Clash of cultures, religious tribes, brands create tribes, every corporation is many tribes. Tribal inequality of wealth risks global instability, protest movements and new terrorist groups. Tribes give music, language, poetry, literature, teams, friends, neighbourhood, family, teams, communities and nations. Most businesses are tribes of tribes. Niche markets and tribalism. Tribal leadership -- leading thousands of people, motivation, inspired workers, higher productivity, people movements. Clients and customer segmentation. Political tribes, campaigns and protest groups, activists. Conference keynote speaker and Futurist Dr Patrick Dixon
Future of your Business, Family and Wider World by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist Speaker, Keynotes on Growth Strategies and Leadership, Lecture Slides, Articles and Videos from Conferences - 15 million unique visitors to MAIN Futurist site (articles / keynotes / videos) - link on right to www.globalchange.com
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
Showing posts with label protests. Show all posts
April 11, 2008
Tribalism in education -- radical force for future
Every class and school is a tribe. Power of tribalism in future world. Need for students to understand tribalism as force in family, community, nation, culture, brands, identity, belonging. Every group creates own tribes. Religion as tribal force. Future of traibalism. Clash of cultures. Christianity and Islam. Understanding other people's culture and tribes. Links of tribes to protest movements, activists and terrorist groups. Video on future of education, high schools, colleges, universities, curriculum, trends, syllabus, exams, assessments, business schools, MBAs, degree courses - by Dr Patrick Dixon, Futurist conference keynote speaker for NAIS.
April 20, 2006
Human nature - better than we sometimes think?
Comment on the power indviduals have to create damage and chaos - yet how few do so... how most people are responsible, law abiding citizens who respect those around them:
Yes you are right about the asymmetry of antisocial acts in terms of effort for impact - and this has always been a problem for society eg the tiny effort needed to commit arson, or to daub graffiti on walls, or to deliberately drive a car into a bus queue. Yet the strange thing is how rarely these acts happen, and how powerful is the social pressure on people to "behave" in a way that respects community.
The same with theft. It amazes me how few people carrying laptops in their bags, or using them on tube trains, are mugged for what is a very valuable item....
The vast majority of people in every country most of the time act in ways that enhance community.
Most people give time to community causes they believe in, and so on...
Yes the problems of society are huge and growing and the answers are complex, but the innate creativity of human beings and their passion for change should also not be underestimated.
It is indeed the reason why suicide bombers blow themselves up, in a
(misguided) ultruistic belief that the world will be a better place as a result of their "self sacrifice".
The other noteworthy thing is how resilient society is to major shocks.
Take London in the second world war when one in 4 of all homes were rendered unusable because of random rocket attacks. The result? Life went on. That's why we know that a few suicide bombers in London, even if more arrive, cannot possibly alter daily life in a major way. Actually we have lived with terrorism (IRA) in the UK for several decades.
You see the same in war-torn regions of Africa... in the midst of instability and troubles, daily existence for most people usually continues relatively unchanged (compared to what some might imagine).
Yes you are right about the asymmetry of antisocial acts in terms of effort for impact - and this has always been a problem for society eg the tiny effort needed to commit arson, or to daub graffiti on walls, or to deliberately drive a car into a bus queue. Yet the strange thing is how rarely these acts happen, and how powerful is the social pressure on people to "behave" in a way that respects community.
The same with theft. It amazes me how few people carrying laptops in their bags, or using them on tube trains, are mugged for what is a very valuable item....
The vast majority of people in every country most of the time act in ways that enhance community.
Most people give time to community causes they believe in, and so on...
Yes the problems of society are huge and growing and the answers are complex, but the innate creativity of human beings and their passion for change should also not be underestimated.
It is indeed the reason why suicide bombers blow themselves up, in a
(misguided) ultruistic belief that the world will be a better place as a result of their "self sacrifice".
The other noteworthy thing is how resilient society is to major shocks.
Take London in the second world war when one in 4 of all homes were rendered unusable because of random rocket attacks. The result? Life went on. That's why we know that a few suicide bombers in London, even if more arrive, cannot possibly alter daily life in a major way. Actually we have lived with terrorism (IRA) in the UK for several decades.
You see the same in war-torn regions of Africa... in the midst of instability and troubles, daily existence for most people usually continues relatively unchanged (compared to what some might imagine).
December 11, 2005
Villagers blamed for fatal clash in China - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune
News of security forces firing on villagers in China - reported widely. International Herald Tribune reports today from Chinese sources that there have been amaybe round 70,000 protests in China over the last year (but remember there are 1.2 billion people - so the equivalent in the UK would be around 3,000 incidents, still a significant number but nothing like as dramatic). Almost all these protests were resolved peacefully, but in this case things appear to have got out of hand with differing accounts of what happened. Villagers fired off explosive devices - fireworks - which perhaps were mistaken for more serious weaponry. But having said that, firework rockets set off in the direction of armed forces must be considered to be a highly provocative act.
News report from International Herald Tribune is below:
Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.
According to these accounts, three bodies were taken to a local clinic after the showdown between the protesters and security forces, and another to a hospital in Shanwei, a city about 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, to the north of Dongzhou, which has jurisdiction over the village.
In telephone interviews with villagers on Saturday and Sunday, witnesses spoke repeatedly of an additional seven or eight bodies seen by a roadside near the scene of the violence. Others accounts, given by numerous villagers, spoke of 13 or so bodies floating in the sea after the security forces used automatic weapons on the protesters. The villagers said they had set off fireworks and exploded blasting caps from a distance of more than 90 paces from the massed police and paramilitary forces. Villagers also repeatedly spoke of injured people being approached by security forces and fatally shot at close range.
