Nation of Slaves

Rather distasteful news from China, that they’re now taking a leaf out of the Soviet book and bunging dissidents in the nuthouse. As usual the logic is impeccable, as I heard from a spokesman on the telly (thanks to the Iron Buddha I now have Chinese official television as a sort of 24-hour streaming media, a high price to pay for my occasional access to Sky Sports); “these people who are always protesting are obvious political maniacs – their political views are completely out of line with reality”. Well, yes. Complete domination of the Party is the reality – if you can’t accept that you must be stark staring bonkers.

And of course they all accept that – at least 99.9% of them do. Chinese apologists claim that the dissidents are only a minute fraction of the population, and this is perfectly true. The vast majority have the mentality of slaves, trembling at the frown of their employers when not kow-towing to the government. Chinese industrial relations are pre-Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Which is fair enough, I suppose, if that’s what they want. But we don’t want them bringing that attitude over here. My good lady has been chambermaiding in a hotel recently, to fill in while she gets her business set up. As the newest member of the team she of course got landed with all the shitwork, mainly cleaning the bogs with a strong chemical which gave her a persistent headache. (What price elf ‘n’ safety?) The supervisor being on holiday, she had no recourse and the senior woman on the team refused to budge. Finally having reached the stage where she had to get things changed or give up the job, she appealed to the general manager. After this she fielded a 45-minute panic phone call from a Chinese colleague in the hotel; the latter was utterly terrified that the IB’s complaint would somehow reflect on her, put her in bad with management or other colleagues, just because she was a fellow-Chinese and had recommended the IB for the job in the first place. So she is now either having to withdraw her complaint to pacify her friend, or just give up the job. And the IB still hasn’t been paid for two days work she did in Blackburn three months ago, and is showing no inclination to demand it. I shall have to go down there myself with my boots blacked.

I am reluctantly coming to the conclusion, after 20 years of fairly enjoyable involvement with them, that the Chinese won’t do. They just don’t understand the first thing about living in a free country, and so probably shouldn’t be here, at least not if they’re going to undermine 200 years of workers’ struggle.