He was responding to a question about the cancellation of his exhibition by the Lisson Gallery in London in November following comments on social media referencing the Israel-Hamas conflict.
His post, which was subsequently deleted, suggested the “sense of guilt around the persecution of the Jewish people” had been transferred and used against the Arab world.
Referring to his own family’s exile when he was one year old, the activist said: "I grew up within this heavy political censorship.
“I realise now, today in the West, you are doing exactly the same.”
He drew parallels with the disastrous purge under Mao, which took China to the brink of anarchy.
Criticising the suspension of two New York University professors for comments related to Gaza, Ai said: "This is really like a cultural revolution, which is really trying to destroy anybody who have different attitudes, not even a clear opinion.
Ai’s art often addresses political issues in China and he has frequently criticised Beijing’s record on human rights and democracy.
Except he’s allowed to say that…
Have you read the constitution of the PRC before?
Why? Does that change what Mao did?
Well first wonderful moving the goal posts, as the reason I bring up the PRC constitution is because “Article 35 Citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall enjoy freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, procession and demonstration.” so they have the same right to speech that you do in the United States with the same garentee, If you want to tell me its only as good as the paper its written on, I will ask the same thing about the US.
Second, what did Mao do, kick the Facists off the mainland? Kill landlords (who had it comeing, even ask the founder of capitalism), create a nation that would be the largest force for lifting people out of poverty? Please elaberate your crimes that the goal post has now moved to … given it is not just freedom of speech any more
The claim was “censorship in West exactly the same as Mao’s China.”
You’re saying Mao wasn’t so bad? Then I guess there’s no complaint to be made here.
I am saying that the West is significantly worse, that being said, I am also not going to say the PRC is perfect… just sigificantly better than the west. I was only bringing up the fact that when you mentioned “In the west you can critisize your own government” the same right applies in the PRC… Heck the PRC has more political parties than here in the US.
The same right did not apply to China under Mao.
The PRC constitution was ratified in 1982.
Mao died in 1976.
Do you think maybe the rights guaranteed in a document ratified in 1982 might be different to the rights before that document was ratified?
No, you don’t. You’re just muddying the waters. Probably intentionally.
They did update it after Mao died, yes but the freedom of speech was listed in the origial.
I do think that the PRC is better than the west, and it does infact have more political parties. however my responce was to your claim that their you can critisize the government in the west but not in China, a patently false claim.
I do not know what you are talking about mudying the waters I assure you it is not intenrional, however it was not me who has moved the goal posts … geez 4 times now?
Please demonstrate this to be true.
I would like to see the constitution that guaranteed free speech during the Cultural Revolution.
Do show how it squared with Wu Han dying in prison because he wrote a play.
Also, it is a lie that I moved the goalposts. I have not once strayed from saying that the claim that ‘censorship in the West is exactly the same as Mao’s China’ is false.
But you moved the goal post? The first one to bring up the modern prc in this chain of comments was you. The goal post was Mao before hand.
I’m not here to engage in an argument, only to point out that this:
Is fucking idiotic. You’re trying to argue that if one country has a constitution that it ignores but uses as a front for people like you to point at and say ‘china’s great and has free speech’ it invalidates every other country’s (or maybe you’re just arguing against the US constitutional right to free speech?) constitution because it’s also written in paper. Absolutely idiotic.
The US does not follow their own bill of rights worth shit, and do you mind showing me where the PRC violates their own constitution please?
If everything in a constitution must be how it is in real life, does that also cover the US constitution?
Well, the US constitution does explicitly allow slavery - and the Us prison-industrial complex certainly does apply that in real life.
I think we were talking about positive stuff. It’s probably easier for people to accept that the bad stuff is real
I am allowing 2 arguments one where we assume both are followed and one where we assume nither are followed, you may pick your path, I have found usualy americans defult to the US constitution being mostly followed but any forgin “evil” country not even looking at theirs
The US constitution is more-or-less followed; courts largely try to interpret intent and meaning–or originalism, depending on the judge in question, and it’s mostly followed, eventually. On the other hand, despite what the Chinese constitution says about the right to free speech, assembly, etc., it’s quite clear that there is official state censorship regarding certain subjects, and peaceful assembly in support of, say, democracy will result in people being run down by tanks. In the US, you can accuse a sitting president of sexual assault, and actually file a civil suit against the president, and end up winning a few hundred million for defamation. On the other hand, if you are an international tennis star in China, and you accuse a party official of sexual assault, you will likely disappear for several months before emerging for very limited public appearances to apologize before “retiring” from tennis. If you aren’t famous, odds are pretty good that you just don’t reappear.
You can argue that peaceful demonstrations in the US are also subjected to police repression–see also BLM–and I’d agree. On the other hand, I would say the number of people killed by state actors in the US at demonstrations usually numbers between zero and the low single digits, while the death toll at Tianmen square alone is believed to have been tens of thousands. The Kent State massacre was likely the largest number of peaceful protesters killed by police in the last 75 years or so in the US.
I’m not American
Ok? I usualy get the “pleasure” of arguing with americans … usualy in real life" so are we going with constitutions are words on paper or infaliable documents?
I mean obviously they’re not real life
With that Established I posit, that the Quality of life is SIgnificantly better, in the Peoples Republic of China
Can you explain what that argument has to do with the topic?
…which was then reported on by Western media and he wasn’t thrown into a prison camp.
So again, he’s allowed to say that.
West has to look more democratic than China to keep the show mean “democracy” going so of course we allow more than China, but news is still being censored and journalists are being silenced in the West as well
propaganda machines got you thinking otherwise
has to be two teams each on “opposing sides” to get the citizens rallied in the right camp and thinking
As I told OP, this is not a contest. You can criticize the West without saying it is exactly the same as Mao’s China. It is not. Because if it was, you would never have heard Ai WeiWei say so. They would have been put in a “re-education” camp long ago. And even if they somehow were able to get that message out, not a single news outlet would report on it.
