One of the interesting features of the current China panic is how bits and pieces of the old anti-communist rhetoric is taken out of storage to be recycled, but this anti-communism is now used, strangely, against an increasingly capitalist China. For example, it is, on one level at least, the capitalist modernization of Tibet that has provoked some of the protesters, who maintain instead a romantic vision of a traditional society, unthreatened by railroads and commerce. On a deeper level, there are anxieties about the power of the Chinese economy, inexpensive goods, and American indebtedness.
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The path of the Olympic torch brought out large demonstrations, especially in London, Paris, and San Francisco. Various political agenda were in play, most prominently objections to Chinese policies on Tibet and on the Sudan, with regard to the genocide in Darfur. Each of these topics could be discussed in detail, and it is surely not unreasonable to develop a criticism of China on these and other issues. China has problems, which it is fair to scrutinize. Yet the sudden eruption of anti-Chinese sentiment is striking. Something has changed. Thursday is book day at Telos. We use this time and space for posts about books, authors, and all sorts of writing, considered in light of the sorts of questions that are at home at Telos. As with all our blogs, you are invited to post a comment. If you have a book review that you’d like to post here, or some other comment on the worlds of writing, drop a line to us at telospress@aol.com. Ayman al-Zawahari responded in an audio interview to the question, “Excuse me, Mr. Zawahri, but who is it who is killing with Your Excellency’s blessing the innocents in Baghdad, Morocco, and Algeria?” with the answer: “We [Al-Qaida] haven’t killed the innocents, not in Baghdad, nor in Morocco, nor in Algeria, nor anywhere else.” “In a leading article entitled ‘Industry of Death,’ which was to become famous, Hassan al-Banna [founder of the Muslim Brotherhood] explained to a wider public his concept of jihad—a concept in which the term Industry of Death denotes not something horrible but an ideal. He wrote, ‘to a nation that perfects the industry of death and which knows how to die nobly, God gives proud life in this world and eternal grace in the life to come.'” —Matthias Küntzel, Jihad and Jew-Hatred (New York: Telos Press, 2007), p. 14. Under the headline “Regulators Now Spooked by Ghost Stories,” Reuters published an account on February 14 of a new act of censorship in China, as part of the lead-up to the Olympics. The General Administration of Press and Publications has stipulated that video producers have three weeks to report incidents of “horror” in their material, as well as content involving “wronged spirits and violent ghosts, monsters, demons, and other inhuman portrayals, strange and supernatural storytelling for the sole purpose of seeking terror and horror.” In recent public debates, no label has carried more denunciatory power than “neo-con,” and no discussion has been more confused. In a recent essay, Peter Berkowitz has shed some welcome light on the misunderstandings around the term, reminding us of the principles of neo-conservatism and their origins in the thinking of Daniel Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick. But that was a long time ago, and, as the saying goes, what have you done for me lately? Critics of the Iraq War regularly blame it on mysterious neo-cons, hiding in the wings, working their conspiracies, although none of the political leaders—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell—has any neo-con credentials. Why then the direction of ire against neo-conservatives, rather than against conservatives? Why is “neo-con” such an attractive epithet for those who enjoy slinging mud? |
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