Vancouver does something good

I was poking around the archives from the past few weeks, as I do from time to time, and I realized I haven’t done a “good news” segment in a while. I started hunting for good news segments after it got back to me that a friend of mine thought the blog was too ‘ranty’. While I am inclined to think that anyone who puts their beliefs forward without apology will be accused of “ranting”, but in the interest of maintaining a sense of balance, I throw out stories like this from time to time:

Vancouver’s mayor Gregor Robertson and police chief Jim Chu announced Monday the launch of the Sister Watch program, designed to make the Downtown Eastside safer for women. Chu said police were targeting “predatory and violent drug dealers” who were responsible for attacks against women. “The levels of violence against women in this community must not be tolerated. We must work together to reduce [them],” he said.

One of the things that politicians like to do is legislate larger punishments for crimes. This is a quick and easy way to gin up votes without having to commit any money up front to solve a problem. The logic behind such legislation is that if punishments are high, it will deter would-be criminals from committing the crimes. The problem is that, despite what the rational agent theory within economics would have you believe, there is a ceiling for such disincentive, beyond which the magnitude of the disincentive is immaterial. If, for example, someone threatened to stab you if you didn’t do something, would it make any difference to you if they said they were going to stab you and then punch you in the face? The addition of the face-punch is not the point – if you’re willing to risk getting stabbed then you’re probably hell-bent on doing the thing anyway.

It is for this reason that I favour programs that actually do something rather than just assuming something will be done by a policy. Those of you regular readers who are not from the Vancouver area may not know much about Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. Imagine it like a much whiter (and more Native) version of Compton or Harlem – this is the “rough part of town” in Vancouver. There is a great deal of drug use and abuse that happens in this area, and a lot of associated assault and violent crime. Passing stricter drug laws and proscribing harsher penalties for possession and distribution have not deterred crime in the area. Nor, sadly, has increasing police presence (although there is a caveat here, since increased familiarity and rapport between police and DTES residents has led to greater reporting of crime).

Of course, women in the DTES are particularly vulnerable, as with the regular risk of muggings, assault, and the hodgepodge of random crimes that anyone is at risk of, there’s a whole slate of sexual crimes that women are particularly targeted for. Putting a service like this in place is actually two things – first, it is the recognition of a particular problem affecting a subpopulation of Vancouver residents, and it is a policy targeted at community involvement. This serves the purpose of both protecting women and raising the consciousness of the community at large. This will hopefully result in a sea change in which people are more aware of the issues surrounding violence against women, and will reverberate through the city of Vancouver outside the specific issues related to the DTES.

Hurray.

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Religious thinking used for good

I try to be an honest broker. While I am staunchly anti-religion, I am perfectly willing to recognize when it does something I think is good. This is one of those rare examples where I can’t really spin this as anything other than a positive:

“Today I will start with a three-part sermon on: Jesus was HIV-positive,” South African Pastor Xola Skosana recently said in a Sunday church service. The words initially stunned his congregation in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township into silence, and then set tongues wagging in churches across the country.

However, as Pastor Skosana told those gathered in the modest Luhlaza High School hall for his weekly services, in many parts of the Bible Jesus put himself in the position of the destitute, the sick and the marginalised. “Wherever you open the scriptures Jesus puts himself in the shoes of people who experience brokenness. Isaiah 53, for example, clearly paints a picture of Jesus who takes upon himself the infirmities and the brokenness of humanity,” he told the BBC.

He is also quick to emphasise that he is using the metaphor to highlight the danger of the HIV/Aids pandemic, which still carries a stigma in South Africa’s townships.

When I was young, I had a book of Aesop’s fables. For those of you too lazy to click, Aesop was a slave and story-teller from about 2600 years ago. His fables are among the most famous of all time, and still persist in our common lexicon (“sour grapes”, “crying wolf”, “dog in the manger”, “lion’s share”, “tortoise and hare”). The great things about the fables is that they didn’t require verisimilitude to teach a lesson – a talking fox that wants to eat some grapes is a stupid idea, but we can still apply the lesson. Oftentimes complex moral lessons could be drawn from the childish stories. It didn’t matter if Aesop actually wrote them, or if he even existed.

