Yearly Archives: 2008

Clamping Dissent During the Olympics

I’ve been following a Newsweek blog called “Beijing Beat,” which is focused on the Olympics. The two lead writers are Melinda Liu, an acclaimed American journalist who has specialized on China; and Mark Starr, another excellent writer.

On August 13, a writer named Mary Hennock posted an item about Christian activists called “Protestors Go Underground as Police Clamp Down.” Curiously, the post has been removed from the blog. However, I still had it in my RSS reader. I decided to print it here.

I spent much of Wednesday trying to speak to Hua Huiqi, a Beijing-based Christian activist who has disappeared since being arrested on his way to church on Sunday Aug 10. It was the same church President Bush was planning to attend (to show his support for religious freedom in China), and the police seemed to think that Hua’s presence was a bad idea.

They nabbed Hua and his elder brother Hua Huilin as they cycled towards the church around 6:00 A.M. and took them to a police post. Hua skipped custody sometime around midday, when he noticed his captors had dozed off, according to the letter he sent to Human Rights in China on Monday.

So as not to keep in you in suspense, let me tell you now that I didn’t track down Hua, and I can well understand why he might want to stay low. The phone was cut three times during our conversation with the pastor’s elder brother Hua Huilin, often an indication that the line is being monitored. Hua Huilin is also now on the run, afraid to go home because “there’s a lot of police in front of my house.” Although he’s not a Christian, he accompanied his brother to Kuanjie Protestant church because he couldn’t dissuade him and wanted to protect him. Before the two were put in separate rooms at the police post, he heard the police threaten to break Pastor Hua’s legs. He doesn’t know where his brother is now, only that he’s safe and is being cared for by fellow-Christians, he says.

Other Christian activists are under de facto house arrest. For instance, novelist Yu Jie told us that police are waiting outside his house and chauffeur him everywhere. “From July 31…I’m not allowed to go by taxi or drive my own car,” he said.

Human Rights Watch estimates about 30 people are under some kind of house arrest in Beijing–Yu Jie reckons about 10 are Christians. Most of them are also involved in other kinds of activism such as defending homeowners facing eviction by developers, say Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch. Repression is being driven by “an attempt to put a choke-hold on information” rather than a political clampdown based on fear of any particular groups of dissidents, he says.¬†

Christian lawyer Li Baiguang says small group worship in “house churches” outside the constraints of the officially-registered Three Self Church is still possible, though people knock on the door to complain. “[They] say they’re neighbors but I don’t think they are,” he says. Some of the bigger “house churches” have been closed down, including Pastor Hua’s, but most survive. Li says he is followed when he travels outside Beijing, and his law firm, Beijing City Common Trust, which handles anti-corruption cases, has had two recent visits from local officials querying his business license.

Before the Games began, there was much speculation about dramatic protests for many causes. So far, protests have been small-scale and almost all have been carried out by foreigners. “I think the Chinese government has succeeded very well in silencing not only well-known dissidents and activists but also NGO activists and academics who are outspoken, and lawyers, and basically pretty much everyone in addition to the usual suspects,” says Bequelin.

One sign of China’s effectiveness in stifling any protest movement is the hoopla over a brief kerfuffle outside the Chinese Ethnic Culture Park, just south of the Olympic Green, and the 20-minute detention of a British journalist. John Ray of Independent Television News (ITN) was dragged along the ground, pushed in a van, and emerged with a bruised hand. It’s generated plentiful media coverage, and certainly breaches the Chinese government’s pledge to allow foreign journalists to report freely. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China has rightly objected. But the amount of attention to Ray’s case is also a reflection of the fact that here at last was someone‚Äî-a foreign broadcaster‚Äî-willing and able to speak freely about being man-handled by police.

Ray was reporting on a protest by Students For a Free Tibet, who’re proving to be the most active and best-organized opposition here, pulling off a stunt most days, with subsequent deportations. They staged a die-in on Tiananmen Square, and the five people involved were deported; a student displayed the Tibetan Snow Lion flag ringside at the equestrian events in Hong Kong and was carried off, and on Wednesday they scored their highest number of arrests so far‚Äî-eight-‚Äîby the simple tactic of handcuffing themselves together. Small groups of American and Dutch Christians have held protests on Tiananmen Square. The man who claims to have daubed hotel rooms with free speech slogans has announced he is in hiding in Beijing‚Äî-somewhat voluntarily, I feel‚Äî-and will give himself up on Aug 24.

The much-anticipated protest movement hasn’t really materialized, and it doesn’t look likely to. Frustrated foreign journalists on Wednesday were left fencing with International Olympic Committee (IOC) in its daily press conference about whether it has proved a willing dupe on China’s promises to improve human rights. The questions are justified. “This is a very, very large police effort to keep people away [from Beijing] and one that is actually working very well,” says Bequelin.

