A month after the calamitous Sichuan earthquake, Communist officials are re-imposing tight security in damaged areas. The regime is apparently fearful of further protests by bereaved parents demanding that corrupt local officials be held accountable for inadequate school construction standards.
Speaking at a Capitol Hill rally marking the anniversary of the June 4th Tiananmen massacre, the NED’s Carl Gershman drew attention to the widely circulated photograph of Communist Party boss Jiang Guohua in Mianzhu, kneeling before aggrieved mothers, begging them to abandon a march to the provincial capital as “capturing in a single image the fury of the people and the weakness and vulnerability of the authorities.”
But the earthquake may have more profound long-term effects, suggests a profound and thought-provoking editorial in Observe China marking the 19th anniversary of June 4th. The Tiananmen protests and the earthquake aftermath confirm that “momentous calamities play an enormous role in social psychological change,” the NED grantee publication notes. The spontaneous disaster relief and generosity of donations following the earthquake “energized a normally apathetic populace” and highlighted “the compassion miraculously and admirably called forth from China’s youthful Me Generation.”
Bereft of any ideological or idealistic underpinnings, China’s ruling Communist Party has based its legitimacy on rising living standards and the promise of greater material wealth. Cultural commentators have lamented the crude materialism, individualism and deteriorating sense of social responsibility accompanying China’s rise. But, China Observer suggests, history indicates that when people experience the collective trauma of a disaster or some other shocking event, there can be “abrupt changes in social psychology and a violent change in the value system.” Indeed, “at these special times, daily life retreats, to be replaced with a kind of ‘lofty’ sensibility.”
Recent Comments