In the same way, Pastor Skosana is using the tale of Jesus of Nazareth to teach a complex moral lesson about compassion and empathy. As a non-religious person, I certainly doubt that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of Yahweh. There is some historical doubt as to whether Aesop actually existed, or whether (like Homer of The Iliad) he was in fact a non-corporeal “author” for a number of stories that were spread by word of mouth. There is equal doubt as to whether Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, or whether his story is an amalgamation of several messianic leaders that was hodge-podged into the story of one person. For the religious, it is vitally important for Jesus to have been a real person who actually lived; who did and said the things attributed to him. For the rest of us, it’s a relatively unimportant detail if Aesop, Homer, or Jesus were real.

There is a device of literary interpretation that is singularly well-used by the religious – that is, the co-opting of certain themes or passages to defend a position held a priori. The bible has been used in (roughly) equal measure to both protest and defend things like slavery, war, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, evangelism… you name a topic, there are passages that both support and decry it. Thereafter, there are bitter fights among the religious to find out which is the real interpretation – for the rest of us, it’s a relatively unimportant detail if the Bible is for or against something. What matters is what the consequences are to people.

Most of the time, this cherry-picking and selective interpretation irritates me – people hold up the bible as some sort of inerrant guide for the world, when it is a largely-incoherent group of stories from either a pre-literate society or the half-remembered recollections of hearsay. However, in this particular case I will tip my cap to Pastor Skosana’s willingness to take a fable and use it to teach a much-needed moral lesson about acceptance. Jesus would have been on the side of those with HIV – they are the lepers of today’s society. If you wish to follow his example, you would have to drop the stigmatization and outright oppression of those who are stricken with the virus.

However, as with any religious debate, there are people who vociferously disagree:

For Pastor Bele, portraying Jesus as HIV-positive means he becomes part of the problem, not the solution. “The pastor needs to explain how it came about for him to bring Christ to our level, when Christ is supreme and is God,” he says. “There is a concern that non-believers would mock Christ and try to generalise Christ as opposed to the powerful force we believe him to be.”

And the facepalming can begin.

So I guess I have to walk back my original statement a bit. I agree with Pastor Skosana’s use of the story to teach a moral lesson about compassion. I disagree with Pastor Bele’s religification of the story – intentionally disregarding the dozens of passages wherein Jesus ministers to the sick and tells others to do the same – in order to advance some kind of untouchable, inhuman deity. I think they’re both wrong to say that one should follow one school of thought or another because YahwAlladdha says so – nothing could be further from the truth. The word of YahwAlladdha says all things and nothing, and should be used only like Aesop’s fables – using simple, childish stories to flavour moral lessons.

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Tanzania elects albino to parliament

Last week I talked about the dangers of believing superstitions, and confusing superstition with culture. I also illustrated the specific plight of albino people, who are particularly targeted with violence for the supposed magical properties of their limbs. Of course, albinos have no magical properties – albinism is a single-gene mutation affecting pigmentation. But that doesn’t stop people from kidnapping and maiming albinos.

Tanzania has taken one small step toward correcting this practice:

An albino has been elected as an MP in Tanzania for the first time. “This win is a victory not only for me but also for all the albinos in this country,” Salum Khalfani Bar’wani, from the opposition Cuf party, told the BBC. “My joy has no end,” he told the BBC Swahili Service. “The people of Lindi have used their wisdom and have appreciated clearly that albinos are capable. I am so touched that this is the first time in the electoral history of this country for an albino to be elected by the people in a popular contest to be their representative in parliament – and not through sympathy votes or decisions.”

This is a great feed-forward mechanism that could have real positive effects. An albino MP is a recognizable, prominent public figure that challenges the commonly-held narrative around albinos. A greater level of awareness about albinism can start to take hold in the public consciousness. Of course such a shift will take a long time, so strong is the staying power of superstitious beliefs. However, the fact that Mr. Bar’wani was popularly elected suggests to me that such a shift has already began.

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Canada taking steps forward in race discussion

Every now and then I spot a news item that makes me optimistic that my vision of Canada as a model of multiculturalism might actually come to pass. As I’ve said, I think that Canada is in a unique position to host people from all over the world without forcing them to comply to an overwhelming and jealously-guarded national identity. And things like this are maybe a step in that direction:

A shared concern to preserve their distinct languages and culture by first nations in British Columbia and minority ethnic groups in China have brought representatives from the two groups together. Following discussions between the groups, aboriginal people here feel there is a need for language protection legislation, which is already in place in China. The Chinese delegation learned new ideas on how to implement projects within smaller communities, said Tracey Herbert, the executive director of the First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Cultural Council.

