Remembered: Chinese Internet Maintenance Day

"It was twenty years ago today Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play.."



In the last twenty years China has seen huge economic growth and vast improvements in the wealth and health of individual citizens. But that is not what we are remembering today (or more properly, yesterday)... The clip above is an iconic image of the democracy protests in China in 1989 - but search in Youtube and you will see lots of more graphic and disturbing images of the suppression of the democracy movement there that saw hundreds of protesters killed and many more imprisoned.

That was twenty years ago - and by all accounts an event that within China the authorities try hard to see forgotten. It has been and remains a taboo subject there. In the run up to the anniversary a number of channels of web expression have been blocked... including sites like Twitter and Hotmail. It's hard to imagine living in a country where the state manipulates what news and media we can get access too..

But it seems that China's netizens are nevertheless making their own protest known - with a flush of sites declared off the air for 'Chinese Internet Maintenance Day'.

Freedom of expression, freedom (of unmonitered) communications and a freedom of (uncensored) information. These are not things to take for granted....

Swedish readers might also want to check out Rick Falkvinges blog: Himmelska Fridens Torg, Sverige, 2029


Defending democracy: Vote Piratpartiet for the EU parliament!

Ethics and the Olympian ideal?

I've not paid too much attention to the Olympics... or looked into the protests surrounding it - until now. I came across a piece at The Conscious Earth laying out the distasteful history of Chinese intervention in Tibet going back to the invasion in 1948. I have a great respect for the results of China's economic renaissance which has done much to reduce poverty in China ( and hence on a global scale). It's sadly clear that there is still a long way to go to in improving the state ethics there. Read the blog.... I've just copied here the final piece which is a quote from the Dalai Lama

"It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than when we found it. This is not quite such as difficult proposition as it might sound. For although there is a limit to what we as individuals can do, there is no limit to what a universal response might achieve. It is up to us as individuals to do what we can, however little that may be. Just because (our action) seems inconsequential, it does not mean that we should not do it."