Chinese Scripted “Tibetan” Attack on Wheelchair-Bound Woman?
A wheelchair-bound Chinese woman defending the Olympic torch against a Tibetan protester has become a heroine in China:
It was a moment so perfect that it could have been scripted by Beijing’s propaganda masters. A beautiful young Chinese woman, bravely ignoring her physical handicap, is shielding the Olympic flame with her body to protect it against Western attackers.
The incident, captured on video, has galvanized China’s masses and created a new national hero. A star has been born, and she is 27-year-old Jin Jing of Shanghai, an amputee in a wheelchair who was carrying the Olympic torch in Paris this week when she was confronted by protesters who wrestled for the torch.
The one-legged Paralympic fencing champion, whose picture has been splashed across front pages in China, has become an iconic image of everything the Chinese want to believe about the innocence of their country and the dastardliness of the West.
All week she has been mobbed by fans and glorified in the Chinese media, who dubbed her the “smiling angel in a wheelchair” and “saviour of the national honour.”
That opening sentence is interesting: a “a moment so perfect that it could have been scripted by Beijing’s propaganda masters.”
Because Sachi and Dafydd at Big Lizards have documentary evidence suggesting that it was. (Or, at the very least, that the attacker was pro-Chinese.)
Also the photo of the Chinese soldiers with the apparent Monk Robes raises other issues of an even more violent connection.
Manhandling someone in a potentially staged torch event is not the same as perhaps doing violence under the guise of being a monk.
SlimGuy (ea6549) — 4/13/2008 @ 11:05 amNK raised a good point in his comment there: that the photo may well be simply individuals both pro-Tibetan and pro-Chinese making their way to the torch route by the only way available.
Also, the picture of the soldiers is actually from a movie production of several years ago, and has no real connection to what’s going on now in any way.
But I think all of us agree the Chinese could well be capable of orchestrating the violence for their own purposes. I suggest the Scottish verdict of Not Proven is the best alternative available to us at the moment.
kishnevi (db1823) — 4/13/2008 @ 11:45 amCould be all kind of disinformation floating around here but this video points out among other things faults with the troops being part of a movie extras situation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ET0NweFoc
SlimGuy (ea6549) — 4/13/2008 @ 12:32 pmjust how many one-legged swordswomen do you have to beat in order to become a paralympic fencing champion, anyway? any chance of a money bout between her and paul mccartney’s ex?
assistant devil's advocate (581f3a) — 4/13/2008 @ 12:44 pmWithin the circle of her sword, she is as whole as anybody.
nk (6b7d4f) — 4/13/2008 @ 3:06 pmOnly until her (whole) opponent attacks with an object longer than the radius of that circle…
No need to fetishize about the abilities of the disabled.
Socrates Abroad (3eec01) — 4/14/2008 @ 7:41 amFetishize? Naah! Romanticize, maybe. My fetish is much more complex than that (comment #154).
nk (6b7d4f) — 4/14/2008 @ 10:31 am