At the beginning of the Olympics, I posted “Olympics Special: Forced Abortion in China”, intending that it should be the start of a two-week series on institutionalised violence against women and girls in China.
That series didn’t eventuate. In my defence, I claim a heavy bout of sinusitis that came on soon after the Olympics started, combined with a mini-blogsplosion (our hits peaked near quadruple the usual amount soon after my Olympics uniforms post, and have stayed pretty high for most of the time, with the ensuing increase in discussions).
For that lapse, I apologise. The question now is: should the awareness push finish now that the trigger event is over?
Cripes, no! We’re spending more and more each year with China and their record is neatly tucked away by both their government and ours. If it weren’t for the economic strength of the relationship, I’m sure that countries like the UK and the US would be on their high horses telling the Chinese to stop.
Strangely, they’re not!
I’d say that of course it should.
Caras last blog post..More ICE Detention Atrocities
Human rights are systemically violated in and by a whole bunch of countries – I can’t help thinking it would be the height of hypocrisy for the USA to pompously call for other countries to cease their violations, as if they’re lily-white, while they’re still getting up to all the crap they’re getting up to. Particularly around healthcare access and reproductive choice, as well as privacy and freedom of expression.
That shouldn’t decrease our calling-out of Chinese violations, of course, but I just want to make it clear that I’m not picking and choosing here. (That should be abundantly clear to anyone who’s read this blog for more than five minutes!) And at the same time, I also criticise our media for jumping so assiduously on the Blame-China bandwagon while pointedly ignoring violations within our borders and by our allies.
Complicated issues. But ok – I’ll put it on my “to do” list. I have a bad history with completing blog serieses in general, though, so bear that in mind.
True that there are human rights violations everywhere, but nothing wrong with having a focus.
I’d have to say that I’m interested, though if you’ve lost steam on it, that’s okay. The thing is that China is going to be talked about for a long while after this, and it might be good to have in the dialogue.
I don’t think it’s too late to still be discussing China, the Olympics may be over but their are still human rights abuses going on inside the country.
Let’s not turn a blind eye like so many other people will be doing now the spotlight has moved on.