The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 2/7

December 13, 2010

Left Coast Voices posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize. This is Part 2 of my response.

Liu Xiabo won the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism in China. The Nobel Peace Prize is the West’s medal of honor for those who work hardest to spread Western style democracy and Humanitarianism to countries that have not accepted these theories.

In case you are not aware of whom awards the Nobel Peace Prize, I’m going to tell you—a committee of five persons elected by the Norwegian Parliament (four women and one man–all Caucasians).

More than 85% of Norway is Christian and about 82% are Lutheran.

The Islamic religion is worshiped by less than 2% of the population of Norway and Buddhism by one tenth of one percent. Almost 84% Norway is of North Germanic/Nordic descent or Caucasians.

These are the people that decides who wins a Nobel Peace Prize.

There is no international body made of representatives of all races and most nations to decide who wins the Noble Peace Prize.

Instead, a Western, democratic, Christian bias heavily influences these decisions.

For that reason, it is wrong to assume that most Chinese want all of freedoms the West’s Christian dominated democracies offer.

Return to The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 1

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Flaws of Democracy and Humanitarianism – Part 1/7

December 13, 2010

A Western activist Blog, Left Coast Voices, posted a piece about Liu Xiabo, a leader of the Chinese democracy movement, who won the latest Nobel Peace Prize.

The host of this Blog, Alon Shalev, has an impressive resume in activism. Shalev campaigned for the anti-apartheid movement, the release of Jews from the Soviet Union and the burgeoning green movement.

Today, he is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Foundation—an eighty year old nonprofit.

Hillel helps students find a balance in being distinctively Jewish and universally human by encouraging them to pursue tzedek (social justice), tikkun olam (repairing the world) and Jewish learning, and to support Israel and global Jewish peoplehood.

Similar to Hillel’s goals, Shalev’s novels highlight social injustices and individual empowerment.

I’ve read Shalev’s The Accidental Activist, and I cheered for his heroes to beat the evil oil conglomerate. Since I don’t want to spoil the story, I won’t say what happens.

Incidentally, The Accidental Activist is based loosely on a real court case that took place in England.

In his Left Coast Voices post about Liu Xiabo, Shalev says, “I have news for you, Chinese Communist Party: freedom is addictive, and it ain’t that bad.”

I agree that freedom “ain’t that bad”, but the Chinese (contrary to public opinion in the West) enjoy many of the same freedoms people in the West enjoy with a few exceptions, which I will deal with in part 7.

This, of course, is Shalev’s response to China locking up Liu Xiabo for 11 years.

Discover what really happened at the “so-called democracy” movement that did not take place at the Tiananmen Square Incident in 1989.

In fact, there was no popular, organized democracy movement in China and there never has been. Only a few thousand people in today’s China, such as Liu Xiabo, want to import the Noble Peace Prize, Christian influenced, Western Humanitarianism style of democracy to China.

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

The Peace Prize – Confucius versus Nobel

December 10, 2010

Michael Martina of Reuters reported on a Chinese option to the Nobel Peace Prize — the Confucius Peace Prize.

The headline read, China stood up by winner of ‘Confucius peace prize’

The headline used for this Reuters news made mockery of what a few Chinese citizens attempted.

The lead paragraph goes, “It was meant to be China’s answer to the Nobel Peace Prize…”

At first, it sounds as if China’s Communist Party was behind this alternative to the Nobel Peace Prize.

After reading the rest of Martina’s piece, you learn that the Confucius Peace Prize had no link to China’s central government. Since news of it wasn’t reported in China’s state media, few in China probably even heard of it.

A spokesperson for the Confucius Peace Prize said, “This prize is from the people of China, who love and support peace.”

Yet, the people of China had nothing to do with it either.

However, using Confucius’s name for a peace prize makes more sense than using Alfred Bernhard Nobel’s name.

If you compare The Life of Confucius and/or watch the recent Confucius movie starring Chow Yun Fat you might understand why Confucius deserves the honor more.

After all, Nobel built his fortune on death. He was a Swedish chemist, engineer, innovator and armaments manufacturer. He invented dynamite and manufactured cannons and other weapons.

He also waited until after his death to make amends for the suffering and destruction his products  had caused.

In his last will, Nobel directed that his enormous fortune be used to institute the Nobel Prizes and made sure to name these prizes after himself so he wouldn’t be remembered as the “Merchant of Death” or the “Lord of War”.

To understand better who Alfred Nobel was, I suggest you watch Nicolas Cage in the Lord of War, a movie released in 2005. Although the movie was not about Nobel, it is about a “Merchant of Death”.

In fact, it may not have been Nobel’s idea to include the Peace Prize.

Although Nobel never married, his first love, a Russian girl named Alexandra corresponded with him until his death in 1896. Many believe she was a major influence in Nobel’s decision to include the Peace Prize among the other prizes provided for in his will.

Is this “hypocrisy” time ten?

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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

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Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

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