Identity is not about what meets the eye
If you don't look like us or act like us, you can never be like us. Just in case you didn't get why I don't like the current OWK's management. More on that later.
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| (Image: The New York Times) |
Missed my deadline. Blame Covid -19. Running late for this year's post on International Day for the Abolation of Slavery - Modern Day Slavery for short. That was on December 02. Yes, my blogging calendar is full, but don't worry, I'll never miss this one entry. It's the single, most important day for all that have crossed over to the Dark Side. BDSM, femdom, it's up to us to accept or renounce. We're free to say yes or no. And no, our preferences are not generally accepted, but in the greater scheme of things, who dares complaining?
Me buying a one euro USB cord, made in Sweatshopistan is no different. I'd gladly buy a more expensive one, but marketing is based on the fact that all lies and pretensions are equally evil. Discrimination and modern day slavery is everywhere. Despite that, minorities suffer more than most. From a young age we are taught to look down upon others. Perhaps it's because they're poor. Or maybe they look different, the colour of their skin gives them away. As for those who worship another god, that's outright blasphemy. Welcome to 2020. Prejudice is a major reason I'm terribly cross with the OWK. If you love women, you love them all. If your feelings are a bit stronger - replace love with worship - what's your excuse? Tell me?
This year's post on modern day slavery is just as sad as any other year. And equally important. Back to 1997. Britain hands over Hong Kong to China under the slogan, one country, two systems. Nothing lasts forever. Obvious things even shorter. Everybody knows that sooner, rather than later, Hong Kong will turn into just another part of the People's Republic. Fast forward to 2019 and brave students take the streets to fight for freedom by protesting draconian extradition laws designed to do the opposite. The local government is unable to suppress the uprising and Beijing steps in. A brutal tale of repression follows.
At the same time, in the Middle Kingdom's most Western province, Uighurs - a predominantly Muslim minority - are being persecuted. An estimated million Uighurs have been detained in "re-education camps". That's government speak for concentration camp. Outside China it is widely accepted these these camps also run a programme of forced sterilisation against Uighur women. It feels similar to the policy China has implemented in nearby Tibet.
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| An image based on satellite images
depicts construction between 2014 and 2020 at a high-security detention
facility in Karakax, a county in the Chinese region of Xinjiang. (Image: The New York Times) |
Meanwhile in the land of the free, Disney has finally run out of ideas and companies to buy, so it turns to the classics, meaning remakes of their biggest hits. The difference is that the second time around, they're live action movies.
In 1998, the Mighty Mouse Company releases Mulan, an animated movie based on the legend of Hua Mulan. The film's plot takes place in China during the Han dynasty, some 200 years before Christ was born. Fa Mulan, daughter of aged warrior Fa Zhou, impersonates a man to take her father's place during a general conscription to counter a Hun invasion.
Disney gives it a second try in 2020. OK, shooting starts the year before, but who cares? September 2020, and Mulan with real people [and even more realistic special effects] is released to Disney-Plus. After all, 2020 Is the year of Covid-19, in case you forgot. About a week later lead actress Liu Yifei (刘亦菲) confesses her love for the Hong Kong police and how they beat up unarmed protestors, dreaming of a better future. Words are easy when you also hold an American passport.
"Technically thrilling, but also a long [and boring] ride" is how most critics describe the rehash. Parents, in full lock down, including one or more toddlers, refer to Mulan 2.0 as bland and certainly not worth the 30 dollars pay per view demands. "For 30 dollars I at least expect to keep my kids silent for two hours!"
Today's post is about modern day slavery. No doubt unintended, but a major side-effect of the outrage following the comments of Mulan's Liu Yifei (刘亦菲), is a world paying increased attention to the mass incarceration of Uighurs in China. Parts of it are shot in Xinjiang, that Western province full of re-education camps for unwanted minorities. Perhaps that unwelcome attention is why several weeks later a number of media report on how Liu Yifei might get banned by the Chinese Government. Why? Because the actress, reportedly, used her connections to hire a scriptwriter. Don't worry, the brave pro-China woman also carries an American passport.
Not that it changes anything for the Uighur people locked up in China's concentration camps Meanwhile, if you happen to visit Beijing after the pandemic, ask the locals about the future. Most likely they'll tell you how in the old days they'd like to think of North Korea as their past. Now they see it as their future. No joke.
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Notes:
[1] Fan BingBing, China's biggest female movie star went missing for several weeks in 2019. There was no explanation given when she reappeared, but the official line whispered something about tax evasion.
[2] Jack Ma is the founder of Alibaba, the Chinese online equivalent of Amazon. Last month, in November 2020, The Wall Street Journal reported that Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping personally scuttled Jack Ma’s Ant Group IPO. An IPO is registering your company on the stock market for the first time. It's a big event.
[3] Guess, different country, different rules. Still, if you hold both a Chinese and a US passport, why suck up to the Chinese government? You already said goodbye. It makes the backlash for Liu Yifei all the more apropriate - if such a thing exists at all. Meanwhile, there are millions of voices, screaming on top of their longs, but no-one hears them. It's the Uighur Chinese locked up in concentration camps, where many of the women being sterilized by force. [4]
[4] Born on the wrong team. Bad luck or bad people?
December 02 is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. As a reminder for us kinky people about the ugly truth of real world slavery, once a year I write about modern day slavery.
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