There's a bunch of articles in western press about crack downs on queer communities in China, as well as feminist communities. What's the reality? Is it actually happening? Why?

  • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    3 years ago

    I imagine because it's civil society outside the Party, which the CPC (for better or worse) has decided will only be a method by which resistance against them will be fermented by imperialist powers, and hence has zero tolerance for. It's the same reason why complaining to Party officials about how much they suck and should do better is fine, but if you attempt to organize an outside protest with others to say that together, it's not fine.

    • DeathToBritain [she/her, they/them]
      ·
      3 years ago

      I think it's understandable when you consider the reactionaries at all levels who want to overthrow the PRC. like for sure it does suck, but I understand their defensive mentality on it

      • thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Oh 100%, I entirely get it. It sucks but that's the price of having a communist ruling party in a world that wants it dead. Couple that with China being pretty socially conservative, I'm sure the Party doesn't want to "push" LGBT rights too far and lose support of the conservative majority, which again totally sucks but I get it.

        • DeathToBritain [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          they have been using official party channels to push LGBT rights, and younger party members are hugely in favour of LGBT rights and support

          • GreenTeaRedFlag [any]
            ·
            3 years ago

            I think this is another example of how, if you curb just the worst excesses of imperialism and capitalism, things will become dramatically better within a few generations. Hatred about modernization and lack of oppunrtunity have been cut back, so that anger is not directed towards LGBTQIA+ people, so they get rights pretty quickly. Of course, I may be missing a million other factors.

                  • RedDawn [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    They do vote for some things but otherwise they practice the mass line (although I don't that term was actually used in between Mao and Xi, Xi has revived the use of the term). Think about a party official going to a village and saying "what kinds of problems do you have here? What could I do to help?" And then actually following up on that, something like this is shown in the PBS documentary which I think is called China's War on Poverty.

                      • RedDawn [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        Oh don't worry, it only aired in a limited fashion before PBS pulled it for being too pro China (but I believe it's available on YouTube anyway)

                  • s0ykaf [he/him]
                    ·
                    3 years ago

                    democracy = rule of the people, voting is just one way (not necessarily an effective one) by which that rule is exercised

                    china has a kind of consultative democracy where people are literally asked about what they want and think, and the government runs things based on that - if the local administrator fails to provide, another one is put in his place, and so on

                    this is far more effectively democratic than voting every X years, as in the latter voters are actually more like consumers ("here's a list of what we're offering, pick one that is closer to what you want") than actual participating citizens ("tell me what you want so we can see a way to provide it")

                    that said, yea, they actually do vote as well, but just for the legislature

                    honestly, it's a great mix, not without its flaws obviously, but has worked wonders

                    edit: also the vast majority (over 70%) of the chinese definitely think 1) democracy is good and 2) they live in a democracy, which are much better stats than what you see in america for instance

                      • s0ykaf [he/him]
                        ·
                        3 years ago

                        yea i think the chinese experiment is generally fascinating to look at tbh

                        i mean, even if one is of the opinion that they're revisionists and all, they're the hardest and most complex experiment we've had so far, and we should be taking a closer look at it, even if we end up concluding there were more mistakes than successes

                        but we're usually just going either like "eww capitalism" or "wow very infrastructure" when it goes far deeper than this