The BBS crackdown in China's colleges has been discussed in blogsphere these days. In precise words, it is not crackdown, but restriction for the outsiders to visit. But it meant "crackdown" to many graduates who has always visited the school's bbs after their graduation. One of my friends who has just set up a blog in SMTH(Shuimu Tsinghua) said that it is lucky that she had saved all her blogs just before the close of SMTH. But another friend, who was not that lucky, has lost all her data in the BBS of Nanjing University after she was forbidden to visit it from outside.
"All my hard work done with heart and blood has gone". She said.
I don't know what to say when one professor asked me why the government did that yesterday.
Is there a reason? Or no reason at all? I could understand why such things happened, in some extent. It is not the first time, or the second. But what I couldn't understand is that if the economic growth could keep up without free thoughts and speeches. If our leaders think the two conflict with each other, then why not close down the whole Internet?
I am a benifitor of the campus BBS. I visit and experience the campus feelings even after I left the campus. To the students, it is a free forum to exchange ideas with the people inside and outside the campus. I remember the hot discussion once happened in the "Goabroad" board of SMTH, when a former student of Tsinghua University visited and told about his current experience in U.S.
"If there is no SMTH, I will not stand here". said one of my classmates, who had studied in both U.K and Hong Kong. She didn't study in SMTH, but owe a lot to the BBS.
I am not a politician, so I am not in a right position to speak about the policy. But I always believe the freeflow of information is a requistee for a country, just as the freeflow of capital and the free market.
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I knew that BBC program, which was held in Shanghai lately. Most academics are arguing if the democratic system in U.S. would apply to PRC. As a Chinese, I wonder the answer, too. In some extent, I trust what leaders do, but I don't understand sometimes, such as the crackdown of BBS and that BBC program. Someone said that the audience were arranged with many people from the bureau.
I appreciate your words. I do believe even U.S. has its own problem withe democratics and free market. I think the most important thing for a government is to make the people live well and feel comfortable, either in democratic way or not. I may be too extreme:)
The lucky thing is that even if George W Bush is a bad president, he will only be around for six years at the most. Also democracy means having to explain why you do things most of the time (like why you shut down BBSes.)
Whereas in China's case, the group of people that are at the top aren't responsible to anyone in the same way.
When it comes to the BBS crackdown, can't you set up a BBS for alumni to use too? In the end probably everyone who uses the normal university BBS will want to use it as well, because it's more useful to have alumni writing there as well.
(By the way, most of the 'democratic' world probably wouldn't agree that the US political system is a very good example of a democratic system, and would probably say that their election system is better, although they would never choose the Chinese system over the US one.)
hehe, your point is quite similar with the one from former primi Minister Winston Churchill. Good boy.
"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time."
Let's wish the visionary born ASAP:)
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