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Brian McLaren: Thumbs Up to Obama

For all of you who like to read Brian McLaren’s books about postmodernism and the church (Curt and Paula–I’m talking about you), you may be interested in this little ad in support of Barak Obama.

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The Olympics

I’ve been greatly enjoying the Olympics. Some thoughts.

  • The Chinese are doing a spectacular job. Still an authoritarian, politically repressive country. But give ’em credit for putting on a great show for the world.
  • I like NBC’s coverage. They’re showing lots of different sports, rather than obsessing over the popular gymnastics like they’ve done in the past.
  • Still waiting to see table tennis.
  • Usain Bolt is pretty amazing.
  • Watched some of USA Basketball’s trouncing of Spain on Saturday, but that’s all I’ve seen. Thirsty for more.
  • Really enjoying women’s beach volleyball. Walsh and Traynor are cruising.
  • The trampoline is boring.
  • When’s synchronized swimming?
  • Team handball is a really strange sport.
  • I like the version of “The Star Spangled Banner” recorded for Olympics medal ceremonies.
  • Haven’t seen any boxing yet. I assume it’s going on.
  • Saw some trap-shooting last week, and found it interesting.
  • Watching while on the treadmill at the YMCA makes time fly.
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The Saddleback Forum

Watched the Saddleback Civil Forum tonight, with Rick Warren asking questions of Obama and McCain. I think we’ve got two very good candidates for president. I’m happy with both. Some random reactions to the event:

  • The commentators on three networks all thought McCain did better. I just didn’t see it that way.
  • I don’t like thinking of one person “winning” this event. They both did well, but in different ways.
  • McCain was very black and white. I preferred Obama’s thoughtful gray. We’ve had eight horrible years of black and white.
  • I preferred Obama’s style of focusing on Rick Warren, speaking and responding to him. I was a bit off-put by the way McCain focused on the crowd. Seemed too much like campaigning.
  • McCain did a lot better than I expected.
  • Obama came across–to me–as very thoughtful, nuanced, big-picturish, and authentic. That appealed to me.
  • The talking-head commentators seemed to be passing judgment on the basis of totally different criteria than I was using.
  • Excellent questions, Rick. And you kept control of two guys who like to talk.
  • I thought McCain answered some questions better (and certainly had more compelling personal stories), but in general, I was drawn more to Obama’s answers.
  • I pretty much agreed with everything both guys said. Don’t know what that means.
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Musing About My Heavenly Mansion

As previously noted, Mom and I played “Mansion Over the Hilltop” last Sunday on our accordions. The song title comes from the King James version of John 14:2: “In my father’s house are many mansions….I go to prepare a place for you.” The American Standard Version also talks about mansions.

But Jesus told a different story to other translators:

  • NIV: “In my father’s house are many rooms.”
  • New American Standard: “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.”
  • The Message: “There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home.”
  • New Living: “There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.”
  • CEV: “There are many rooms in my Father’s house.”

So it’s not clear if we have a mansion, or just a room in God’s mansion. But let’s assume we do have our own private mansion.

  • Does it have a bathroom? Is one needed? If so, where does the waste go? And more importantly: Is there reading material?
  • Is there a kitchen? Do we need to eat? (If we have a kitchen, I guess we need a bathroom.)
  • Do we even need bedrooms in heaven? Do we sleep there?
  • What do we put in the closets?
  • What do we do in the mansion? If we don’t sleep, eat, or watch TV–why hang out there, rather than in God’s presence?
  • Does each individual have a mansion, or are mansions distributed on a family basis?
  • Will Pam and I share a mansion? What if I die and Pam remarries? Will both husbands occupy the mansion with her?
  • Is there a garage? A yard? Curtains on windows? Skylights?
  • Are there locks on the doors?
  • Does each person who dies in infancy get a mansion? (Or each unborn child, assuming life begins at conception?)

If heaven is one big mansion–God’s house–and we just have a room there, then you still have to wonder: why do we need a room?

Heaven will, of course, be totally different from anything we can imagine. Even different from what Jesus could imagine? Hmmm. Jesus knew he was divine, but I’m guessing he didn’t have “memories” of heaven. He grew up as a human, subject to all those limitations. I’m sure the reality of heaven was far more fathomable to Jesus than it is to me, yet still largely unfathomable, because he–Jesus the man–hadn’t been to heaven.

I realize I could be unwittingly committing all kinds of heresies and incredibly shoddy theology. So I’m a dufus.

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What Were They Thinking?

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Justice with a Sense of Humor

I love this.

At a cheerleader camp at the University of Texas, 26 cheerleaders, ages 14-17, decided to see how many girls could squeeze into an elevator. The number was 26–the number of cheerleaders, and the number of minutes they were stuck inside. The elevator descended from the fourth floor to the first, but the doors refused to open.

