OPINION> Zhu Yuan
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OPINION> Zhu Yuan
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Freedom of expression key to prosperity
By Zhu Yuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-19 07:56
It is unjust to denounce all informers, but the Chinese equivalent, gaomizhe, is usually used as a negative term for those who inform on others with an ax to grind. There are informers everywhere at any time. But what was really awful in history was the use of informants by rulers as a means to get to know what was on people's minds, or to be exact, the terror created among the public by the wide use of informants to hush the grievances. The book Walls Have Ears by He Mufeng traces the history of informers in various dynasties in ancient China. The blood-stained history was actually not too remote. Ask people in their sixties or seventies, and their memories of the political movements in the decades before 1978 could always remind them of some informers. What is particularly interesting is the relevance this writer has found between informers and autocratic rulers. He gives the example of how it was for the first time written into the national law that everyone in the State of Qin (770-256 BC) must inform on anyone who harbored resentment against its ruler and his policies. The historical stories the book tells show that arbitrary dictators loved informers the most and it was only such emperors who could make it possible for tale-bearers to be active in creating terror among the people. This is because arbitrary rulers tended to turn a deaf ear to good advice from sensible court officials and favored those who would never rub them the wrong way. In the late years of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), secret police forces were established by eunuchs who got the court under their control because they enjoyed the emperor's favor. Such police officers were sent everywhere to overhear people talking. Anyone who was overheard talking anything ill about the emperor or the dynasty would be arrested and persecuted. Such secret police officers were in fact professional informers. When the theory of "class struggle" dominated the country's ideology before the middle of the 1970s, informers were made to accompany particular figures to get to know what they thought of certain policies by having friendly conversations and writing reports about such conversations. Articles have been published in the first half of this year to reveal that some very well-known cultural celebrities once acted as such informers. The denunciation meeting was quite probably an invention of these political movements. Instead of reporting on somebody behind him or her, people were encouraged to expose in public meetings what were generally believed to be the wrong ideas a person had once expressed even in private. There were instances of sons or daughters exposing and denouncing parents in denunciation meetings and wives their husbands or vice versa. At the same time, informers were still welcome to dig out those so-called alien elements, who hid themselves deep. Yet, when the terror created by the prevalence of informers reduced a whole society into only one voice and no one dared to talk his or her mind, a regime was usually not far from its collapse as there was no outlet for people to vent their grievances. This was evidenced by the collapse of one dynasty after another in the past more than 2,000 years. As a matter of fact, China's rapid economic development and social progress in the past three decades has proved how important freedom of ideas and of expression is for the economic prosperity and dynamic atmosphere of ideas. Pluralistic as the Chinese society is now, further emancipation of mind is more than necessary to eradicate the remains of the autocratic mentality that stands in the way for the country's further progress. Reviewing the painful history of hushing up public voices by the wide use of informers at this critical moment is of some significance. E-mail: zhuyuan@chinadaily.com.cn Popular in 24 Hours Popular in 1 Week
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