In this case, News Corp is reporting on it. In other words, an outlet owned by Rupert Murdoch is making the claim that you can’t get away with having the freedom to say what you want in the West.
If that were true, Rupert Murdoch wouldn’t still be going strong at 92 with a vast media empire that is able to get away with lying constantly in order to be critical of the governments of the countries his news outlets are in, he would be dead.
Hah! We’ll just pretend to respect his rights by respecting his rights! He’ll never suspect it!
Ah yes cancelling artists livelihoods and censoring them is entirely different.
We’re lucky America doesn’t run any torture camps where they lock up people without trial.
Oh what’s that they do?
Which one has he been put in because of what he said? Please name the facility.
I debunked your entire point with evidence and you’re pivoting.
Address this line:
My entire point is that he is able to say what he wants to say without being thrown into one of those camps.
Thus it is not exactly the same.
You seem to have a strange idea in your head that it is impossible to criticize America (he said the West as a whole, by the way) without comparing it to one of history’s worst dictatorships.
Believe it or not, it’s not a contest. You can criticize both and still admit one was worse.
Either that, or you know nothing about 20th century Chinese history.
Ah the enlightened take where censorship only applies if people get thrown in jail.
Nevermind them being deplatformed and their livelihood being taken away
Again- this is not a contest.
Let me ask you this- if censorship in the west was EXACTLY THE SAME as in Mao’s China, how were you able to post this on Lemmy?
Also- why is Rupert Murdoch still alive and publishing what Ai Weiwei has to say?
Which you are free to criticize and expose.
Yes we agree it’s wrong, but that doesn’t make the comparison to a totalitarian system right.
I find it very interesting that OP seems to believe that the West and America are the same things.
I think Norway would be interested to find out they weren’t in the West. Not to mention Canada.
I’ve had multiple run-ins with OP before.
Obviously OP has plenty of nasty views (eg. thinks ‘’‘Zionists’‘’ control all western media), but is also incredibly ill informed (like thinking Sudan used to be a French colony) and almost certainly functionally illiterate(posts links to articles which say the exact opposite of what OP thinks they do). Also almost certainly upvotes their own comments with alts.
The reason I think this, is because in the past, OP has mistakenly quoted something someone else has said as a reply to my comment, then failed entirely to grasp that they’re replying to a different comment even when I’ve said as much. These nonsensical comments still got upvotes, which makes no sense even if people are very partisan.
The only reason I don’t think they’re a useful idiot, is because they’re so ill informed and obnoxious, that if anything they’re actually hurting the people they thinks they’re supporting. Then again, maybe I’m harsh and they’re just some dumb kid.
I really should block them, because honestly arguing with them feels a bit unfair, even if it is funny. Also the whole arguing with pigeons and getting shit in your hair thing.
Well they don’t seem to know what ‘exactly the same’ means, so functionally illiterate is a good guess.
To be fair to a large extend it is with regard to international affairs. We have many agreements with USA, that are very much dominated by USA.
Norway is in NATO, which is clearly a US dominated organisation, because they constitute more than half the defense capability of NATO.
In much the same way, USA is dominating in the west, because it’s the biggest economy and has the biggest military to enforce their policies, which is largely accepted by allies.
Trump is trying to destroy this entirely, to benefit Putin and China, I think we need to accept our international cooperation with USA, and hope it lasts a while longer.
PS: I’m from Denmark.
Yeah, but they’re talking about things like anti-BDS laws and the way the U.S. treats prisoners. I’m pretty sure Denmark doesn’t have anti-BDS laws and I know Denmark treats its prisoners much better than either the U.S. or China.
Basically, all of their criticisms are U.S.-centric.
By the way, they are now claiming that Denmark also has censorship levels at the same level as Mao’s.
Yes obviously, since Denmark is one of the top democracies in the world, with the highest level of free speech, it’s just as bad as a totalitarian regime. 😜 🤪 What an idiot. 🤡
MFW someone says you can expose and criticize them
…by him.
Only to repeat it again on tv. While crying that he isn’t allowed to say what he was just allowed to say.
😱😱😱
TFW free speech
I have no idea what that means, but I assume, since you posted the article, that you agree with the person whose message got out in the Western media and who was not thrown into a “re-education camp” that censorship is just the same as what Mao did. Because his tweet got deleted. Correct?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
He leaked intelligence and fled the country to avoid detention.
Ah, I didn’t recognize him from the photo.
So no reason for OP to have posted his picture since Weiwei didn’t leak any intelligence.
“Man who fled country after commiting crimes to expose other crimes is a good example about how you can’t criticize governments” is a blistering hot take, and one I’m not surprised the OP is making, considering how ignorant they are in other replies.
Yes the independent artists and journalist Snowden, who couldn’t display his art exhibition because of government censorship. That’s a perfectly reasonable comparison. /s
Oh wait… He wasn’t an artist or journalist or even independent, he was a government contractor, who had signed not to reveal what he was working with.
Yes it sucks that whistleblowers that reveal things that are relevant, often become victims. But we are at least free to discuss what he revealed, and air our opinion and even protest and vote against politicians and policies that defend the system when it’s doing wrong.
So far, OP has claimed that censorship in the west, as a whole, is exactly the same as Mao’s China because of Richard Snowden, U.S. jails, anti-BDS policies and “deplatforming.”
Weirdly, OP has not been put in a re-education camp for saying such things.
I had no idea Mao was so lenient.
He was a really nice guy, who just needed to kill a few people now and then. 😜
Landlords unironicly deserve it
so do facists