I’m a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show explores some themes that, if they hadn’t been already universal, would have been almost prophetic. One of the characters that I found particularly compelling was that of The Borg – a collectivist civilization that had completely abandoned individual autonomy in favour of a hierarchical regimented existence. It would go from place to place, swallowing up entire civilizations into their hive-mind.

The fear experienced by the crew of The Enterprise when confronting such overwhelming obliteration of individuality is certainly akin to that felt by new immigrant Canadians. In order to prevent traditions that they see as valuable from being completely swallowed up by the lure of conformity, the Chinese community has sought allies in the First Nations community. Amazingly, this was not an example of a post-industrial civilization engaging in one-sided exploitation of a minority group, but an equitable sharing and exchange of ideas.

Now I will be the first to admit that this kind of co-operation threatens me as a rich, English-speaking, privileged male Canadian. I am acutely aware of the fact that the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I see two groups with which I do not identify work together to change the status quo that puts me at the top of the heap, but that’s my own problem to deal with. I can tamp down that fear somewhat by recognizing that whether you were born somewhere else, or your parents were, or it’s been hundreds of generations since your people came to this land, we are all Canadians. As long as our focus is to make this country stronger and more just, I’m fine being knocked down a couple of pegs.

Of course, in order to take steps forward, we need to acknowledge our own history:

Saint John’s black community is appealing directly to the Queen Elizabeth for an apology for a 1785 decree that severely restricted where they could live or fish. Saint John is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the royal charter that created the southern New Brunswick city. But that same charter made white loyalists the only free citizens of the city and black loyalists, who fought for King George III in the American Revolution, with few exceptions, were denied the right to live or set up businesses within city boundaries.

This is an interesting bit of history that I wasn’t aware of. Apparently under the charter that created the city of St. John, its black inhabitants were not granted the rights of citizens. They were barred from living within the city’s walls or fishing in the outlying rivers. Even though they helped build the city, they were disallowed from reaping the fruits of their labour – not because of systematic, subtle racism, but because of an official decree.

Pop quiz time! What is the subtext of the following comments?

“Just think though , if it wasn’t for the British and American slavery practices most of the North American black population would still be living in some oppressive, 3rd world, war torn African country trying to get refugee status to live here in Canada.”

“Why would someone apologize for something they had no control over? Better call Ghosthunters to call the dead.”

“Get a life people of the St. John’s Black Community !!! What happened in 1785 happened. That’s it. And you don’t deserve an apology from someones great great great great great grand daughter for something that happened to your great great great great great grand parents.”

If you guessed “Get over it, black people!”, you’re right!

There’s a pernicious lie that you’ll see pop up in any discussion of immigration or minority civil rights – “the white man built this country, and if you don’t like it you can leave!” At least part of the reason this lie gets repeated so much is because we fail to recognize the history that underlies (and directly causes) our present-day realities. Africa isn’t war-torn because Africans are dispositionally warlike – it’s because it was financially exploited by Europeans, beginning with slavery. The apology is not to appease some ghosts, it’s to force present-day Canadians to own up to our history. We did these things – ignoring them is to lose the lessons they can teach. The white man didn’t build this country, he just wrote the history books and the laws.

If you’re not interested in improving the racial climate in Canada that’s your right. However, sitting on the sidelines and sniping at those who are actually putting in the work makes you look like an asshole at best, and a racist asshole at worst.

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More good news for free speech in Asia

…which is a title I find myself shocked to be writing.

I’m not so young that I don’t remember the Sri Lankan “civil war” under President Suharto. The entire region was destabilized by sectarian violence that was a combination of ethnic and religious conflicts crystallizing in violence. I am, however, far too young to remember (or to have been alive for) Suharto’s decision to ban books that were considered a “threat to public order.” This decision has recently been struck down by the courts, 50 years later:

Rights groups in Indonesia are hailing a decision by Indonesia’s constitutional court to strike down a controversial book banning law. During the regime of former president Suharto, it was regularly used to clamp down on books and publications that were deemed dangerous by the government.

This is an interesting development, not just because it’s good news for free speech, but because there is currently a fomenting dictatorship in Sri Lanka, one that will not take well the idea that it no longer can enforce a stranglehold on what ideas its people are allowed access to. Well, at least not as overtly:

Activists say the constitutional court’s decision is a step in the right direction, but warn the government still has the means to ban books if it wants to. They say that officials could use Indonesia’s anti-pornography law and a 1966 regulation banning communist material as a way to outlaw sensitive material.

