Chinese Nobel Prize-Winner Says We Need Censorship Like We Need Airport Security

from the super-silly-or-super-subtle? dept

This year's winner of the Nobel prize in literature, the Chinese writer Mo Yan, was a controversial choice. Some saw him as too close to the Chinese establishment, and thus insufficiently heroic -- unlike the previous Chinese Nobel prize-winner, the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo.

While Mo was in Stockholm to pick up his prize, he gave a press conference where, inevitably, he was asked about this:
In addressing the sensitive issue of censorship in China, Mo likened it to the thorough security procedures he was subjected to as he traveled to Stockholm.

"When I was taking my flight, going through the customs ... they also wanted to check me even taking off my belt and shoes," he said. "But I think these checks are necessary."
Some will see this as confirming his supine attitude to state censorship. But maybe it's just an extremely subtle attack on airport security...

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Filed Under: censorship, china, free speech, mo yan, security


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  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 3:02am

    Na

    we need censorship because like breathing

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    steve white, 14 Dec 2012 @ 3:24am

    because Liu Xiaobo support of the Iraq war was heroic

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 3:55am

    Looks like he's never been to any American airports.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 3:56am

    Not knowing what Mo Yan writes about it would be difficult to discern his statement, knowing the political ideologies of the Nobel committee(statist/socialist) you can get somewhat of a clue as to what he represents.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 3:59am

    Dear Leader received a Noble for just getting elected, then went on to star chamber Americans, so I see the award as meaningless.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 4:13am

    No, I think he meant it. Talk to almost any Chinese living there for most of his life, and he will probably tell you the same thing. These are people who all their life have been told that things such are censorship are a "good" thing to "protect" the "unity of the society" and against all sorts of "bad stuff".

    This is what's so sad about states that censor or do mass surveillance on their people. After about 2 decades or so of doing it, the new generations are born with it, and the whole society will start believing that they are good things, and never were bad things.

    And this is the danger that is running in US right now, too. A whole generation growing with things like TSA, Patriot Act, and warrantless spying, and thinking those things have always existed and it's a necessary thing that the government needs to do to keep them safe.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 14 Dec 2012 @ 5:03am

    We need censorship in the same way we need utterly redundant organisations like BPI/FACT/RIAA/MPAA

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    DUMBASS POLITICIANS, 14 Dec 2012 @ 5:28am

    150 year copyright

    is totally censorship

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 5:38am

    Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquis of Iria Flavia (famous Francoist and informer against the republicans) was awarded the prize in 1989.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Dennis Lane, 14 Dec 2012 @ 5:39am

    Camilo José Cela y Trulock, 1st Marquis of Iria Flavia (famous Francoist and informer against the republicans) was awarded the prize in 1989.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lord Binky, 14 Dec 2012 @ 6:06am

    Come on....

    Really?! Not ONE Stockholm Syndrome joke.... I'm not even going to humor you with one then.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 6:41am

      Re: Come on....

      But, please? You have such a captive audience right now. We'd love you forever if you did one!

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 7:39am

      Re: Come on....

      Well, in China, do as the Swedes do.

      Wait, no, that's not right.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 14 Dec 2012 @ 6:14am

    You know, when I read the headline, I assumed it was the guy knocking both censorship AND airport security. Turns out he's just insane.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Richard (profile), 14 Dec 2012 @ 6:50am

    We need censorship like...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Spaceman Spiff (profile), 14 Dec 2012 @ 7:02am

    Tongue in cheek?

    Really smart Chinese have to be extremely clever to get messages regarding personal freedoms out into the wild without getting in serious trouble with the authorities back home, who tend to be very literal. Personally, I think this was such a message, or at least I'd like it to be... :-)

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Gregg, 14 Dec 2012 @ 7:30am

    Hidden message. He knows he can not publicly come out and say anything against censorship or he might disappear in the night or even his family might.

    Censorship is one of the biggest evils of the human race. I'm not talking about censorship for children or when you tell a white lie to not be rude, I mean Government and Religions!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Quinn Wilde, 14 Dec 2012 @ 8:02am

    The important part is clear

    Whether he believes that these things are necessary or not is in some ways less important than the equivalence he has, rightly, drawn.

    After all, few of us are extremists. Most of us believe that some security is necessary at the expense of some convenience, for example. It is scalar, even if the spectrum on techdirt is likely to be at the more liberal side.

    However, almost all of us put less emphasis on the undesireable elements of own culture than we put on the undesirable elements of other cultures.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    vastrightwing, 14 Dec 2012 @ 8:56am

    I agree

    I agree with the statement. My argument is we don't need airport security because it's too expensive and the benefit is not worth the price. Censorship is also unnecessary.
    Yes, I'd love to go back in time to the 70s when you could walk up to the gate, buy a ticket and hop on the plane minutes before departure time. I argue that we're no safer today than we were then.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 15 Dec 2012 @ 4:29am

    I'd be afraid to make more concrete statements if I were him too. He'd probably get thrown in a Chinese prison as soon as he got back home.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Kelsey, 15 Dec 2012 @ 11:46pm

    Stupid

    So if we all agreed with the Chinese ideologically we would have virtually no intellectual freedoms is what we should pull out of this article.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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