Protesters are stupid
I find that most of the time, I hate protesters. Sometimes I believe that they are worthwhile, but most of the time protests are filled with people who are protesting because they finished their first semester of college, and they know that they now truly understand global politics.
I am a world traveler. Maybe I have ADD on a global scale, but I seem to jump cities and countries after every few years. As those of us Americans who have traveled abroad, we know that the world sees America differently than we think. Most of the world thinks America is full of arrogant, religious pricks who think they know everything about everything.
As such, I make it my goal to leave each place a little better than I found it. I try to make people like Americans a little more, to help them understand that some of us are caring, open individuals.
And so, when I see shit like this, it sets back months or even years of work by me:
China to deport five activists
Protesters, journalist detained in Beijing
Before I go ranting, what does everyone here think?
I am a world traveler. Maybe I have ADD on a global scale, but I seem to jump cities and countries after every few years. As those of us Americans who have traveled abroad, we know that the world sees America differently than we think. Most of the world thinks America is full of arrogant, religious pricks who think they know everything about everything.
As such, I make it my goal to leave each place a little better than I found it. I try to make people like Americans a little more, to help them understand that some of us are caring, open individuals.
And so, when I see shit like this, it sets back months or even years of work by me:
China to deport five activists
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Five activists protesting on behalf of Tibet, including three Americans, were arrested Thursday for what Chinese police called "activities against Chinese law" and will be deported, Beijing police said.
The incident occurred at about 5:45 a.m. in the Chaoyang District in northeastern Beijing near the construction site of new buildings to house CCTV, the state-run television station, police said.
The five, who were part of the group Students for a Free Tibet, hung a pro-Tibetan banner near the buildings, group organizers said in a statement.
The group identified the protesters as Australian-Canadian Nicole Rycroft, 41; Briton Phil Kirk, 24 and Americans Kelly Osborne, 39; Bianca Bockman, 27; and Sam Maron, 22.
Beijing police confirmed in a written statement that they "stopped" the five protesters and planned to deport them.
Protesters, journalist detained in Beijing
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A British journalist and eight Tibet activists were detained during a protest near an Olympic venue Wednesday, the journalist and an activist group said.
The activists unfurled banners that said "Free Tibet" and "Tibetans Are Dying for Freedom" at a cultural museum, said Lhadon Tethong, executive director of Students for a Free Tibet, the group that coordinated the protest.
A British journalist, John Ray of ITN, said he was detained for about 30 minutes.
Police in Beijing confirmed that eight foreign nationals were detained for "illegal activities," but they did not address questions about Ray.
The journalist said he was running to cover the protest when security guards caught him and forced him from the park even as he said "I am a British journalist" in English and Chinese.
Ray said police "manhandled" him into a restaurant, where they yanked off his shoes and held him down. He said they would not let him put his hands in his pocket to show them his media credentials.
With no shoes on, Ray said, he "tried to make a break for it" but was tripped and thrown into the back of a van, where an officer asked his views on Tibet. Ray said he told the officer that he was a journalist and did not have views on Tibet.
Later, he said, when a colleague asked police why Ray had been detained, an officer asked, "Did you not see him trying to unfurl a banner?"
Ray insisted that he went to the park strictly in his capacity as a journalist and took no part in the protest. He has worked for ITN for eight years and has been the network's correspondent in China since 2006.
Police in Beijing said in a statement that eight foreign nationals were detained while conducting illegal activities about 12:20 p.m.
The Chinese government plans to deport the eight: seven who are from the United States and one from Japan, police said.
Students for a Free Tibet is a group based in New York that seeks to help Tibetans achieve "freedom and independence" from China.
Since the Summer Olympic Games started, 36 demonstrators with Students for a Free Tibet have been detained, Tethong said, including the eight who were detained Wednesday. The other 28 protesters were deported after being held for a maximum of 30 hours, she said.
Douglas Herman of New York, a Tibet activist who saw the protests, said several demonstrators with "Free Tibet" T-shirts chained their bicycles together in front of an entrance to the cultural display and waved the Tibetan national flag.
Security guards materialized within seconds.
"The flag that they had, that was taken away immediately," he said.
Before I go ranting, what does everyone here think?
Comments
I dunno... a foreigner protesting a foreign nation's policy in that nation? I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that. But it's hard... if you believe very strongly in a certain standard of treatment of people, and you see a country that doesn't do it that way, you might want to "inform the people" or whatever.
I don't know. From what you've said of Chinese people, it sounds like a good deal of them don't want to be told things like that, they just want to follow what the government says, so protesting probably wouldn't do much good anyway.
And yes, I'd love a good rant.
Tibet is a Chinese issue. It's not an American issue. How often do we have people from China or other countries starting protests in our country, telling us how to run internal affairs? There are hundreds (or thousands, depending on how you count it) of history and culture behind this issue, and these protesters just shit all over it when they show up and try to tell the country how to run itself.
I'd be very interested in knowing if any of these protesters speak Chinese, if they can tell you the last dynasty before the revolution, or if they can even point out important cities or landmarks on a map.
The issue here is ignorance. I feel like most protesters, especially the ones listed here, don't fully understand both sides of the issue. Either they think they do, or they just don't want to. They've picked up a banner and decided to fight to the death for it, and they don't even know why people think they other way.
I think many conflicts could be avoided if people just tried to understand one another.
We already know it, but you don't really gain a depth of it until you leave America.
And as far as the detainees go, i'm not sure which aggravates me more, the fact that they think they can overrule a communist country by waving a few signs around and yelling, that they can be so ignorant as to try to liberate an entire government, or the fact that China had to detain them because they felt it was that big of a problem. I mean, i'm not sure if i have all the facts about the China-Tibet affair, but to me it seems like a few angry people aren't going to make them feel guilty about doing it.
