SOCIAL media, for all its shortcomings, is undoubtedly a useful way to observe the transient array of political trends that appear and disappear with such alarming regularity. One minute people are portraying Bashar al-Assad as a champion of freedom, the next they are fawning over Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump. And so it goes on, like a fussy eater who simply can’t quite decide whether he should order French fries or steamed potatoes. Not unless someone else can make the decision on his or her behalf, at least.
The latest fad circulating among those seeking a dietary ‘alternative’ to Western servitude is a glorification of Xi Jinping’s China and at the root of all shallow orientations of this kind lies a justifiable disillusionment with the realities of one’s own predicament and, disappointingly, a tendency to look abroad for statist ‘solutions’ to one’s more immediate problems. Even among nationalists, it seems, there is always a profound yearning to embrace the enticing values of the ‘other’ at the expense of personal integrity.
When you begin to examine the systems of China and the West, however, you discover that there are far more similarities than differences and it would be foolish to ignore the fact that it was the brutal murder and mayhem of Mao Tse-Tung’s regime which prepared the Orient for what, in effect, hastened the more contemporary ravages of industrial and technological servitude.
Imagine two adjacent mirrors and two separate viewers: one reflecting the shadow of power that can be seen lurking behind a European like the grasping claws of Nosferatu, the other presenting a similar form hovering over the shoulder of a Chinaman. What each sees on the surface of their respective mirrors is the threatening and discordant vision that embodies the daily reality in which each lives and breathes, whilst to switch one’s attention to the image in the foreground – that of the self – is to more readily identify the tragic human figure that squirms within the tyrannical grip of the monster itself.
To stare into the mirror of one’s neighbour with a more discerning and critical eye, on the other hand, is to recognise that there are two similar figures being stalked by one and the same beast. The important thing, therefore, is to identify with the persecuted and downtrodden, not to embrace the oppressor who projects his duplicitous allure from afar. Political puppets, court economists, pseudo-dissident media, anti-Western platitudes, slave-states and monolithic systems will not save you, they will merely drag you into their gravitational orbit and strengthen the chains that bind you. Which do you prefer, ‘Sheffield steel’ or ‘Made in China’?
