Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Sympathy

Last week, a kid from Beijing went to Shanghai, charged into a police station in Shanghai, and started killing police officers. The toll from his action was six dead, and four wounded. The curious thing about this incident, is that Chinese netizens are praising this kid as a hero. The story (or rumor) is that this kid was accused ot stealing a bicycle, arrested, and beaten, resulting in him having become impotent. This rampage was his revenge. Internet folk have created websites and tributes to the kid for his heroic actions.

The true horror of this story is that the rumored unjust treatment by the police, and the kid's motive for revenge are so believable. The netizens aren't gullible. They are just so accustomed to corruption and incidents of injustice that to them, the kid's accusations come as no surprise.

China's biggest enemy is still itself.

2 comments:

Josekin said...

The true horror should be the lack of degree of truth in any published story, public or net-based. And why people are creating (maybe...) and reacting to a rumor rather than the truth, which of course is conveniently not reported in any channel.

Justin said...

I agree, but I think the difference is that China is at least claiming to be fixing corruption, where as censorship and lack of clarity are their own creation.