Chinarchy

“Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”

by Anderson | 05/04/10 | 4 comments

In the past few weeks there have been multiple stabbings in Chinese kindergartens.

Last Thursday, a man in Taixing city injured at least 28 four-year-olds when he entered the kindergarten and started attacking people with a knife. Two other attacks had happened before that and schools are terrified of more attacks. McCoy’s school, and many others around Beijing, have had guards posted in the mornings and are under lock-down during the day. No visitors are allowed to come or go.

There have been a lot of articles speculating why this keeps happening and why people are targeting schools. I’ve seen a bunch of different explanations ranging from “romantic issues” to “mental illness” to “frustration over the increasing economic disparity.” But I want to focus on one article by a Chinese blogger Han Han.

Han Han is a novelist and one of China’s most famous bloggers. He’s also a racecar driver. (Before you say something like “that doesn’t make sense,” I’m going to have to remind you that this is China.)

Anyway, his article is full of criticism for how the Chinese government has been handling the attacks. You can read the full thing here. And below are some highlights:

Aside from Yang Jia, nearly all killers choose to begin by killing the weak. If they feel there’s no way out in society, then killing those even weaker than themselves becomes their only way out. I recommend that all the police guarding the doors of local officials nationwide be transferred to guard kindergartens. A government that can’t even protect children doesn’t need so many people protecting it.

…

After the Taizhou kindergarten murder incident, the media was controlled. These children were born at the wrong time [i.e., unlucky] and they died at an even worse time. In this jubilant atmosphere [of the opening of the Shanghai Expo], this incident is just noise to the relevant government departments. All we know is that according to the government, 32 people were injured and no one died, but on the streets there are rumors that many children were killed. So who should I believe? If the government is telling the truth, then why are they not letting parents see their children? They’ve also blocked off the hospital and shut off the news, and there are no photographs or video of children. Moreover, a murderer chops up thirty two people with a knife and no one dies? Was he really committing murder or performing surgery?

…

I was very astonished. The Taizhou government has successfully sealed information, closed the hospital, controlled the media, forbidden visitors, and diverted public attention, but now they have successfully taken the people’s anger at the killer and directed it at themselves, and for what?

…

It’s their usual process: eat, drink and be merry all night until something happens, then hide, isolate, remove the media, make prohibitions, send press releases, make compensations, cremate the bodies — then go back to eating and drinking. Their way of dealing with things isn’t much more noble than a murderer’s. No wonder I saw online a kindergarten hanging a banner: “Injustice has a cause, debt has an owner, out the door and to the left is the government building.”

…

I don’t want to delve into the social reasons for the killing, I just want to tell everyone here that a man rushing into a kindergarten and stabbing children can’t even make the news.

Ready for his powerful final paragraph? If you don’t love Han Han already, you will after this:

Perhaps in the eyes of those old men, you children are just spoiling their fun.

Wretched children, it is you who are poisoned by milk powder, harmed by vaccines, crushed by earthquakes, and burnt in fires. Even if there’s a problem with rules in the adult world, you are the ones adults stab in retaliation. I truly hope it is as the Taizhou government says, and you’re all just injured and no one has died. We elders have failed in our duties. I hope that when you grow up, you will not only protect your own children but build a society that protects everyone’s children.