It is stories like this that make me more comfortable with the stance I took yesterday on Bolivia’s racism law. Restrictions on free speech are too tempting and convenient for those in power to use whenever they wish to stifle legitimate criticism. Nobody likes being criticized, myself included. As much as I might proselytize about evaluating people separately from their ideas, or claim to like being proved wrong, those are ideal-case arguments.

The fact is that nobody likes to be told they’re wrong. It’s how we react to those statements that are important. Do we debate, allowing those who disagree to voice their criticisms? Do we react and adapt to those criticisms? Obviously it’s hard to do that right away, but can we at least accept that the other side has a point (if they actually do)? Or do we shut down those who disagree, and cripple anyone’s ability to even bring up ideas?

Governments are no different from people – petty, protectionist, irrational, emotional – the difference is that we can create societies that ensure that governments don’t have to be different from people. We don’t have to pretend as though power is wielded by starry-eyed altruists who always have our best interests in mind. We can pass good laws that put limits on power, or strike down bad laws that give too much. This is one of those cases, and it’s a surprising piece of good news from a country that I was sure was about to spiral into oblivion.

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Another interesting development in China

It’s a major understatement to say that I’m far from an expert on Chinese culture (Major Understatement *salute*). However, the bits and pieces I do know suggest to me that their is a tradition that gives far more credibility and respect to elders than we do here in North America. That is why I find this story so interesting:

A group of 23 Communist Party elders in China has written a letter calling for an end to the country’s restrictions on freedom of speech. The letter says freedom of expression is promised in the Chinese constitution but not allowed in practice. They want people to be able to freely express themselves on the internet and want more respect for journalists. The authors of the letter describe China’s current censorship system as a scandal and an embarrassment.

The BBC insinuates that the imprisonment and subsequent Nobel Peace Prize award to dissident author Liu Xiaobo might have had something to do with this development, but CBC has a different take on it:

Wang Yongcheng, a retired professor at Shanghai’s Jiaotong University who signed the letter, said it had been inspired by the recent arrest of a journalist who wrote about corruption in the resettlement of farmers for a dam project. “We want to spur action toward governing the country according to law,” Wang said in a telephone interview. “If the constitution is violated, the government will lack legitimacy. The people must assert and exercise their legitimate rights,” he said.

Coming on top of Liu’s Nobel Prize, the letter further spotlights China’s tight restrictions on freedom of speech and other civil rights, although Wang said the two events were not directly related. Work on the letter began several days before the prize was awarded, and drafters decided against including a reference to Liu out of concern the government would block its circulation.

Whatever the reason, this is a pretty significant event. This is no longer a group of dissident bloggers and journalists sniping from outside the government, this is a group of influential people from inside the political system itself. The government cannot afford to persecute and imprison these men, as doing so would be a shocking loss of face in the eyes of its people.

The other part I like is that far from being just a bitch session, the letter outlines 8 concrete steps to improve the climate of free speech:

  • Dismantle system where media organisations are all tied to higher authorities
  • Respect journalists, accept their social status
  • Revoke ban on cross-province supervision by public opinion
  • Abolish cyber-police; control Web administrators’ ability to delete/post items at will
  • Confirm citizens’ right to know crimes and mistakes committed by ruling party
  • Launch pilot projects to support citizen-owned media organisations
  • Allow media and publications from Hong Kong and Macau to be openly distributed
  • Change the mission of propaganda authorities, from preventing the leak of information to facilitating its accurate and timely spread

Much like my issues with vague apologies, criticisms that come without suggestions don’t carry much weight with me. Simply identifying a problem shouldn’t be confused with solving it. This letter however addresses real issues and areas for improvement. The ideas may not be new, but the people providing them is definitely an interesting step that is worth keeping an eye on.

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Fox News North suffers a setback (hurray!)

Regular readers will remember that I have had a bee in my bonnet about Sun TV, perhaps better known as “Fox News North”. This is an attempt by Quebecor, a media company, to create a 24-hour news channel styled under Fox News. Critics, myself included, have pointed out the destructive influence that Fox News has on the political climate of the United States, pandering to the biases and prejudices of its funders and attempting to shape the political debate rather than report news honestly. Its craven disregard for journalistic ethics and unrelenting hypocrisy have earned it the deserved scorn of pretty much everyone outside the Republican party.

