MEDIA ROOTS — Reminiscent
of the December 2010 act of self-immolation in Tunisia by Mohammed Bouazizi,
which helped inspire the globally influential “Arab Spring,” a Chinese man surnamed Wang
has undertaken this extreme form of protest at China’s Tiananmen Square on October 21. Whereas, Mr. Bouazizi’s act of protest was
widely covered around the world, Mr. Wang’s act of self-immolation was quickly wiped from public record, consciousness, and memory per China’s
state-censored media in Orwellian fashion.
A state-issued report narrated the action as an isolated case of personal dysfunction. But the fact that such reports leak out every year in China points to Mr. Wang’s frustration with China’s justice system as being indicative of larger structural problems, similar to the conditions of corruption which led Tunisia’s Bouazizi to commit the ultimate form of protest.
Censorship in America over such selfless acts of protest exists as well. In 2004, a man named Malachi Ritscher publically burned himself to death in protest to the Iraq War. In the statement he released before self-immolating, he explains that he would rather die than to pay taxes to kill others abroad. The corporate press painted him as a lone lunatic instead of giving heed to his powerful and eloquent message.
MR
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THE TELEGRAPH— The incident – which happened on October 21 – appeared nowhere in China’s censored state media, but was also witnessed by a Daily Telegraph reader who photographed the aftermath as Chinese police rushed to douse the flames using fire extinguishers.
“The man did it right in front of me. He stepped over the low railing in front of the cycle-lane that runs past the picture of Chairman Mao. He was only two or three metres away from me,” recalled Alan Brown, a retired RAF Engineer from Somerton, Somerset.
“He said something quickly and a policeman nearby was suddenly agitated, but this chap whipped out his lighter and set himself on fire. Without being melodramatic, he looked straight at me and set himself on fire.
Despite being witnessed by several hundred other Chinese bystanders there is no record or mention of the incident either in China’s heavily censored state media, or on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, where news deemed sensitive or undesirable by the state often leaks out.
Chinese authorities in Tibet have also been dealing with a wave of self-immolations this year, with 11 monks and nuns setting themselves on fire in protest against Chinese rule in the Tibetan region since March.
Read more about Chinese man sets himself on fire in Tiananmen Square.
© 2011 Telegraph Media Group Limited
Photo by flickr user Gary Lerude
