[Radix] More on the Sichuan earthquake and the Oscars!
George Kent
kent at hawaii.edu
Wed Mar 10 18:10:04 PST 2010
Taking the Sichuan earthquake to illustrate the need, Terry asks, "how
we should (or not) “engage” with a regime that is determined to
repress legitimate protest, and what is the best way in which we can
use our knowledge and skills (and campaigning capacities) to change
things for the better."
One possibility might be for Radix types to create collection points
for information about sub-standard school construction. Then it could
put out formal complaints to the national government and relevant
agencies while protecting the identity of the informants.
Aloha, George
On Mar 10, 2010, at 3:02 AM, Terry Cannon wrote:
> Dear all
> sorry this message is so long, but clearly I think it is important!
>
> China Sichuan earthquake 2008
> A year ago I was asked to give a presentation at a conference in
> Brussels that was jointly organised by the Madariaga foundation and
> the Chinese Embassy to the EU. My talk was to be on the Sichuan
> earthquake, and as you may recall it presented significant
> challenges for me on how to both “engage” with the Chinese while not
> compromising on what I consider the shameful corruption that led
> especially to the collapse of many schools.
>
> I got advice from some of you, which I much appreciated. Since then
> I have noted the imprisonment of the lawyer who acted on behalf of
> parents who were protesting about the unnecessary deaths of their
> children. Then a month ago, another lawyer who had campaigned with
> parents was sentenced to five years (but for a supposedly spurious
> other reason than that of the earthquake – see:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/09/china-eathquake-schools-activist-jailed/print
>
> Women are leading the protests and are clearly being very courageous
> in the face of severe harassment and threats by police and officials.
>
> This week the issue has emerged again with the Oscars. A documentary
> about the parents’ protests was nominated for an Oscar, and the
> Chinese have censored information about this:
> China censors Oscar nom mentions Sichuan quake documentary omitted
> from official reports
> By Jonathan Landreth, Hollywood Reporter, Feb 4, 2010
> http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i9f46c57380aa314f2bbf58ab59c035ef
>
> The film itself arose from the coincidence of two filmmakers
> happening to be in the country at the time. It was shown on the US
> channel HBO last year. It is available on YouTube, and I urge you to
> watch it, soon in case for copyright reasons it may be taken down.
>
> The HBO website for the film is here:
> http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/chinas-unnatural-disaster-tears-of-sichuan-province/index.html
> HBO “China’s unnatural disaster: Tears of Sichuan Province” 39 mins
>
> Two Chinese political scientists (from Hunter College, CUNY, New
> York State) were also involved in making it, and they are in another
> film noted at the bottom.
>
> Clearly the issue remains very much alive as to how we should (or
> not) “engage” with a regime that is determined to repress legitimate
> protest, and what is the best way in which we can use our knowledge
> and skills (and campaigning capacities) to change things for the
> better.
>
> Good wishes
>
> Terry Cannon (now working as Visiting Fellow with International
> Institute for Environment and Development, Climate Change Group).
>
>
> The film on YouTube in five parts, which is a nuisance, but not
> difficult to navigate. The parts are labelled in the top corner
> 01/05 etc:
> 1 10:43
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=026HsrgHjwM
> 2 8:27
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH1JbqAx8h0&feature=related
> 3 3:55
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K_u2qzyEZk&feature=related
> 4 8:07
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tO8XdnBDj8&NR=1
> 5 8:12
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6psdfReC4e0&feature=related
>
> About the film (from HBO website)
> Sichuan, China. In the aftermath of the massive earthquake that
> rocked this central region of China, several communities are in
> mourning for the children they lost. At Fuxin Primary School, where
> 127 students died, families place framed photographs of dead boys
> and girls in a makeshift memorial next to the rubble, burning
> incense and symbolic paper currency to honor them. A boy survivor
> cries, remembering his lost classmates. A father tells us how his
> son was the top student in four subjects. A mother wipes the glass
> on her portrait inside the memorial, explaining, "I have to clean
> your face before I leave."
>
> At Hanwang Primary School, 317 students died. Standing amidst the
> ruins, a father still hasn't found his daughter: "After ten days I
> haven't seen her face." Another man explains that local leaders said
> "we weren't hit hard, we can handle ourselves." Young voices that
> cried out from under slabs of concrete are silent now, as heavy
> machinery tread lightly on the ruins to avoid dismembering bodies.
