 |
| Beijing lockdown of apartments, November 2022 |
Yue Parkinson:
A Chinese friend here in the UK told me she has been in a heavy mood lately. “No Chinese person with a conscience can avoid what is happening in China,” she said, then added: “When I compare the Covid-19 lockdowns here and there, I finally know what democracy is.”
It is indeed difficult for first-generation Chinese living overseas to understand what democracy is. Ourthinking is at least 100 years behind that of contemporary British people. We mostly aspire to the acquisition of money and power, and are unable to see the new political trend of the 21st century in Britain: the pursuit of equality between all races, genders and classes.
This article isn’t mostly about the highlighted bit above. Mostly Yue Parkinson is trenchantly critical of her own Chinese country folk, of Chinese authoritarianism vs British democracy.
But the highlighted bit is also what can be wrong about the west — hyper individualism to the point of narcissism. If you’re after “equality” and you mean equality of outcome — as opposed to equality of opportunity— then you’re in woke territory. Which is dangerous territory. To an extreme it’s manichaean Marxism, a vision that’s brought us the horrors of Pol Pot, of Mao, of Stalin, of Castro, of Maduro. Equality of outcome has to be forced. We are doing this foe your good! It is nowhere in nature, not even in our fondly imagined pre-lapsarian past, so it must be forced. For your own good.
Still, the rest of the article is an interesting take to appear in a China-based newspaper.
ADDED: what worries me about the highlighted bit is that it’s the teaching of Ibram X. Kendi. He who ascribes any and all differences in outcome to racism. And racism alone. He allows for no concept of multi-factoral causes: poverty, culture, family, education. No, it’s always and forever, racism. What we are seeing here is that the UK has bought into this Kendism and in turn so has Yue Parkinson. Sad that.
