Sunday 27 November 2022

Calling for democracy on Wulumuqi Rd

Wulumuqi Lu (Urumchi Rd) one of my favourite hang-out streets when I lived in Shanghai in 1990. Funky shops, hole-in-the-wall eateries, dan-dan noodles, sweet-strange swan-soft chikkies.…

Today the crowds there are sick of Zero Covid policy lockdowns. And they let it be known. Which policies, please let’s recall, many in the west wanted us to emulate. And we partially did, for a while.

I wonder how long it was before the armed might of the state moved in to crush them. Think how easy we did it, with our own police, our own democratic police, in Melbourne, in London, in New York. Let alone how easy for an efficient authoritarian state with unchallenged power. Police power > people power. Sadly.