MCLC: Censorship and salesmanship at US book fair (2)

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Censorship and salesmanship at US book fair (2)
I could not agree more with AE Clarke's comments on the creativity/politics quotations at the end of this article. I also hope that the paraphrasing somehow misrepresented the point of these statements, for there are few things in life more painful to watch than the China "insider" attempting to explain away fundamentally inexplicable realities.
First of all, Woeser is not in prison, although she has indeed been punished for her writings on Tibet (loss of employment, house arrest). This trend shows no signs of abating.
Second, Abrahamsen, while referencing Woeser and Ilham Tohti, unfortunately neglects the racial element of censorship and politics--it is no coincidence that two of the names he mentioned as engaged in "political activities" focus their writings on ethnic issues, the third rail in Chinese society today. When writing about these issues that are not to be discussed in any way that even slightly diverges from official narratives (see Ilham Tohti and his life sentence), the arbitrary line between creativity and "politics" becomes extremely thin, and is unfortunately determined solely by those in power.
Third, one can certainly debate the value of poems by Liu Xiaobo or his partner Liu Xia. However, it strikes me as poor taste to casually dismiss someone's poetry while they are serving a 12 year term for speech crimes.
There is no clear line between politics and creative writing (See also the case of Murong Xuecun mentioned in the article). As a result, the pressures of self-censorship often work even better than active censorship itself. The last thing that people who have overcome the pressure to self-censor need, then, is another attempt to explain their persecution and exclusion.
Kevin Carrico <kjc83 at cornell.edu>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on June 13, 2015
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