Thanks to Nadia, John and Dale for leading the book discussions today. Your 3-point blog post reflection on what you learned from the chat needs to be posted here in the comment section.
Jan Wong On Her Years in China
Who Killed Anna Politkovskaya?
16 comments:
I think that a lot of what we talked about in class was reflected in the books and in our discussion. With Russia, the main question they face today is do the ends justify the means. I think that a large reason that not many citizens try to take a stand against unfair practices under Putin is because 1)those who do not support Putin seem to disapear quickly and 2)no one really wants to go back to the way things were before. Regardless of our standards as Americans, Russia is more successful now than they have been in a long time. As far as China goes, I think it was intersting that the author seemed to have such an idealized view originally. I think it's safe to say that not many people still hold such a positive view of China today.
Along with what Sydney said, Nate had brought up a good point that even if the people of Russia wanted and fought for the equality Putin doesnt give, would they effectively be able to do so? Against the institutions laws or whatever stands in their way is the overbearing power that Putin has created to separate himself from an uprising of anti-Putin movements. With China, someone had made a good point that Communism is great on paper, but isnt realistic when practiced. Yeah China seemed to be a great place for equality but obviously through experiences such as what Jan Wong went through, we know of a different china.
I think one of the more interesting things we had talked about in Putin's Russia was how they view the Chechnyan rebels as compared to how we may view the Taliban or some similar rebel group. It may be a bit of a stretch, but in a way you could compare the rebels in saying that they both want autonomy and they both want to be free of an outside influence, but obviously there are huge differences as well. I don't think Russia is right in using so many resources to calm Chechnya, as they seem to have so many other issues elsewhere (i.e. crime, corruption, poverty, etc.) and Chechnya is essentially their own region already anyways. Also, as far as China goes, I was just baffled that she had this ideal of communism and thought, before she travelled there, that it was a perfect place. Maybe its just our present-day American bias, but I can't really imagine anyone thinking that China's communism is a perfect, utopian society. I think its an interesting development in having to fully interact with people and see the soldiers and all of it firsthand to realize that "equality" and the happiness she envisioned isn't necessarily a reality.
One of the things we talked about concerning Russia was the culture of corruption in Russia and how Russia has had a somewhat illegitimate government for most of its history. This, especially in reference to solving the rampant corruption, bribing, judicial issues, and crime, is a huge problem in terms of fixing the broken system in Russia because the country has never really known anything different. Concerning China and communism, I am on the same page as Rohan and Sydney. It could definitely be easy to idealize communism and how it works in the real world as opposed to the theoretical world. I also think that China is hopefully at a point where they are beginning to face some of the problems that have been occurring since and before Red China Blues was written... On this subject, I was listening to NPR (as usual) and heard a story about China addressing the pollution in the cities and possibly creating more transparency in government in terms of the environment/pollution. Here's the article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/04/02/176017887/chinas-air-pollution-linked-to-millions-of-early-deaths
Solid insight so far.....remember to think of civil society -- non-governmental institutions that manifest interests and will of the people outide of government -- in Russia and China. What does Putin's Russia and Red China Blues illustrate about civil society (or lack thereof) in Russia and China.
The most surprising thing that hit me during today's discussions was most definitely Jan Wong's unwavering belief in the idealism of china. As we discussed Russia, and as Sydney mentioned, the topic of the ends justifying the means was center stage. It became hard to argue, as much as we would have liked to, that the ends didn't justify the means because at the end of the day, Russia is the most stable and successful it has ever been.
I think regarding civil society in Russia, there really is none because like a lot of people said, the Russian government has no legitimacy. Their judiciary system is controlled by the government with bribes and such, so their really isn't a justice system which is kind of scary when you think about it. Part of the definition of civil society is to have an independent judiciary system which Russia does not, and the freedom of speech, which we all know does not exist in Russia. At least not when you continually protest and speak out against the government.
About the civil society post…
Putin’s Russia: the society just seems very disengaged from the government. Corruption and even the drinking culture among males in Russia appears greatly accepted among the population… they seem to expect the corruption and just tune out to the flow of politics. There is a very little civil society in Russia, either due to the normalization of Russian politics (as Emma said, Russian governments throughout most of time seem at least somewhat illegitimate) or because any real participation or contestation against Putin’s regime are shut down so quickly.
Red China Blues: China during the time of the Cultural Rev. seemed to have a huge civil society. Although there always seemed to be an undercurrent of inequality/resentment among the citizens, the whole idea of the cultural revolution (especially to idealizing eyes such as those of Jan Wong) was to allow people to participate in something larger, express their interests and to create change throughout the nation in a “grass-roots” approach. Although most of the programs established in this time weren't completely independent of the government, many people were still enticed to participate in political activities or rallies in their communities. When we discussed in class, John brought in newspaper clippings from the ‘90s that discussed the changes in the theater that occurred throughout China’s revolution—many of the plays became focused on the state and ideals and for a time, people were legitimately excited about expressing their ideas through new art forms. At least superficially, the civil society throughout China was huge. How much this participation truly reflected the people’s opinions or will and how much was ultimately forced upon them is questionable, though.
