Yue (Ivy) Blog #6: Democratic Cyber Space

In a country like China, where a relative handful control the fate of billions, it is reasonable to expect a high degree of censorship. From the cultural revolution to the more recent silencing of Ai Wei Wei (an outspoken Chinese artist famous for his middle finger and the Bird's Nest stadium), communist China has always preemptively detered the formation of imagined communities within its borders. Ai's arrest is a suitable starting point to this discussion because of its relevance to the internet and the growing access that Chinese people enjoy, which obviously poses the most imminent of threats to the party.

In 2008 the province of Sichuan experienced one of the most devastating natural disasters recorded in recent human history, an earthquake that took the lives of 68 thousand (the party's estimate). Yet there was no call for help and none was given. Defiantly, Wei Wei conducted a "citizen's investigation," which culminated in an expo in Munich. The building facade read "she was only 7, and had her entire life ahead of her," written in Chinese using the backpacks of school children who were crushed by concrete falling from above. Amid this fervent protest for better infrastructure, more aid and more humanity in how people treat people in China, Wei Wei suffered several attacks from an embarrased and frankly, scared, dominant minority. His bank accounts were frozen, his body was beaten to the point of cerebral hemmorage, his family was threatened, his art destroyed. Why then, would the Communist Party tip-toe around a mere artist?

In China, we have a government-approved version of google, a government-approved version of facebook and a government-approved version of youtube, but we also have government-unapproved proxy sites, which allow us to form external blogging communities and also grants access to foreign domains. In this intangible cyber-space, Wei Wei has influence- through twitter. The internet has become the most democratic device for the oppressed and the vigilant. Through this imaginary link that we have between one guy on a laptop in a coffee shop to another guy on a laptop in a coffee shop, we take back the power to speak and to be heard. Wei Wei's followers, abroad and domestically, protect him from disappearing, from becoming a non-issue.

(If you are interested in learning more about Ai Wei Wei and his cause, look him up, follow his tweets. Or watch the documentary on netflix, Ai Wei Wei: Never Sorry.)