"Religion: it is better to DIE in delusion than LIVE in REALITY" -- Anon
After Thousands of Years of Slavery the Chinese People Begin Removing their Shackles
by staff report via Kwang	- The Guardian UK Saturday, Mar 3 2012, 10:42pm
international / social/political / commentary
Napoleon once referred to China as the 'sleeping giant;' indeed Napoleon's observation has proven correct today as China emerges from thousands of years of oppression, poverty and social slavery to challenge America, an empire in rapid decline due to a political disease that once ravaged China – corrupt, minority rule!
For the sake of accuracy we should qualify Napoleon's observation today; China's "giant" status rests not with the Chinese Communist Party and its central autocratic (imperial) government but with the PEOPLE seeking JUSTICE, FREEDOM and REAL (as opposed to fake American) DEMOCRACY!
The Chinese people have become fiercely independent and nationalistic FIGHTERS over the past half-century and have been fighting pitch, hand-to-hand battles with the corrupt central authorities for decades, though news of these activities rarely makes the Western wires.
In a revolutionary first for China, the PEOPLE of a small Chinese village have WON the right to elect their own officials to office by holding open and transparent elections! The small village of Wukan may indeed be the first of many future expressions of REAL DEMOCRACY in China; freely elected REPRESENTATIVE LEADERS chosen by the people have been installed to office for the first time in living memory. And as we can appreciate that action is a MAJOR improvement on the charade that masquerades for democracy in two-party controlled America and other western nations!
True democracy is REPRESENTATIVE leadership NOT minority selected puppets paraded in carnival style campaigns and then installed to office after opaque, easily corrupted 'computerised elections.' The American people have recently learnt with puppet Obama taking office, that regardless of the many appealing pre-election promises made by running candidates during the elections, successful candidates immediately renege on promises and pledges and continue to serve corrupt, minority ruling elites.
It is a refreshing irony that true democracy is beginning to take hold in communist China while America rapidly descends into a despicable and horrid – INDEFINITE DETENTION -- totalitarian State. The deluded and duped slave populations of the west may have something to learn from the FIGHTING Chinese regarding electing INDEPENDENT REPRESENTATIVE LEADERS to office. A bitter-sweet irony for some!
Report from The Guardian follows:
Wukan holds elections after protests that cowed officialdom
Chinese villagers in Wukan who staged a rebellion against local officials they accused of stealing their farmland voted for new leaders on Saturday in a much-watched poll that reformers hope will set a standard for resolving similar widespread and protracted disputes.
The Wukan protests flared in late 2011, with villagers smashing a police station and cars. After key village activists were detained in December, villagers drove out officials and barricaded themselves in for 10 days, keeping police out and holding boisterous rallies. Villagers said the local head, in power for decades, sold their farmland to developers without their consent.
There are tens of thousands of protests in China each year – many of them over land as in Wukan, and often provoked by the actions of indifferent or corrupt local officials.
Similar standoffs in China often end in arrests, but in Wukan the provincial government conceded. It offered to hold the new elections, return some of the disputed farmland and release the detained activists, as well as the body of one who died in detention.
China has allowed village elections for nearly three decades but local Communist party leaders, who hold the real power, often try to manipulate the results. By those standards Wukan is conducting what seems to be one of China's most free polls.
Huang Jinqi was among the several thousand people in the small fishing village in southern Guangdong province to fill in a ballot for the seven-member village committee. The 63-year-old farmer said the process was going smoothly and he was satisfied with how it had been organised. "It is open and transparent," he said.
Li Lianjiang, an expert on China's local elections and protests at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: "Hopefully local authorities in other places of Guangdong and even other provinces will refer to Wukan as a precedent when they face similar situations."
The election is being hailed by more liberal Chinese state media and democratic campaigners as the "Wukan model", a systematic approach in which the government uncharacteristically puts the interests of locals ahead of its usual emphasis on maintaining order. Wang Yang, Guangdong's party secretary who has a reputation as a reformer, said Wukan showed that a balance could be struck between "preserving stability and preserving rights".
Many experts said it was far too soon to say if political leaders would summon the will to replicate Wukan's lessons elsewhere.
"Wukan so far is an exceptional case," said Li Fan, who runs a private thinktank in Beijing that has been involved in local government experiments. "In this case, no matter how well the Wukan village elections proceed the impact on the development of grass-roots democracy is very limited."
The fact that many of the activists in Wukan's revolt ran for membership in the village committee is a precedent. To defuse protests local governments often make concessions, then arrest ringleaders when tempers have subsided, a practice known as "settling accounts after the harvest".
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/03/wukan-villagers-elections-protests