This took far too long to write, and some one more than likely responded to Serephel by now.
Edit: Knew it.
What about the Falun Gong protesters? They're Chinese, and they've been sitting in protest for 7 years on the sidewalk along a major thoroughfare, here in Vancouver. They sit in a little blue box, complete with 50 foot long signs including gruesome images. They even set up an open display complete with girls in cages and guys Chinese military (police?) uniform at the art gallery (protest/potsmoker central) the other day.
Frankly, I think protests are just an excuse to get together with the other hippies and smoke some pot.
Everyone wins.
Especially Jake.
Seconded. Very much so.
.....
....guys?
With that being said, I believe protests and protesters are needed. In my country, there's gonna be a nation-wide referendum on September the 28th to approve or not a new Constitution. I am a firm believer that this new constitution will only keep the country in its state of poverty and underdevelopment, and give almost absolute powers to an already powerful President and Central Government.
Well, on Saturday a group of students from my University decided to go after class to protest against this new project of a constitution in front of the school's auditorium, in which the President was conducting his weekly radio show, instigating people to vote "YES" on the referendum. We were a group of around 100 or 120, shouting and chanting against the new Constitution and the President. All of the sudden, the President instigated the few (around 20) students that were supporting him and the many government employees, bodyguards and drivers that were present to go "deal with us, and teach us how to debate in democracy". Obviously, his idea of democracy is beating us up. The Police started hitting us with their police sticks (don't know the name) and spraying us with pepper-spray. Even more, some soldiers pointed their shotguns at students. Several people got hurt, a few of them even had to go to the hospital. Luckily, I wasn't harmed.
My point is, you can't state that protesters are stupid just like that. A lot of times, protests are needed to make governments, tyrants, and Presidents understand that they're not all-powerful, and that their people is not happy with the way they act about a given issue. In my particular case, how can I remain quiet when presented with a horrid project of a Constitution that's only gonna give more power to an already power-abusive government?
P.S.: Here's a video of the President telling his security to arrest a person only for giving him the finger while he passed. The men then try to arrest the first man they find, who happens not to be the same that "insulted" the President. Luckily they let him go, since last year something exactly like this happened and the man had to spend a weekend in jail.
ALSO, Andrew, you make a valid point. I just wanted to point out that they might not be uninformed, and assuming that they are is a bit arrogant from our part. And I think that protesting is valid even when what is being protested is a foreign country's policy, if this policy is too severe, unfair, or violating of human rights (a rather crude example would be the right of people worldwide to protest against WWII Nazis, during the time). I don't know if that's the case in Tibet, though.
The extremist protestors, the ones who either protest a cause that's completely justified where you just have to move on with your life, or the protestors who really have no idea what they're really protesting-- those are the people I can't stand.
I used to have a problem with any type of protesting, but after a while I realized how immature my way of thinking was. Now, I've decided that, although I don't see myself being in any protests anytime soon, I will respect that there are certain things where protesting is absolutely justified in their rebellion. For example, I used to think feminists were crazy, and that they only gave a bad name for other very docile and intelligent women who were okay with how they lived. However, look at all the progress those "crazy" women accomplished; without them, women wouldn't have the respect that they do today, they wouldn't have the same opportunities, and many women would be unable to live how they would really want to live.
Soooo while I don't like hearing about protests, there are CERTAINLY times throughout history where protesting was the best way to go, just because the authority figures were not listening to anything else. If you're not getting the attention of the authorities, you're getting the attention of all the other people who hear about the protest. I'm sure those protestors during the Olympics still think they were justified in getting kicked out, just cuz they got the attention they wanted. I don't know whether it got more negative attention than anything else, but eh. I don't know enough about the whole shebang in order to know whether it was just a waste of time or not.
And, it is very very difficult to decide which matters are worth protesting and which are not. Hindsight is obviously quite aware of which matters fell on which side, but in current events, it's more difficult. Is Tibet a situation that warrants foreign involvement, or is it actually not a huge deal and something we should let the Chinese and Tibetans take care of? It's really really hard to tell, especially when you live on the other side of the world and get filtered information.
Not to get off topic, but that's why I made the name thread... that no one used... or took seriously.
Oh yeah! Protesters. Where to begin? I liked the Nazi example. There were many third-party protests by Nazi sympathizers during WWII. Since most people didn't know the whole truth at the time. Turns out those protesters were wrong. People from third-party nations protested Russia's actions after WWII. Seems they were right. As was stated, hindsight is 20/20 (I'd say more like 20/40, You can at least read the eye-chart). Current events are tricky.
Now, nobody likes a bully. When people see one nation they perceive as strong bullying a weaker nation, they want to side with the underdog. It doesn't matter what the internal politics or social disorder may be in that weaker nation. If a big, mean country is unjustly occupying that nation, it's wrong. After all, who are they to interfere with the affairs of another nation? That's none of their busi.....oh wait, nevermind.
In summation (I just had a funny memory, in high-school English they told us not to use "in conclusion" at the end of an essay, so I wrote "in summation" and got the nicest, most threatening comment from a teacher ever), I hate people who don't mind their own business. The situation has to be extremely cut and dry before I'll say that an entire nation or culture is doing something "wrong". I may form an opinion and decide that by my personal moral ideals, it is wrong, but I'm not about to go protesting (insulting) an entire nation.
ALSO, I feel that protesting during the Olympics is really in poor taste. One of the main themes of the Olympics is bringing together, in peace, people from all around the world. We already know about Tibet, you fucking attention whores! There's no need to ruin everyone's good time for something that has almost become a cliche at this point.