside the military a fact that explains
\nsome of the juntas more erratic behavior. For instance, we know that
\nthe Burmese junta has been taking credit for supplies sent by foreign
\ncountries. Now it turns out that it have been taking more than
\ncreditin some cases it has been taking the aid. According to a
\nreport in Asia Times, the regime has been hijacking food shipments
\nand distributing them among its 400,000 soldiers. The reason speaks
\nto the deep threat the disaster poses. The generals, it seems, are
\nhaunted by an almost pathological fear of a split inside their own
\nranks%if soldiers are not given priority in aid distribution and are
\nunable to feed themselves, the possibility of mutiny rises. Mark
\nFarmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, confirms that before the
\ncyclone, the military was already coping with a wave of desertions.<\/p>\n

This relatively small-scale theft of food is fortifying the junta for
\nits much larger heistthe one taking place via the constitutional
\nreferendum the generals have insisted on holding, come hell and high
\nwater. Enticed by high commodity prices, Burmas generals have been
\ngorging off the countrys natural abundance, stripping it of gems,
\ntimber, rice and oil. As profitable as this arrangement is, junta
\nleader Gen. Than Shwe knows he cannot resist the calls for democracy
\nindefinitely.<\/p>\n

Taking a page out of the playbook of Chilean dictator Augusto
\nPinochet, the generals have drafted a Constitution that allows for
\nfuture elections but attempts to guarantee that no government will
\never have the power to prosecute them for their crimes or take back
\ntheir ill-gotten wealth. As Farmaner puts it, after elections the
\njunta leaders are going to be wearing suits instead of boots. Much
\nof the voting has already taken place but in cyclone ravaged
\ndistricts, the referendum has been delayed until May 24. Aung Din,
\nexecutive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, told me that the
\nmilitary has stooped to using aid to extort votes. Rainy season is
\ncoming, he told me, and people need to repair their roofs. When
\nthey go to purchase the materials, which are very limited, they are
\ntold they can only have them if they agree to vote for the
\nconstitution in an advance ballot.<\/p>\n

The cyclone, meanwhile, has presented the junta with one last, vast
\nbusiness opportunity: by blocking aid from reaching the highly
\nfertile Irrawaddy delta, hundreds of thousands of mostly ethnic Karen
\nrice farmers are being sentenced to death. According to Farmaner,
\nthat land can be handed over to the generals business cronies
\n(shades of the beachfront land grabs in Sri Lanka and Thailand after
\nthe Asian tsunami). This isnt incompetence, or even madness, as many
\nhave claimed. Its laissez-faire ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n

If the Burmese junta avoids mutiny and achieves these goals, it will
\nbe thanks largely to China, which has vigorously blocked all attempts
\nat the United Nations for humanitarian intervention in Burma. Inside
\nChina, where the central government is going to great lengths to show
\nitself as compassionate, news of this complicity could prove
\nexplosive.<\/p>\n

Will Chinas citizens receive this news? They just might. Beijing
\nhas, up to now, displayed an awesome determination to censor and
\nmonitor all forms of communication. But in the wake of the quake, the
\nnotorious Great Firewall censoring the Internet is failing badly.
\nBlogs are going wild, and even state reporters are insisting on
\nreporting the news.<\/p>\n

This may be the greatest threat that natural disasters pose to
\ncontemporary repressive regimes. For Chinas rulers, nothing has been
\nmore crucial to maintaining power than the ability to control what
\npeople see and hear. If they lose that, neither surveillance cameras
\nnor loudspeakers will be able to help them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regime-Quakes in Burma and China When news arrived of the catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan, my mind turned to Zheng Sun Man, an up-and-coming security executive I met on a recent trip to China. Zheng heads Aebell Electrical Technology, a Guangzhou-based company that makes surveillance cameras and public address systems and sells them to the government. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","spay_email":""},"categories":[4,53,56,6,10,12,14],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbrace.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}