> Back at Fuxin, parents remember hearing how the buildings were
> unsafe, but nothing was done. "Who inspected and built the
> building?" asks one. "Where is the government?" In a field behind
> their home, the parents of a victim show pictures of their son, and
> visit the mound of soil where they were forced to bury him. "We want
> justice to prevent future tragedies," says the mother. "This is a
> lesson of blood." Even more children - 438 - died at Xinjian Primary
> School. A woman shows off a class photo with some 30 or 40 students.
> All but one student and the teacher died. Parents here rail about
> the school building's "shoddy construction," complaining that the
> mortar and concrete did not meet standards. Likewise, in Hongbai
> Schools, where 430 children died, questions about the quality of
> building construction are raised over the sound of sobs. China has a
> strict one-child policy, and most of these parents lost their only
> child.
>
> In Mianzu City, protesters vent their complaints with a director
> from the Board of Education. "Where did the school money go?" asks a
> man. Next to the wreckage we see an intact warehouse building that
> survived the quake; it used to be a school, and students would have
> been safe here. Instead, a parent shows us an official letter of
> compensation: $317 for each dead child. A father plays us a song his
> daughter recorded on his cell phone. He and his wife show us the
> forest in which they buried their child, along with many others.
> Back at Fuxin, parents examine the fallen building's bricks,
> dumbfounded by the lack of cement on them. "If children are the
> flowers of our country, is this where you plant them?" asks a
> mother. The lack of response from local officials has caused parents
> here to begin a 70-mile march to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan.
> They start off full of resolve, jostling a Party Secretary and
> breaking through a line of police officers. Chants accusing
> officials of negligence and wrongful deaths abound. One woman
> recounts how, after being denied use of an overcrowded crematorium,
> she was forced to personally carry the body of her daughter home,
> first by motorcycle and then (when the bike stalled) by foot.
>
> Eventually, parents are pressured to board buses to a nearby
> government office in the regional capital of Deyang. After officials
> promise to visit the Fuxin school the next day, parents return home
> to await government inspection. Inspectors and engineers from the
> Architecture Institute finally arrive, as promised, with some
> admitting that the construction of the school was faulty.
> Eventually, officials shoo away most of the onlookers and camera
> crews, explaining that "Starting tomorrow, only a select group of
> parents can be here." Eventually, the government bans gatherings of
> more than three parents at school sites, warning villagers that
> protesting is unpatriotic. One protesting mother is berated by other
> villagers, who remind her that the Communist Party has done a lot of
> good in the wake of the disaster, and who lecture her for speaking
> with foreign filmmakers. She returns to her farming, which had been
> neglected in her grief, and laments how she'd hoped her daughter
> would be cultured and highly educated. It turns out that
> compensation is tied to a pledge to "obey the law and maintain
> social order." With the implication that the protests will cease,
> parents are offered $8,800 per dead child. Later, 58 parents from
> Fuxin Primary School file a suit seeking additional damages and a
> public apology. Their lawsuit is rejected.
>
> CREDITS: Directed by Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill; Produced by Jon
> Alpert, Peter Kwong, Michelle Mi, Matthew O'Neill & Ming Xia; Edited
> by Adam Barton; Editor & Colorist: John Custodio; Cinematography &
> Audio: Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill. For HBO: supervising
> producer, Jacqueline Glover; executive producer, Sheila Nevins.
>
> Film about the making of the film 9:33 mins
> Prof. Peter Kwong (Hunter College, CUNY), and Prof. Ming Xia
> (College of Staten Island, CUNY), lead a post-screening discussion
> on their involvement with the documentary, and first-hand account of
> the disaster area. Chinas Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan
> Province looks at the devastating aftermath of the 2008 earthquake
> that killed nearly 70,000 people, including many children who were
> crushed by school buildings. The film follows parents coming to
> terms with their loss and challenging government officials to
> explain the inadequate construction.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2WZqoX9rqA&feature=related
>
> There are plenty of Chinese videos on Youtube as well, but I cannot
> understand Chinese so cannot comment. At least one of them seems to
> have taken up the HBO film:
> Chinese film – “Children died in tofu construction”
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMgdMCSoYn8&feature=related
> _______________________________________________
> This mailing list is provided by ECIE.ORG for RADIX
> To post a message, send it to: radix at ecie.org
> To subscribe or unsubscribe visit:
> http://ecie.org/mailman/listinfo/radix
> See more information about ECIE: http://www.ecie.org/
> Radix - Radical Interpretations of Disaster:
> http://www.radixonline.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.ecie.org/pipermail/radix/attachments/20100310/1b7ed169/attachment.htm
More information about the Radix
mailing list