Black and White Cat

The 88s has great little post about why he doesn’t care about China’s problems anymore. Actually, he obviously does care, but not in the sense that he wants to save-China-from-itself. I think it sums up what Europeans have been doing for a very, very long time - and not just to the Chinese.

There’s an odd thing about the “I’m only telling you what to do because I really care” phenomenon. It almost always seems to be directed at non-white countries. As a British citizen, if I criticize the United States, it’s not because I care deeply about poor US citizens being oppressed by their ‘evil government.’ It’s because I don’t like certain things the US government (and it’s predecessors, with the help of my own government) has done, is doing and may well do in the future to other countries around the world. I think that’s a fairly widespread feeling.

Non-white countries, on the other hand, might sometimes be feared - eg. China, Iran, Bolivia, Venezuela - but they also have to be saved. I’m not really sure why we’re supposed to be afraid of Bolivia and Venezuela, but it seems that we are.

This seems to have always been the case. First, we had to kill them to save them - during the Crusades and the colonization of the Americas. Then we had to save them before we killed them - 18th and 19th century missionaries, though we did save some of them before we killed them in the Americas too. And we did a lot of both in Africa. Now we don’t seem to be able to make up our minds what we should do first. Bomb them or save them. Bombing and saving seem to mean pretty much the same thing. Either way, the overriding principle seems to be that the natives can’t do anything right. They need us to tell them how to do it.

Mao Zedong was among the many people over the centuries who noticed this phenomenon. There’s a quote of his from the Yan’an days that I particularly like. I’ve quoted it before during a certain heated debate in the comments at Chris O’Neil’s excellent blog Beijing Newspeak. But because I like like it so much, I’ll repeat it here:

We welcome these foreigners who come to help us. But the trouble with so many foreigners is that they soon want to dictate. They must remember that this is China, and that while their advice is eagerly received, we are the ones to decide if and how it will be used.

I should admit that I have been guilty of this kind of behavior. But that’s not something I’m proud of. It’s not something other people who think they have a God-given right to tell the rest of the world what to do should be proud of either.