Today’s online public opinion in China makes me feel a chill down my spine, and I even start to feel fear.
Li Jiaqian, the principal of a middle school in Tangyin, wrote a short story. This short story became the subject of an exam, which sparked a huge controversy.
This is a major issue, concerning whether to glorify Japanese invaders. The local government immediately took action.
Then various official media collectively reported, but all of this is as absurd as going back more than forty years.
What this short story wants to express, in fact, with a little literary foundation, you can immediately understand.
I don’t believe that the government officials in the place where the incident occurred don’t even have this basic literary accomplishment.
Post the article, everyone take a look.
First of all, let’s not talk about my opinion, let’s first look at AI’s opinion.
I asked AI, you are a literary critic, please evaluate this novel:
AI replied:
“This is a fragment of a novel reflecting the battle between the Communist Party of China-led guerrillas and the Japanese army during the Anti-Japanese War. The author depicts an intense battle scene through the perspective of Japanese officer Okada.”
“Although the guerrillas in the novel are outnumbered, they are brave and unyielding, preferring death to surrender. The author vividly portrays the guerrillas’ determination to die for their cause and their unyielding revolutionary will through the details of the guerrillas raising white shirts with tree branches to surrender, but immediately knocking them down.”
“At the same time, the author also reveals the brutal nature of the invaders through the image of Okada. In order to avenge his son, Okada did not hesitate to use heavy artillery to bombard the guerrillas who had run out of ammunition and food, fully demonstrating the invaders’ ferocious face. And when he found out that his son had become a victim, Okada’s expression of grief and despair also made the readers see the tragedy brought by the war.”
“The whole novel is written in a simple and unadorned style, but it is extremely infectious. The author is good at portraying characters through details, and cleverly uses environmental descriptions to render the atmosphere, such as ‘the sky full of yellow soil, mixed with branches and leaves, and scattered azaleas, drifting in the blood of the human remains’, which not only depicts the cruelty of the battlefield, but also contains a sense of tragic grandeur.”
“In general, this is an excellent novel that promotes the spirit of revolutionary heroism and denounces the crimes of the war of aggression. It truly reproduces that war-torn era, praises the Chinese people’s lofty qualities of not fearing violence and persevering, and also makes people feel the cruelty of war and the preciousness of peace.”
With a little literary accomplishment, you wouldn’t misinterpret this novel as glorifying the invaders.
This is clearly a story about an invader getting his just deserts.
And, using this enemy’s brutality to contrast the Eighth Route Army’s strict discipline, humanitarianism, not killing civilians, and various qualities of heroic fighting.
The result of the story is that he blew up his own son, isn’t that saying: serves him right!
But, what is the online public opinion criticizing?
Even Lao Hu is already afraid.
Lao Hu first expressed that there was no big problem with this novel, but at the end of the article, he said:
“Lao Hu personally advocates that the feelings of netizens should be respected, because creation and reading is a process of communication and interaction. If a feeling of the majority appears, this feeling will never be groundless and illusory. But at the same time, I advocate that we should leave room for professional identification and leave room for handling this matter according to law and reason. We absolutely do not allow historical nihilism that reverses basic right and wrong, and at the same time, we must listen to the opinions of professional institutions and professionals: is it permissible to take a perspective of a Japanese lieutenant colonel who invaded China from beginning to end? If it is fundamentally wrong, how should such an error be characterized? How should the middle school characterize the fact that it brought this article to the students in the third grade of junior high school?”
These words just show one thing, Lao Hu is afraid, he doesn’t dare to draw a conclusion.
It’s a tragedy, in such a big China, so many so-called media people who have read for decades and read all kinds of works every day, don’t even dare to draw a conclusion on such a novel?
This is a novel written by the principal of an education department, the directors of the education bureau, and the local Chinese teachers, shouldn’t they even be able to understand such a short novel?
They actually directly dismissed several people. Are they all so afraid of these Red Guard youngsters?
Is what they say the final word? Don’t you even dare to retort?
What are these Red Guard youngsters saying?
You can’t write from the Japanese perspective, you can’t use the words ‘communist bandits’! Do these people understand literature, are they all illiterate? Didn’t they implement the nine-year compulsory education system?
In ‘Bright Sword’, isn’t there also a plot design that praises the bravery of the Eighth Route Army from the Japanese perspective? For example, after the cavalry company charged and all sacrificed, the Japanese devils praised that these were true Chinese soldiers and wanted to give them a grand burial.