Despite declaring both my bias and the reasons why my bias was irrelevant to why this station was a bad idea, the conservative readers of this blog (both of them, I guess :P) have accused me of being opposed to any point of view that challenges the liberal monopoly on the media. It is accusations like this that make it extremely difficult for me to take conservatives seriously – I have, on this very blog, defended the free speech rights of anti-gay bigots, racists, theocrats, Holocaust deniers and anti-vaccine/alt-med lunatics. You think I draw the line at conservatives? There is no line, and your criticisms are completely without merit. My objection is to the standards of practice that I see evinced on a daily basis by the propaganda arm of the Republican party, and your attempts to equivocate the so-called (but utterly evidence-free) liberal media bias, a phrase invented by the Republican party, of Canadian media with the clear lack of ethics of Fox News do nothing to persuade me of anything other than the fact that you are anti-liberal.

Part of the Sun TV application was for what is known as a “must-carry” license. This would require all cable providers to include Sun TV as part of their regular programming, rather than making it something that people can opt in to, or out of. As much as supporters of Sun TV whinge that “if you don’t like it just don’t watch”, forcing me to pay for the channel so that they can achieve a fan base belies this trite claim. As a matter of principle, forcing opinions on others is a claim that conservatives are always leveling at liberals. As I suspected, and as evinced by Fox News, the kind of people who support Sun TV are perfectly happy to abandon their principles as soon as is convenient (which also explains many of the actions of our federal government). I don’t object to conservatism when it is honestly come by, but I can’t stomach hypocrisy.

Luckily, and at least in part to the public outcry of you good people who signed the petition, Sun TV has withdrawn its application for this special license:

Quebecor Inc. says it is no longer seeking a controversial special licence that would give the new right-leaning Sun TV 24-hour news channel a three-year boost in seeking out viewers. Chief executive Pierre Karl Péladeau told reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday that he would likely drop his request for a must-carry exemption on his Category II licence application. The request was expected to be hotly contested, with rivals and many civic groups lining up to oppose the application. Last week, the advocacy group Avaaz.org dropped off 10 boxes to the CRTC containing more than 21,000 letters from Canadians opposed to the special licence.

Now this is not all good news for me, since the withdrawal of the application means that there will likely be no public inquiry or hearing, and that the application to broadcast will likely be approved quickly. However, we live in a capitalist system, which means that if you have a product that you think there is a market for, you can certainly sell it. While I am completely opposed to even the existence of a Fox News-like channel, I have no legitimate grounds to protest its moving forward. If we can have pornography, MTV, reality shows and other things that I think are injurious to the public good (well, maybe pornography gets a pass), we can certainly have a channel where opinion is masked as news. I just won’t watch it.

While I’m sure there will be many more tricks pulled by the federal government to funnel support to a station that will be completely uncritical and unflappably supportive of its undemocratic agenda, at least it will live or die by whether or not it can convince anyone outside of Alberta to pay attention. We must be thankful for small victories, I suppose.

Update: Nova Scotia cross burning conviction

Not much to say on this story, just thought I’d be remiss if I didn’t report it:

A Nova Scotia man has pleaded guilty to criminal harassment after an interracial couple awoke to a burning cross in their yard earlier this year. But Justin Rehberg continues to fight a charge of public incitement of hatred. Rehberg appeared briefly in a Windsor, N.S., courtroom on Monday. Two charges of mischief and uttering threats were withdrawn as his trial began.The judge adjourned the case until Nov. 5.

Rehberg was charged after the Feb. 21 cross-burning incident in Poplar Grove, a rural community in Hants County. Michelle Lyon and her partner, Shayne Howe, said they awoke to find a two-metre-tall cross with a noose on it on their lawn. They also said someone yelled a racial slur at them. Lyon and Howe, the only black person in the community, considered moving because they feared for the safety of their children, who range in age from two to 17. But they said they changed their minds after the community rallied around them.

Nathan Rehberg, Justin’s brother, is charged with criminal harassment, public incitement of hatred, mischief and uttering threats. His trial is set to start on Nov. 10.

Legal justice has been done. Good work.

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One Laptop Per Child reaches Canada

But all is not all dark and gloomy in this country that I love:

The Belinda Stronach Foundation is giving up to 5,000 laptops loaded with specialized software to children in aboriginal communities across Canada. The green-coloured XO laptop computers are the same as those built and distributed by One Laptop Per Child, an organization that estimates it has donated more than two million laptops worldwide. “I believe strongly in combining the power of technology and education and investing in our young people,” said Stronach, a former federal cabinet minister and Magna International executive who has turned her efforts to social activism.

