From Red Guards to Cyber-vigilantism to where next?

This is a 1976 Cultural Revolution poster from chineseposters.net. It celebrates Chairman Mao's 1966 call to arms: "bombard the headquarters." He egged on the Red Guards to go after corrupt and venal officials who:

"...have stood facts on their head and juggled black and white, encircled and suppressed revolutionaries, stifled opinions differing from their own, imposed a white terror, and felt very pleased with themselves."

One might be inclined to use similar words to describe the officials whose holiday video from a taxpayer-financed African junket recently got uploaded onto the internet. Click here for the full video.

When I watch China's human flesh search engines in action I often think of the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards. Unlike the Red Guards they're not really being manipulated by one charismatic leader (yet); they're just acting on their own. Like the Red Guards, the intent of today's cyber-vigilantes is idealistic; they believe in their absolute moral righteousness. Sometimes they expose corrupt and venal officials who deserve to go to jail. Other times they conduct moral witch hunts against people whose behavior may not be very admirable but what crime did they commit exactly and who is to be the judge?

It is very exciting that the Internet is making it increasingly difficult for Chinese government officials to behave irresponsibly, abuse taxpayer funds, or commit crimes without being exposed. The question is, where is this all headed?

 Mao was frustrated that he could not adequately control the Communist Party bureaucracy, who he believed had grown too fat and happy and "bourgeois;" so he unleashed the Red Guards on them. Today many Chinese complain that the central government has lost control over provincial officials to some extent, and county officials to a great extent. The central government is fairly well regarded by the public while local governments are widely hated. How will this loss of control by the center over the localities be handled? Via real reform of political institutions and mechanisms of justice so that government at all levels can be held accountable by the governed in a fair and systematic manner? Or through an updated form of cyber-populism (cyber-bonapartism?) in which people are empowered to speak out and to act against injustice in many cases when such actions don't hurt the power of the top leadership - but without the institutions or rule of law or real reforms that would underly a commitment to build truly accountable, transparent, and representative political institutions?

In the 1990's, some hopeful officials in the Ministry of Civil affairs advocated direct, competitive, secret ballot elections as the solution to social unrest and corruption. Programs to institute such elections at the village level were celebrated in the West as a sign that China might eventually be capable of democratizing. Studies at the time indicated that villages with fair and competitive elections had less unrest than those that didn't. But the efforts to bring free, fair and competitive elections to all villages throughout China were abandoned by the early 00's as China's top leadership transitioned from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao. Dreams that such elections might be possible at the county level or in the cities were also abandoned. Talk to officials today who were involved with village democracy efforts at the time and they'll tell you they see no hope of the local election efforts being revived under the current leadership.

Will the Chinese people rise above cyber-vigilantism and use the Internet to build a just and fair society governed by accountable leaders? Or will the majority be be happy to wield their new-found powers of online speech in random fashion? That's really up to them. People like Liu Xiaoyuan and Yang Hengjun and a number of others have been raising such questions. It's hard to know whether people beyond the elite intelligentsia will pay attention to such concerns.

This is why the suppression and censorship of Cultural Revolution history in China is so dangerous. If people could freely write and debate about what happened under Mao, history would have less chance of repeating itself.

The last two images in this post are part of a fabulous collection of Cultural Revolution posters belonging to this blogger.

UPDATE: Bill a.k.a. "niubi" was quick to point out on Twitter that he doesn't think the situation today could "go anywhere comparable" to where it went in the Cultural Revolution. I do agree. I apologize if I gave the impression that I think we're going to see an exact repeat of history. That's not the point I meant to make. The point I'm trying to make is that just because people have an expanded ability to speak truth to power thanks to new technology, that doesn't automatically lead to a more just society in the long run unless you have institutional change. I wonder whether people will be so distracted and excited about the ability to use the Internet to speak truth to power that they'll have less interest in such institutional change. Whether the latter scenario results in a desirable state or not is up to the Chinese people to decide, of course. If that's what a majority of Chinese truly believe works best for them - if there's a way of determining what the majority of Chinese people really want - well I guess that's their business. Like Yang Hengjun said today, if the Chinese people really want human rights, at the end of the day only they can give it to themselves...

FURTHER UPDATE: Before I wrote this post I hadn't seen Joel Martinsen's excellent post over at Danwei, Harnessing Human Flesh Search Engines for Government Use. That adds yet another layer of issues.