There was panic. One girl fainted, and two others received medical attention. A few cell phones wriggled free and they called for help.

An unsympathetic police spokeswoman, who was probably never a cheerleader, said, “They’re lucky that’s all that happened….There are signs everywhere: No more than 15 people or 3000 pounds.”

As a high schooler who was never part of the “in” crowd, certainly never on any cheerleader’s attention list–even at age 51, this story infests me with totally juvenile glee.

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Book: Death of a Hawker

Read “Death of a Hawker,” a Soho Crime novel by Janwillem van de Wetering. It’s set in Amsterdam. I like mysteries set in other countries, like those by Henning Mankell, Per Wahloo, Dan Fesperman, and Philip Kerr’s “Berlin Noir” series. But I didn’t like this one. Slow, ponderous, uninteresting characters, and totally anti-climactic.

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I Get Crushed in Dueling Accordions

Dad preached at Anchor today. He pastored the church from 1995-1998, leading the people to accept the idea of a restart, which occurred in October 1998 (so we’re coming up on our 10th anniversary). He and Mom have attended services at Anchor several times over the years, but this is the first time Dad has preached. Pastor Tim’s on vacation, having just completed (on Friday) his last class at Trinity toward his MDiv.

Mom and I played our accordions together, a duet of “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” Now, I hadn’t played my accordion in a couple years. Shame on me. But “Mansion” is easy. I can get disoriented in the black buttons, but with “Mansion” you only use three of them, and they sit next to each other. Mom and I practiced Saturday night, and it went great. Easy.

Not quite so easy this morning in church.

First, I put my arms through the accordion straps and lifted it onto my shoulders. But Patty, a few rows back, was pointing at something. Turns out the strap was caught around the front of the accordion. If I had started playing, the strap would have been holding several keys down, making a horrible sound. So I needed to remove the accordion and start over. I felt silly.

I had already undone the clasps holding the bellows together, so as I hoisted it up again, it was making noise. “What are you doing?” Mom asked.

Then the strap got caught again, and I had to undo it. Mom was all ready to go, but by this time, I was totally flustered.

As soon as I had the accordion situation, Mom started off. But I still needed to find where to put my fingers. I couldn’t locate the “C” black button, and, like a dork, had to bend the accordion out to physically look at it. Then my right hand wasn’t sure it was on the proper keys (it wasn’t). With an accordion, you can’t really see what you’re doing.

So while Mom was charging ahead, doing a marvelous job, I was fumbling around, hitting the wrong buttons and wrong keys in a two-handed train wreck, and forgetting to open and close the bellows. Can you spell “I feel stupid and highly conspicuous”?

Finally, Mom paused and said, “Do you want to start over?”

Indeed I did. This time I got my fingers in the right places, and it went fairly well. We had planned to play two verses. After one verse, Mom said, “Do you want to go again?” And I said yes. Finally, I actually played the song right.

The moral of the story is two-fold:

  • Don’t NOT do something for two years, and think you can ace it, you foolish prima dona.
  • Don’t put yourself in a situation where Mom can totally show you up.
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Book: The Post American World

ZakariaBook_100.jpgA book I can’t recommend highly enough is Fareed Zakaria’s The Post American World. I love big-picture books, ones which don’t focus just on what’s happening in the United States, but put the US in a global context.

With that title, your instinct as a nationalistic and maybe thin-skinned American is to think, “Oh, he’s knocking America, saying we’re a nation in decline.”

Zakaria, a Newsweek writer, answers that assumption in the first sentence: “This is a book not about the decline of America, but rather about the rise of everyone else.”

I hate to disappoint the doomsdayers who think the world’s going down the toilet, and that’s why the Second Coming will occur next Friday. But the reality is, the world is experiencing a time of unprecedented economic prosperity and of peace.

  • We see the prosperity most noticeably in China and India, where hundreds of millions of people are rising out of poverty. But you also see “the rise of the rest” in Brazil and other parts of South America, in Russia, in some of the Eastern European countries, in the Muslim countries (which are beginning to invest in infrastructure for their countries, instead of just Swiss bank accounts for Muslim princeling playboys), and in various other countries here and there (like Vietnam).
  • Wars, particularly wars among major countries, are becoming a thing of the past. The threat of terrorism remains on our minds, but in most of the world, peace reigns. Has the world ever been this peaceful?

Zakaria (an immigrant from India who is now a US citizen) says the United States will continue being the strongest economy and the only superpower for many years. But no longer will we call all the shots.

In the years ahead, global economics, not politics, will rule the day. Central planning, the centerpiece of communism, has been thoroughly discredited. Capitalism (with or without democracy) is now the way to organize a country’s economy.

It’s a wonderful, big-picture book. And he gives some great insights into why America has been so strong, and why it will remain so. I’ll be writing more about this book.

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