Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Exporting censorship

From New Zealand Herald:

Dr Norman is outraged that members of a Chinese delegation were able to push him, hit him with an umbrella and rip a Tibetan flag from his grasp.He was protesting as Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping arrived at Parliament greeted by a few dozen pro-China supporters.

Some of the group, believed to be Chinese security, took exception to Dr Norman waving a Tibetan flag and calling for democracy.The MP brushed away attempts to have an umbrella placed in front of him, then clashed with security guards as they pulled the flag from his grasp and threw it on the ground.

He yelled they could suppress freedom of speech in China, but not in New Zealand.

The treatment Russel Norman has received today on the parliament ground is absolutely appalling.  It is no more than a shameless attempt of silencing a dissentient on the land where it suppose to have a freedom of speech. I acknowledge that entourage members do have a duty of protecting VIPs, however, after seeing the unedited footage of the incident, it is clear that the response from Chinese entourage is disproportionate.  Norman had neither had any physical contact with anyone nor vocally provoked such response - well unless "free Tibet" counts as a provocation.

However, I'm not really surprised on how Chinese entourage responded.  The novel yet extremely childish way of using umbrella to cover things that Chinese officials do not want to see is not new.  The first time that such practice brought to the attention of international media is on the 20th anniversary of Tian'anmen Massacre, where plain cloth officers used umbrella to block foreign journalists from filming on Tian’anmen Square.  Since then plain cloth with umbrella has become somewhat a standard practice in any occasion where there is a potential of protests.

What shocked me is how Chinese government is exporting such censorship practice to a foreign country with little or no hesitation.  I’m not a fan of green party, but I applaud the fact  that they never abused their parliamentary privileges – they protested peacefully on every occasion where a Chinese official is visiting. I also have to say that a lone protestor, sometimes also need to confront with a large pro-Chinese crowd, is stirring but also looked a bit stupid.  But don’t get me wrong, they have the right to be stupid, New Zealand didn’t take their right to be stupid away from them, so why should Chinese have such right?

Seeing that Chinese entourage used same way of covering up people as they did back in their own country, is a solid reminder that we simply cannot ignore the pain of others in a country on another hemisphere, just like we cannot let a criminal run loose til the date that he is actually hurting YOU.

Another free-rider

This time it's Maori Party MP Hone Harawira. He skipped a day of an EU meeing in Brussels but instead go sightseeing in Paris with his wife. When asked about the trip, the MP responded:

"How many times in my lifetime am I going to get to Europe? So I thought, 'F*** it, I'm off. I'm off to Paris"

There's a few issues that Harawira needs to know.

First, on his salary, I would imagine that he could afford a trip to European once a year ... or maybe every three years. Maximum. As long as he knows how to save money, he's pretty much fine.

Secondly, the trip was a taxpayer-funded travel for specific purposes ONLY. As a taxpayer, I asked him to go Brussles to represent the country, not to fund to his private travel. Although he paid for his own trip, however, it was at expense of not doing what he was suppose to do.

Thirdly, this MP really needs to learn how to express his feeling in a polite manner that represents the culture of this country.

You know,  I'm really shocked this time. Are those principles that hard to learn and grasp? I mean, even an elementary school student knows these:  don't steal parents' money, complete the school work before having candies, and don't swear.

What is even shocker, is that after reading the Herald's online forum, I realise there is no shortage of people who are actually arguing for these MPs' inappropriate actions.

This country got some serious thinking to do.

Sue Bradford resigns

After 10 years of being a Green MP, Sue Bradford has announced her intention to retire at the end of october.

I have to say that Bradford has been a highly successful parliamentarian. During her service she has managed get three of her private member's bill passed, including raise youth minimum wage in line with adult wage and the highly controversial Anti-smacking bill.

She has been a champion of representing people who usually don't have their voice in the parliament - the young and the unemployed.

And no, I don't regard her as an "extremist" in anyway. She is just simply a woman who has the principle and the guts to stand firm of what she believes. However, her fate was sealed since the anti-smacking bill, only 7 MPs voted against the bill, however, when the tide is turned, it suddenly becomes "Sue's own idea".  In my opinion this is directly responsible for her failed bid of the party leadership - the society is turning right, and her very extreme left image would damage the Green Party.

Wanganui

Strictly speaking, Whanganui is the correct spelling, no one is doubting that. However, for a place name,  does the correct spelling really matter? I can name at least several places with incorrect names in other languages. For example, Britain in Chinese "英国", is only a transliteration of the word England, conversely, the name Macau does not reflect the area as whole as well. German people should be deeply offended - if my memory serves me right, Japanese and Chinese are the only two languages which have correctly transliterated Germany's real name, Deutschland.

Of course the name of Wanganui is originated from a Maori word, however, since it has entered general usage in English,  it should not be treated as a  term for an exclusive group.

The name of Wanganui has its value too. It is the reflection of the history of interactions between Europeans and Maori, and the evolution of local iwis. I remember my teacher once said that the pronunciation came from a tribe from South Island, but it's no longer there anymore. This is history too, and the name of Wanganui reflects this fact.

Name change requires a lot of money too, and this country has too many important things to spend money on rather than this. I think a good solution is to make Whanganui a offical Maori name but continue to use Wanganui in general usage. If people starting to like the way it is spelt with h, then change the name. At end of the day, language is the movement of people, not bureaucracies.

Open season for trees

The Resource Management Act (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill is currently in the house. I've spent a bit of time to watch the debate, with particular interest in section 52 of the Bill.

The bill is not finalised so I'm not going to put it here. You can view the most updated version here. In a nutshell, the bill prohibits a district plan that prohibits tree removing, unless the tree is expressively protected in the district plan.

There are at least several concerns for this.

Firstly central government should not intervene local government businesses at such level of detail. District Plans have to give effects or at least have regard to several national documents, is not that enough? Every part of the country has its unique environment and situation, why the central government thinks it knows better than locals?

Secondly, this bill removes an important mechanism to protect urban enviroment. Environment minister Nick Smith argued that 98% of tree related concents are granted, therefore it is just a waste of time. Now here is an example of incompetency, he seems to forgot that consents can be granted with conditions and modifications.

Thirdly, it is likely to add unnessary workload for local authorities. I do expect an increased number of surveying in order to put more trees in the schedule after the law is passed, but happens for an area of unprotected bush? Waitakere is a good example - scheduling each single tree would be a process that you would never want to do it again.

Dates not allowed on Google (.cn)'s Calendar

As you may know, Google's Chinese localised version is heavily censored.  When the search results contain pages you are not allowed to see, Google.cn usually returns a notice on the result page : "据当地法律法规和政策，部分搜索结果未予显示" (Some results are omitted as restrited by local laws and policies).

One curious Chinese bloger wondered, how many days in a year are outlawed by "local laws"? He worte a script and found out that, out of 366 days, 11 of them will result the censorship notice on the search result page, these are:

* 13 January
* 31 May
* 4 June
* 13 June
* 20 June
* 25 June
* 30 June
* 5 July
* 19 September
* 13 Octorber
* 18 December

The rationale behind some of these censored dates are quite obvious, like 4 June is the date symbolises Tiananmen Square Massacre and the recent riots in China's Uyghur dominated Xinjiang Region started on 5 July.

However, even as a politically minded Chinese, I don't quite get why the rest of dates are considered "sensitive". I checked Wikipedia, there are some past events related to China, however, most of them are quite normal and can be hardly considered as sensitive events.