1) We basically talked about the major differences that the journalist had to go through when she went to China. Even though she idealized communism, it was hard for her to find the good in it (even though she tried really hard to).
2) The massacre was another major pointer that was brought up. In this topic, we talked about the restrictions that were placed on the protesters and how hard it was for anyone to speak up about the problems in China.
3) In Putin's Russia, we came to the conclusion that the author was not at all objective because she never really pointed out any positive facts about Russia. Dale talked about the corruption and the illegitimacy of the Russian government and how it has become part of Russia culture now.
To me, trying to bring change to Russia is impossible. Even though Putins Russia points out a PLETHORA of problems with the russian system of government I just don't see it being changed without a massive revolution and the russian state essentially going up in flames, and even then chances are that things would just go back to the way they were with a new face lift. It reminds me of when we watched that video on russian media, and when asked if they would like to hear more of the opposing side in the election most of the russians responded yes, but not a "I'm gonna do something to change it yes"; more of a yes, but I don't care enough to change it myself let someone else do it.
In our Putin's Russia group, we discussed how Anne's novel, do right in highlighting many problems in Russia, was relatively harsh. However, going off of what Parker said, it really doesn't change the fact that Russia's government is exceedingly illegitimate, and it seems like a country wide revolution would be necessary for things to change. Anne stood up against the government and paid with her life. The only way for change to be achieved is for everyone to fight for it, but that most likely won't happen, because of fear.
As for Red China Blues, we discussed how Jan Wong's idea of communism, thinking it would be wonderful, and then reality, when being dealt with it, were so different. It's scary to think about how the government is so bent on isolating China from other countries, and how the concept of a class hierarchy still existed for so long.
Both novels show how, society really isn't into politics. They don't express their views, and just let their respective governments oppress them.
Between the two books, I believe Red China Blues was the most interesting to read. Putin's Russia was a synopsis of everything wrong with the country, in the eyes of the author.
When we saw the video of Jan Wong, I thought it was pretty entertaining to how oblivious she was in regards to goings-on in China. She truly wanted to believe in Mao's idealism, so much that she cast aside everything that actually happened in the state, and placed her own beliefs in place of that. Like the video we watched, with the rower, she was really shocked that the tour guide scolded the man when he was seen talking to Jan.
Also, when she first arrived in China and saw the individual soldier, she didn't really expect to see the other soldiers throughout the country. It seems that she tried too hard to believe China was this Utopian society, and I sort of feel bad for her because it wasn't what she expected.
As far as Putin's Russia, I'm not surprised that the author simply "died" pretty shortly after the book was written. She mentioned the majority of things wrong with Russia, and the government didn't really appreciate that too much, so they decided that her "falling down a flight of stairs" was sufficient in covering up the fact that they most likely killed her. It's not surprising that such an outspoken "enemy" of Russia faced such consequences, because the corruption of the state is just too massive for anyone to get away with talking any sort of smack about it.
Accidentally posted it in the wrong section.
Karan A. said...
I agree with Alex on that out of the two books Red China Blues is a better read. Over break I did read about half to 60 percent of the book and I have to say its better in the sense it reads like a story.
Although perhaps the most interesting fact was how the author of Red China Blues, Jan Wong had never really expected the reality of communism and how bad it was. In communism she honestly thought that people were happy to be equals, but then realizes that there are "unwritten classes".
From Dale's discussion of Putin's Russia I thought it was interesting how negatively Russia was spoken in the book. Perhaps it just shows that in a political system there will always be corruption but also alot of descent from the people.
April 3, 2013 at 7:14 AM
Posted in the wrong section my bad. I have the date and time stamp in the other one if you need to see the original one
The book talks really opened my eyes to real aspects of the country that I have been continually skeptical toward. For Russia it is the true existence of corruption within the government that is so far from anything we experience in the United States. In China, the communist nature of the government and Western perception of the country in the time of the author was the most interesting. Today, especially with our superior education system, we understand the inner workings of the political culture of these countries and it is interesting to think of how people back then simply did not understand everything about the government. The utiopian society the author of Red China Blues had in mind was so far from what she came to experience that she was led to think of China as a bad country. The truth, however, is that these comparative countries are simply different from what we experience every day and are to be understood as such.
supreme shirt
lebron shoes
jordan 11
adidas yeezy
yeezy
golden goose
stephen curry shoes
adidsas yeezy
yeezy shoes
supreme sweatshirt
Post a Comment