An Article on the Incident in Weng’an, Guizhou
How hard is it to give the masses the truth?
Xinhua News Network (Phoenix TV, Hong Kong)
http://news.ifeng.com/opinion/200807/0702_23_629094.shtml
Translated by Anton Lee Wishik II
Xinhua news network, Weng’an, Guizhou, June 29th: “On the afternoon of the 28th, in Guizhou province’s Weng’an county, an incident occurred in which besieged government departments were smashed and burned. Because some people were dissatisfied with the results of an investigation by the Weng’an county public security bureau into the cause of death of a female student, they gathered at the seat of the county government and public security bureau. While the relevant authorities at the county government building were in the process of receiving them, some people incited the crowd, which was unaware of the truth of the matter, to attack the public security bureau, county government building, and county committee building. Soon after, the small minority of criminal elements seized the opportunity to smash offices and set fires which burned offices and cars.”
The origin of the incident is quite simple; it was just due to dissatisfaction with the results of an investigation by the public security bureau into the cause of death of a female student. From an emotional standpoint, it is hard for people not to bestow sympathy upon those in a weaker position. Most of the masses are rational and show good sense; regardless of whether you are a national leader or an official at any level of government, no one can deny this point. Thus, if one hasn’t reached the end of one’s rope or arrived at a total impasse, absolutely no one is willing to risk universal condemnation by besieging and attacking the government. However, it is not difficult to realize after a bit of analysis from a rational standpoint that the masses’ ‘rashness’ was perhaps not without justification.
As it was originally a simple murder case, from the viewpoint of the local law enforcement department, it should not have been difficult to give the masses a satisfactory response and the real truth of the matter. However, it is very clear that both the relevant local department and the media still seemed to be sidestepping the issue. In both the explanations of the relevant local department and the media reports, there was only a general description of the facts regarding the government being besieged and attacked. There was absolutely no explanation or discussion relating to the fuse that created all of this: the murder case that led up to the incident. There was only one sentence which concluded that “Some people were dissatisfied with the results of an investigation by the Weng’an county public security bureau into the cause of death of a female student.” This was clearly an equivocation implying that ‘a fire was being covered up with paper’ and would doubtlessly lead to the derivation of much conjecture and subjectivity. On these grounds, of course the masses would be dissatisfied.
According to online searches, the media was subordinate to the local government department as reports related to this incident are completely lacking. However, it’s precisely the opposite on Baidu’s post page and several other small discussion forums; there are descriptions and analysis of the incident. Although all the news in these forums has some pretext, they are all basically the same with only tiny differences. They all don’t go beyond the fact that a girl was possibly raped, and the vile rapist was not punished because he had connections in the county government. Although the source of this news was not one hundred percent reliable, as the only source of news, with regard to the masses, one can imagine what effect it had on them. The famous British politician Charles James Fox had a saying: “Only when the people are persecuted and can only communicate their thoughts secretly, do they pose a threat to the nation.” In fact, regardless of whether the situation with the girl involved a cover-up and connivance or even the appearance of unfair law enforcement, the local public security bureau and government department should have immediately announced the truth of the matter and thus allowed the masses to understand what had really happened. The only result of sealing everything up is to push the masses towards the dead-end of believing what they hear and spreading rumors. If the masses don’t know the truth, it is difficult to avoid a temporary impulse of righteous indignation.
Regardless of whether it’s an incident of an out of control BMW running people over or the year of confusion involving the ‘Zhou tiger’ incident(1) , the reason why the repercussions are so large and so many different voices are raised lies in the local governments’ inability to announce the truth of the matter to the public in a timely manner. Amongst both truths and untruths, any kind of conjecture or doubt will linger in the ears. This kind of sealing of the news and the inevitable consequence of the truth not being made clear is that the government will not be trusted by the masses and may even become their enemy. This kind of relationship between the government departments and the masses is obviously not what we want to see, and of course, from the government’s viewpoint, is not good at all.
In reality, it is not difficult to give the masses the truth. Comrade Hu Jintao(2) , in the report of the 17th National Party Congress, clearly pointed out that, “Developing socialist democratic politics is our party’s ultimate and unchanging goal which should be strived for.” The basic and unique points of socialist democratic politics are openness and impartiality. In administering the law at all levels of government, only by upholding the basic principles of openness and impartiality, by upholding the continuous transparency in administration and law enforcement, and by upholding the timely pronouncement of the truth of specific matters to the masses, is it possible not only to study and implement the spirit of the basic requirements of the 17th National Party Congress, but also provides a definitive and positive manner in which to solve issues. Only in this way can this kind of incident be prevented from happening again.
Note: This source is part of Hong Kong’s Phoenix Television Corporation.
1. The Zhou tiger incident refers to a picture of an endangered tiger in the wild provided by a Chinese citizen surnamed Zhou. He was originally rewarded for the photo, but it recently was discovered to be a fake.
2. President of China
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