Comments

[Don Tai]

It is interesting and a little disconcerting that netizens would go after both corrupt officials and what looks like witch hunts of innocent people with the same enthusiasm. Are these innocent people guilty in the eyes of some Chinese? Are netizens simply exercising their intellectual muscles? Is it also possible that netizens may treat others just as badly and unjustly as they have been treated?

Note that 75-80% of China is still rural and may not have access to the web. They remain the silent majority and are largely unrepresented. To use the web for reform at the county level will be difficult.

[RC]

“Idealistic and manipulated” is the most accurate description about Red Guards. Unfortunately, most ‘China experts’ in west have little understanding of it. I compare the Red Guards to the soldiers of Nazi German in WWII. It is always easier to demonize the tools who were also the victims than trying to understand them.

[Jim]

Though I agree that it likely would not get to the CR level of extended chaos, I think that scalding hot spots could develop in a very big hurry. As the net has become more troublesome for both local and the central officials, their reflexive ‘crackdowns’ have been more indicative of their fear of loss of control, which is what anyone who pays attention to such things would expect. The bigger problem will be the intensity of future crackdowns as social unrest continues to rise as, most assuredly, it will. Just how far will officialdom go to keep the lid on the rumbling can? Would they turn access off? That would surely tip the scales. Dilution through intimidation and arrests doesn’t seem to be working. So what alternative do they have? Slackening up the line doesn’t seem to be in the cards, at least while the current leadership - despite the soft-sell smiling face of Father Christmas-y Wen Jiabao, - is in power.

[Zheng]

I'm curious why there is an intrinisic assumption to see the human flesh search engine as a monolithic and cohesive force when it clearly represents netizens either individually doing the fleshing or in different groups across various bbs, forums, and sites with different social norms to guide them.

[Tom]

I love Cultrual Revolution posters. They are so bueatiful.

CR art is very popular in China now, but you would be very mistaken to think today’s youth in China are becoming Red Guards in any shape or form. Most young people in China don’t even know Red Guards and won't care to know. They are the most apolitical people in the world.

China’s village election overall is a very mixed bag in terms of improving or further degrading rural governance. China being very practical and very conservative on stability, does not see the need and benefit in furthering such program.

[Manny Hu]

Witch Hunts? You should remember our own infamous blogger Chris Devonshire-Ellis. That'll be a case study with truth come out - one day. I'd love to read the real background to that situation.

[C@T]

If you think China is bad, check out the USA. Where do you think the FABRICATED
FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) is coming
from regarding ICANN, NTIA, NIST, etc.???

Partly from Steve Crocker of the ICANN Board. Why ? Because his company is PAID
to secure the homeland. The Crockers profit
from FABRICATED FUD. ICANN also gets to
deflect other issues by claiming they are
fighting the FABRICATED FUD, that one of
their Board members helps to create.

http://www.shinkuro.com/
Shinkuro's interests and expertise lie in secure Internet capabilities, and the company provides leadership in community activities such as the Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) deployment initiative.
With support from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Shinkuro is working with a range of technical and commercial stakeholder communities to deploy the newly adopted Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) protocol. Widespread deployment of the protocol promises to enhance the security of the Internet infrastructure by attaching cryptographic signatures to DNSSEC records that will allow system users to detect responses that may have been compromised. To this global effort, Shinkuro brings expertise in mobilizing, organizing and leveraging disparate resources and fledgling efforts, supported by networking tools and focused software development.

[C@T]

From Yahoo comes...
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang attacked Clinton's comments as a "gross interference in China's internal affairs."

"We urge the U.S. to put aside its political prejudice and correct its wrongdoing and refrain from disrupting or undermining bilateral relations," Qin said in response to a question at a regularly scheduled news briefing. Qin refused to comment on the security measures — or even acknowledge they were in place.

"Today is like any other day, stable," he said.

Beijing has never allowed an independent investigation into the military's crushing of the protests, in which possibly thousands of students, activists and ordinary citizens were killed. Young Chinese know little about the events, having grown up in a generation that has largely eschewed politics in favor of raw nationalism, wealth acquisition and individual pursuits.
================================

This is very similar to the way The Big Lie Society has managed the Internet in the .US. The Big Lie Society carefully
controls Internet opportunities and those
that play their game prosper and see no
abuses.

Every ICANN meeting is a big love-fest.
The people are given the mushroom treatment, they are kept in dark rooms
and fed manure. They are happy mushrooms.

The Big Lie Society laughs all the way to
the bank. Follow the money.