I wish we’d see more things like this from the federal government (and before you accuse me of picking on this government, I’ll point out the fact that the problems in Aboriginal communities are not new, and all federal governments have largely ignored them). A great deal of money has been earmarked towards health promotion, infrastructure developments, mental health services – basically anything that keeps Aboriginal people reliant on the government for assistance. I am not not NOT suggesting that these programs are a waste of money or worse; “reverse racism” of some kind. I will leave such brainless assertions to my friends on the right of the political spectrum.

What I am suggesting is that these kinds of programs are not sufficient. In addition to giving the proverbial fish to the proverbial starving man, there needs to be efforts to provide the resources that will allow these communities to become self-sufficient. Arming these kids with the access and technical skills to enfranchise themselves allows more First Nations people to take part in the national conversation. In a short-sighted kind of way, that’s bad news for the status quo because it will force those in power to begin sharing it. However, there is experience and perspective and human resources that are largely untapped within First Nations communities, and allowing those to develop will benefit everyone, not just members of those communities.

There is also the obvious fact that First Nations communities are in the shape they are in because of systemic racism. It is a further entrenchment of this kind of systemic racism for a white organization to swoop in and start handing out money. As Tim Wise often points out, while race and economics are often closely-linked, it is the height of ignorance to pretend as though one is a surrogate for another. This investment in the people of these communities simultaneously recognizes the racism and makes tangible, long-term steps to attempt to ameliorate its effects. The way we treat First Nations communities in Canada is our national shame, in the same way that the historic and ongoing mistreatment of black people is the national shame of the United States.

In the same way I applauded the Giving Pledge for making investments in poor communities not out of a sense of guilt or obligation, I applaud the Belinda Stronach Foundation for recognizing that an investment in under-served communities yields benefits for us all, particularly those who are at the bottom of the ladder.

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Liu Xiaobo sticks it to the Chinese government

This morning I told you about the Chinese threat against Norway, if the Nobel committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to dissident Liu Xiaobo. I am happy to report that Norway doesn’t appear to give a flying fuck about what China thinks is best for world peace, and has awarded him the prize anyway:

Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo is this year’s winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Liu is a 54-year-old literary critic and democracy activist who was awarded the prize for “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Friday. The Chinese government reacted angrily to Liu’s win. News of the prize was blacked out by Chinese state-owned media, and government censors blocked prize reports from the internet.

This is good news for pretty much everyone except Mr. Liu’s family, who are now facing a lot of unwanted attention from the Chinese government. There are many people who support the Chinese government. I’m sure there are millions of Chinese citizens who think it’s doing a bang-up job, and feel that the criticisms leveled against it are unfair. That’s a perfectly reasonable position to hold, particularly when you are the recipient of the benefits of socialist rule. However, when your freedoms are won at the price of the human rights of other people, then it is entirely reasonable to criticize the actions of the government. When the response to criticism is to jail or otherwise silence the critics, you can no longer claim that the government is acting in the best interests of its citizens – it’s acting in the best interest of itself.

And that’s exactly what’s happened:

Meanwhile, Chinese media was instructed by the censors that messages containing Liu’s name were to be blocked and China Mobile users were already complaining that text messages with his name couldn’t be sent. Censors instructed microblogs China-wide to set “sensitive word filters” to block Liu’s names and stop all interactive online forums where people could leave comments about him.

It’s one thing to say that Mr. Liu’s writings are not in the best interest of China’s stability. It’s entirely reasonable to point out that he is in violation of Chinese law, and that his actions do not reflect the position of the government or the Chinese people. However, when the response is to prevent anyone from even learning about the award. If, for example, some organization awarded Paul Bernardo a humanitarian prize, do you imagine that such an award wouldn’t make the news? The outcry from Canadians would be overwhelming, and the award would be roundly condemned. The government wouldn’t need to shield us from the news by censoring its announcement.

I love the reason given for the award as well:

[Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern] Jagland, reading the citation, said China’s new status in the world “must entail increased responsibility. China is in breach of several international agreements to which it is a signatory, as well as of its own provisions concerning political rights.” Mr Jagland said that, in practice, freedoms enshrined in China’s constitution had “proved to be distinctly curtailed for China’s citizens”.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, China. When you cut yourself off from the international community, you were free to govern as you saw fit. However, when you become a player on the world stage, you can no longer continue to control the conversation as rigorously as you once did. The sooner that the government (any government, because these kinds of tactics are not unique to China) realizes this, the better off will be its citizens.