Culture, Not Government Imposition, Primarily Influences Behavior
By Darcy A. Kern (08/31/07)
As Beijing beings it countdown to the 2008 Olympics, the central government is doing what it can to change the world's perception of China and its social policies. There are limits, however, to what propaganda and coercion can change. Earlier this month, new reports revealed the depravity of the Communist Party to those already unaware. For over forty years China has maintained a one-child-per-couple policy. There are a few exceptions to the rule – namely, for those in rural areas whose first child is a daughter and for ethnic minorities. To ensure compliance with the law among the general population, women are forced to abort their children or pay heavy fines for any child born after the first. Many also undergo coerced sterilization. One can scarcely comprehend the emotional and physical suffering of many Chinese women.
Because of the blatant human rights violations that occur in China under this draconian policy and the criticism the Government has received for not rescinding it, the Party is attempting to normalize it. Gone are the old slogans, such as “One more baby means one more tomb,” “Raise fewer babies but more piggies,” and “Houses toppled, cows confiscated, if abortion demand rejected.” In their place is the much happier “The mother earth is too tired to sustain more children.” Another new slogan, “Both boys and girls are parents’ hearts,” is intended to correct the growing gender imbalance in the country, which in some areas now is said to be 130 baby boys for every 100 baby girls.
There are so many things wrong with these statements that one hardly knows where to begin criticizing them. Should one begin with the comparison between human children and farm animals that eat slop and wallow in the mud (with the latter favored) or with the equation of a new human life to the immediate finality of death or with the acknowledgement of the punishments given to those who choose not to abort their children? And what of choice, that most inviolable of human rights according to the tenets of left-wing feminism in America, whose adherents do nothing to help Chinese women choose life?
In addition to the one-child propaganda makeover, the Government has launched a campaign to “civilize” the residents of Beijing by eradicating their bad habits. These bad habits include public spitting, littering, swearing, and cutting in front of others in line. To reach their “civilized” goals, Party officials have banned male taxi drivers from shaving their heads, cleared many beggars from Beijing’s streets, initiated a “queuing day” each month to encourage people to wait in orderly lines, taught university students the proper way to chant at soccer games, and fined people for spitting in public.
These goals may be laudable, but a problem for the Chinese Government is that it has tried such re-education campaigns before and each time the campaigns have failed. The success of this attempt is likewise in doubt for several reasons. First, it is impossible for any government fundamentally to alter nature. In spite of the propaganda disparaging human life, many women will always want children and child-bearing itself is necessary for human survival. Eventually China will face the consequences of its one-child policy and denial of human nature, and those consequences are likely to be numerous and harsh.
The Government’s campaigns and communism in general also grossly underestimate human behavior. It certainly is possible for a centrally planned government to change people’s behavior temporarily. But to do so permanently for an entire gigantic country requires much more than edicts issued from Beijing. It requires a change of attitudes and of cultural values, and no government, no matter how powerful, can accomplish such a Herculean task. But the Communist Party refuses to support the fundamental building blocks of society that could affect such change—the family and religion, especially Christianity. Until it values civic institutions such as these, primarily the former, much of Beijing’s propaganda will be useless. One can appreciate these facts without visiting China, the more so after visiting China.
Culture, not governments and government propaganda, primarily influences behavior.
Darcy A. Kern is a Policy Analyst for the Free Congress Foundation
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