Tag Archives: India-China

Bad ideas, Debates, Empire/ Imperialism, Frontiers, Identities, Mirror Worlds, Movements

Your rapists and ours

6 Comments

Two interesting articles:

Emer O’Toole in the Guardian CiF:

There’s something uncomfortably neocolonial about the way the Delhi gang-rape and subsequent death of the woman now known as Damini is being handled in the UK and US media. While India’s civil and political spheres are alight with protest and demands for changes to the country’s culture of sexual violence, commentators here are using the event to simultaneously demonise Indian society, lionise our own, and minimise the enormity of western rape culture. [Full article]

And Ananth Krishnan in The Hindu:

The rape case was one of the most discussed topics in Chinese microblogs over the past week, prompting thousands of posts and comments. By Sunday, however, the authorities appeared to move to limit the debate: on Monday, a search for the topic triggered a message on Sina Weibo – a popular Twitter-equivalent used by more than 300 million people – saying the results could not be displayed according to regulations. The message is usually seen as an indicator of a topic being censored by the authorities. [Full article]

 

Bad ideas

Eclipsed by Western News Orientalism

Leave a comment

In the apparently historic ongoing battle of the Asian Tigers that generates so much interest and anxiety amongst corporate types and policymakers all over the world, the recent solar eclipse may have ruined the chances of the Indians. Here’s a video on the eclipse that leaves no doubt as to who’s leading the race for the twentieth century. Please note the difference in reactions within India and China to the eclipse. If msn news is to be believed, when the sun turned black, an all-Hindu India erupted in a frenzy of religious and superstitious activity, while the Chinese and Japanese calmly took their children out to parks to see the celestial event through those cute eclipse goggles – a kind of pleasantly scientific national pastime. Enjoy this little snippet of orientalist reporting… Or is it the truth about ‘us’?