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October 1996, Week 1

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Thu, 3 Oct 1996 07:44:15 GMT
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In message  <[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]
 writes:
>
> The kids lose most, don't you think?
>
 
 
Whilst understanding your position entirely, and sympathising
greatly, which children are going to lose most?  The ones
in favoured positions, or the ones in the dying rooms?  What
appears to be missing in comments about 'it was only one
orphanage' is that those *were* children, and they were starved,
tied up, and allowed to die.
 
Why is it more comfortable to sweep their bodies out of sight?
 
Which greater good is being served?
 
Again, I have no wish to appear insensitive to your request over this,
and I do feel for your own distress.  But not showing documentary,
as it will upset things and make those it exposes react badly, is the
worst possible example of moral censorship.  Once such censoring
starts, from a desire to 'make things a little better by not upsetting
too many people with the truth' we're on a rocky path to not showing
Holocaust footage as it serves no purpose but to antagonise people.
 
I understand the personal cost and tragedy of being one of those caught,
physically and emotionally, in such a debate.  On the one hand, there
are all those laudable intentions to search out and expose The Truth,
versus the reality of your pain.  But on that oh so individual and
personalised level, what if you were the mother of one of those
brutalised children, or the child itself?
 
No matter how it is then used in a political or docuumentary context,
what words are added to alienate or attack China itself, or how
bad journalism makes it into this, and people's opinons into that,
and the Chinese Government use it to exert pressure on people like
yourself: that footage is a testament to the children whose image it
contains.  Their suffering remains, clear, stark and unchangeble
by the words spoken by all the adults around them.  That suuffering
should not be removed from sight for the convenience of others, least
of all other children.
 
Why does no one ever speak for the dead?
 
 
--
Morgan
 
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