o******d
发帖数: 743 | 1 * The Talk Of The Town (10/12/2010)
(South China Morning Post) Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong October 12,
2010.
In non-peace related fields, there are Nobel Prizes and, somewhat
less famously, "Ig Nobel Prizes". A group of scientists presents the latter
annually, as a joke, but also to make a point about undeserving activity in
their fields. One of the winners of this year's Nobel prize for physics had,
several years back, also received an Ig Nobel prize.
The award of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned dissident
Liu Xiaobo is being celebrated globally, mainly by elites who claim to know
what Liu is about. They say he is for human rights and democracy, but there
is more to it than that, because much of what he is about is ignoble.
When people living in authoritarian societies demand freedom of
speech, they usually do so with goals in mind that go beyond just allowing
everyone to have a say. Liu's political and social goals have scarcely been
mentioned in the current wave of adulation, yet these goals are distinctly
at variance with the interests of the vast majority of Chinese, as they
perceive them.
What a few people in China know about Liu, but hardly any outsiders
do, is his prescription for China's development, first made when Liu was
already in his 30s. In 1988, an interviewer asked him what condition China
needed to have real historical change.
He answered that China needed to have 300 years of colonisation. Liu
attributed what Hong Kong is today to 100 years of colonisation, so China
would need 300 years of colonisation for it to become like Hong Kong.
That was more than two decades ago but, in 2007, Liu stated that he
did not want to take back what he had said in 1988, because it reflected a
belief he retained. He attributed progress in China to Westernisation and
said the more that Westernisation existed in the various spheres of Chinese
society, the more progress was attained.
He is either woefully ignorant of the nature of colonialism, which
involved legally mandated racial discrimination and the colonisers'
political and economic monopolies, or Liu finds it a congenial alternative
because he is convinced of Western superiority. This can hardly be expected
to be a sentiment shared by most Chinese.
In his 2007 statement, Liu claimed that, in the economic sphere,
progress could be chalked up to privatisation. Not surprisingly then,
Charter 08, a statement he mainly authored and that called for a Western-
style political system in China, also urges a "free market" transfer of
state-owned enterprises to private ownership and the privatisation of land
ownership.
Privatisation in Russia resulted in a colossal robbery of public
wealth by a few oligarchs. To the extent privatisation has occurred in China
, it has mainly enriched former officials and has often worsened the
conditions of labour. An agrarian capitalism based on landed property would
have no assured benefit, but might bring back the execrable system of
landlords and landless peasants. Further privatisation would probably
increase the already high level of inequality in China, which is why surveys
show that most Chinese oppose it.
Many observers recognise that the Nobel Peace Prize is a political
prize, and a morally bankrupt one at that: do something that accords with
mainstream Western elite thinking about what "advances peace", and you may
get a prize. Continue, for as long as you can, a war that kills thousands or
even millions of civilians, as Henry Kissinger did in Indochina and Barack
Obama is doing in Afghanistan, and you may still get a prize. If you attack
China, the perceived potential rival of the West's hegemon, as the Dalai
Lama and Liu have done, your chances for a prize increase.
The Chinese government has argued that the spirit of the Nobel Peace
Prize has been infringed by awarding it to one who is imprisoned for
violating Chinese law. That, however, is beside the point. There was no need
to imprison Liu and there has been no need for a binary choice between
shutting him up by fiat or treating him as a hero. Rather, there has only
been a need to bring to light Liu's self-proclaimed goals. If most Chinese,
especially the non-elite majority, knew about his prescribed path for China,
they would turn away from him as someone with things ignoble on offer.
The world has many political prisoners; most are in fact imprisoned
in countries with governments that continue to receive all manner of
assistance from other countries that proclaim themselves beacons of human
rights and democracy. Among those myriads languishing in prison, most want
something far better for the peoples of their country than does Liu and are
far worthier of an award because of it.
[Barry Sautman is a political scientist and lawyer at Hong Kong
University of Science & Technology. Yan Hairong is an anthropologist at Hong
Kong Polytechnic University ] | o******1
发帖数: 12177 | 2 从人文来说，刘晓光确实不具备诺奖的水平。不过和平奖历来乱发，神马奥八马也弄了
一个。挪威人和瑞典人在科学精神上差距很大亚。
,
latter
in
had,
know
【在 o******d 的大作中提到】
: * The Talk Of The Town (10/12/2010)
: (South China Morning Post) Barry Sautman and Yan Hairong October 12,
: 2010.
: In non-peace related fields, there are Nobel Prizes and, somewhat
: less famously, "Ig Nobel Prizes". A group of scientists presents the latter
: annually, as a joke, but also to make a point about undeserving activity in
: their fields. One of the winners of this year's Nobel prize for physics had,
: several years back, also received an Ig Nobel prize.
: The award of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned dissident
: Liu Xiaobo is being celebrated globally, mainly by elites who claim to know
| z***y
发帖数: 13818 | |
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