I've been following the melamine scandal in China for some time now. See blogs below. Melamine is a white industrial chemical which is used to help harden cement, but which has been found as an adulterant in milk and milk products in China. Its use was exposed when thousands of Chinese infants fell sick from melamine-laced infant formula. I came across this interesting Time Magazine, China Blog (http://china.blogs.time.com/2009/01/05/milk-detentions-a-rash-move/) which reveals a new sidelight on that scandal---Chinese government detention of "milk protesters".
When the news leaked out that five Chinese citizens, who were parents of melamine-sickened children, planned to attend a news conference at which they were to demand better compensation for their children's suffering, Chinese-government operatives went into action. Before these five could attend, they were arrested and held over-night in a re-education center outside of Beijing. We assume the parents were "re-educated" and sent home the next day. Perhaps the Chinese government, which has been paying parents of afflicted offspring compensation which ranges from $29,000 for a deceased child, $5-7,000 dollars (depending on length of stay) for a hospitalized child, $4,300 for a child with serious case of kidney stones, and a few hundred dollars for less serious cases, felt they were paying enough. No doubt they were attempting to "nip in the bud" any further serious demonstrations and further embarrassing revelations. These parents felt deeply aggrieved. One parent who managed to attend the conference claimed that she has the "right" to speak for her children. Furthermore, she added something she must have heard outside of China: "We demand human rights". I suspect that kind of sentiment is not popular with the present Chinese administration.
The incident provides an insight into the rights that Chinese citizens have..or rather don't have, as well as the absolute power of their government. Perhaps as well, it also underscores one of the underlying causes of the scandal itself. If a nation's citizens cannot express themselves freely and without retribution, how can we expect them (even those few brave ones) to step forward and blow the whistle on evil-doers and infant-formula-adulterators? Keeping one's mouth shut and looking the other way is probably the safe course in China today. But that additude tends to encourage the very type of corruption that we see in the melamine scandal.
Perhaps there is something in this for us all to learn. For how many of us over the last eight (Bush-Cheney) years, have seen or heard things that needed an open airing, but because of timidity, fear, or because the sentiment may have been unpoular at that time, we too simply turned and looked the other way. Thankfully, we have no "milk detention or re-eduction centers" here...as yet. But as we learned during those Bush-years that under certain circumstances they may arise as a distinct possibility. Remember, if we don't use (and fight for) our freedoms..we can loose them," as someone once wisely said.
When the news leaked out that five Chinese citizens, who were parents of melamine-sickened children, planned to attend a news conference at which they were to demand better compensation for their children's suffering, Chinese-government operatives went into action. Before these five could attend, they were arrested and held over-night in a re-education center outside of Beijing. We assume the parents were "re-educated" and sent home the next day. Perhaps the Chinese government, which has been paying parents of afflicted offspring compensation which ranges from $29,000 for a deceased child, $5-7,000 dollars (depending on length of stay) for a hospitalized child, $4,300 for a child with serious case of kidney stones, and a few hundred dollars for less serious cases, felt they were paying enough. No doubt they were attempting to "nip in the bud" any further serious demonstrations and further embarrassing revelations. These parents felt deeply aggrieved. One parent who managed to attend the conference claimed that she has the "right" to speak for her children. Furthermore, she added something she must have heard outside of China: "We demand human rights". I suspect that kind of sentiment is not popular with the present Chinese administration.
The incident provides an insight into the rights that Chinese citizens have..or rather don't have, as well as the absolute power of their government. Perhaps as well, it also underscores one of the underlying causes of the scandal itself. If a nation's citizens cannot express themselves freely and without retribution, how can we expect them (even those few brave ones) to step forward and blow the whistle on evil-doers and infant-formula-adulterators? Keeping one's mouth shut and looking the other way is probably the safe course in China today. But that additude tends to encourage the very type of corruption that we see in the melamine scandal.
Perhaps there is something in this for us all to learn. For how many of us over the last eight (Bush-Cheney) years, have seen or heard things that needed an open airing, but because of timidity, fear, or because the sentiment may have been unpoular at that time, we too simply turned and looked the other way. Thankfully, we have no "milk detention or re-eduction centers" here...as yet. But as we learned during those Bush-years that under certain circumstances they may arise as a distinct possibility. Remember, if we don't use (and fight for) our freedoms..we can loose them," as someone once wisely said.
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