Although the level of this short story is really average, but the meaning is too clear, it’s about a Japanese officer’s son coming to China to see his father who is fighting in China, and when he sent troops to escort him over, he was captured by the Eighth Route Army, but his son was not a soldier, so the Eighth Route Army did not abuse him, and even protected his son in the battle, but he was determined to wipe out the Eighth Route Army, even with white flags, he wanted to blow them up, and then he found out that it was his son holding the white flag, and he blew up his own son with his own hands, is such a story of evil getting its just deserts so difficult to understand?
I remembered the scene in the American version of ‘The Three-Body Problem’ that was popular on the internet a few days ago, where Ye Wenjie’s father was beaten to death because he believed in the theory of relativity and thought that the universe was created by the Big Bang, which was considered to be finding a theory for the existence of God.
The reason why such a fragment is spreading on the internet is because people are worried that such history will be repeated.
But now, such history is happening.
A group of intellectual elites, a group of reporters and editors in the official media, dare not say a word.
They only dare to reprint news, only dare to directly suspend their jobs, while the youngsters are all excited and thrilled to have caught a traitor.
What about the people in the Chinese literary world? What about the people in the Writers’ Association? The matter has been fermenting for two or three days, and these people dare not speak out? Are they all so afraid of them? Or are they afraid of this political correctness?
Is everyone just watching them make such a fuss? And, the government has also taken action and used an investigation team, isn’t this crazy?
Why doesn’t anyone dare to stand up and boldly criticize them? Because they are powerful, they are strong, they are everywhere, they can launch cyber violence, and even they can take a sentence or two from your words out of context and sue you in court.
They can also incite the masses, many people may not have even read this work, but just believe in the instigation of these self-media, and blindly follow and start to scold traitors.
Isn’t this kind of reversing black and white, arbitrary online criticism, and accusations of being a traitor the style of the Cultural Revolution?
This is the highest leader’s evaluation of that period of history:
“The ‘Cultural Revolution’ lasted for ten years, causing the Party, the country, and the people of all ethnic groups to suffer the longest, widest, and most damaging setbacks since the founding of New China. The Party’s organization and the state power were greatly weakened, and democracy and the legal system were wantonly trampled upon. The older generation of revolutionaries turned the tide and smashed the ‘Gang of Four’ in one fell swoop, ending the ‘Cultural Revolution’.”
Since the reform and opening up, the evaluation of the Cultural Revolution by successive governments has never changed.
Our progress today comes from abandoning an overly politicized society and moving towards an economic development-centered direction, with development being the hard truth as the guide.
How can we allow this group of online mobs to bring us back to the society of forty years ago?
If the online mobs watch everyone’s words on the internet every day, and as long as it doesn’t suit their wishes, they can arbitrarily label them as traitors, and even drive government departments to dismiss people and conduct investigations, such a pan-politicized society will bring unimaginable disasters.
Can our local governments be a little tougher? They don’t dare to stand up against this kind of thing?
They have to yield to the online mobs?
Do they say the wind is the wind, and the rain is the rain?
You should learn from the procuratorate, they don’t accept those who want to sue Mo Yan’s Mao Xinghuo.
If you are so easily submissive, it can only further encourage their arrogance, and such things will happen more and more in the future.
Lao Hu and the others shouldn’t be cowards either, and those in China who are afraid of returning to the era of the Cultural Revolution also can’t be cowards, they must stand up and fight against them. Otherwise, if the public opinion field is occupied by them, and no one dares to speak, what will happen?
China must never return to the era of the Cultural Revolution, this is a disaster.
China can no longer enter a pan-politicized society again, economic development is the eternal theme, opening up to the outside world is the correct direction, and the improvement of people’s living standards is the only goal worth pursuing.
If these people are allowed to stare at everyone’s various remarks every day for cyber violence, and launch a nationwide campaign to catch traitors, in such a terrifying atmosphere, can the economy still develop?
In this period of time, from the lawsuit against Mo Yan, to the Nongfu Spring incident, and then to this incident, such things are happening one after another, and it is no longer an accidental event, but has developed into a continuous online public opinion movement.
Won’t this scare away entrepreneurs? Won’t this ruin everyone’s future?
I appeal to all media people and self-media people to be brave, don’t be afraid of their cyber violence, stand up and write articles to block them and criticize them. Let them understand that this public opinion field is not a place where they can be so arrogant.
I believe that there are more rational people in China who cherish their current lives, and these people do not want to return to that unbearable past.
I am not afraid of their cyber violence, compared to cyber violence, I am more afraid that my own and my family’s future will slide into the abyss.
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