"There were seven or eight bodies, killed by the spray of gunfire, that fell into a ditch," said one villager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The next day, going up along the ditch deep into the grass bushes, villagers found up to 10 bodies. Those inside the ditch were taken away and cremated immediately. I saw it while hiding in the grass bush on the mountain. Immediately I felt like crying, it was such a cruel scene."
The villager's account dovetails with that of several other villagers who spoke of bodies by the roadside near a village crossroads. Others spoke of the effort by soldiers to dispose of corpses, keeping villagers at a distance while they burned some of them, and loading others into a minibus, which some villagers said, then took the bodies to a local crematorium for disposal.
Dongzhou residents also said that at least 40 villagers are still unaccounted for, and it is not known whether the missing were killed, arrested or remain in hiding.
If accurate, these accounts suggest a frenzied effort by authorities to maintain an official death toll of about three people, thereby minimizing the importance of the event, which constitutes the greatest known use of force by the Chinese security forces against ordinary citizens since the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, in 1989.
Villagers said that with security agents still circulating in large numbers, and going from door to door to interrogate residents, some families that had recovered the corpses of their relatives had buried them hastily, and in secret, to avoid their confiscation.
Others said that the police had offered money to those who would surrender their corpses, as well as money for casing from ammunition recovered from the scene. Villagers said that some people had sold their casings, while others had kept them as evidence of the use of force.
The effort to manage public information about the incident was also apparent on Saturday in Shanwei, where villagers said some of the wounded and dead were taken by the police.
At one hospital, visited by a foreign journalist after 11 p.m., people said injured residents from Dongzhou were being cared for in isolation on a third floor ward. On the third floor, a wing of the hospital was fenced off and guarded by the police.
On Saturday night, roads out of Shanwei for a distance of more than 160 kilometers had police checkpoints that taxi drivers said had been created to search for "fugitives" from Dongzhou.
On Sunday, villagers contacted by telephone claimed that people who visited their hospitalized relatives in Shanwei had been detained.
The deadly confrontation Tuesday was the culmination of months of tension over the construction of a coal-fired power plant at Dongzhou. Villagers said they had not been adequately compensated for the use of their land ? less than $3 per family, according to one account - and feared pollution from the plant would destroy their livelihood as fishermen. The construction plans called for a bay beside the village to be reclaimed with landfill.
"Shanwei's deputy party secretary said that he
wanted to trample Dongzhou into a flat land," said a village resident who gave her name as Jiang.
On Saturday, even as they continued their search of the village and questioning of residents, the authorities said they had no choice but to open fire.
"I'm a good friend of Dongzhou people," one party official said by megaphone as he toured the village. "Nobody wants to see anything like what happened here on the night of Dec. 6, but the people of this village are too barbaric. We were forced to open fire."
From the start, villagers have disputed accounts that said they had attacked the authorities first with explosives.
"We didn't use explosives, because we were too far away," said one villager, a 16-year-old boy who was in the midst of the crowd when the violence erupted. "Someone may have tried, but there's no way we could have reached them. These were homemade weapons, and when they started shooting, we didn't have a chance."
SHENZHEN, China Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.
According to these accounts, three bodies were taken to a local clinic after the showdown between the protesters and security forces, and another to a hospital in Shanwei, a city about 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, to the north of Dongzhou, which has jurisdiction over the village.
In telephone interviews with villagers on Saturday and Sunday, witnesses spoke repeatedly of an additional seven or eight bodies seen by a roadside near the scene of the violence. Others accounts, given by numerous villagers, spoke of 13 or so bodies floating in the sea after the security forces used automatic weapons on the protesters. The villagers said they had set off fireworks and exploded blasting caps from a distance of more than 90 paces from the massed police and paramilitary forces. Villagers also repeatedly spoke of injured people being approached by security forces and fatally shot at close range.
"There were seven or eight bodies, killed by the spray of gunfire, that fell into a ditch," said one villager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The next day, going up along the ditch deep into the grass bushes, villagers found up to 10 bodies. Those inside the ditch were taken away and cremated immediately. I saw it while hiding in the grass bush on the mountain. Immediately I felt like crying, it was such a cruel scene."
The villager's account dovetails with that of several other villagers who spoke of bodies by the roadside near a village crossroads. Others spoke of the effort by soldiers to dispose of corpses, keeping villagers at a distance while they burned some of them, and loading others into a minibus, which some villagers said, then took the bodies to a local crematorium for disposal.
Dongzhou residents also said that at least 40 villagers are still unaccounted for, and it is not known whether the missing were killed, arrested or remain in hiding.
If accurate, these accounts suggest a frenzied effort by authorities to maintain an official death toll of about three people, thereby minimizing the importance of the event, which constitutes the greatest known use of force by the Chinese security forces against ordinary citizens since the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, in 1989.
Villagers said that with security agents still circulating in large numbers, and going from door to door to interrogate residents, some families that had recovered the corpses of their relatives had buried them hastily, and in secret, to avoid their confiscation.
Others said that the police had offered money to those who would surrender their corpses, as well as money for casing from ammunition recovered from the scene. Villagers said that some people had sold their casings, while others had kept them as evidence of the use of force.
The effort to manage public information about the incident was also apparent on Saturday in Shanwei, where villagers said some of the wounded and dead were taken by the police.
At one hospital, visited by a foreign journalist after 11 p.m., people said injured residents from Dongzhou were being cared for in isolation on a third floor ward. On the third floor, a wing of the hospital was fenced off and guarded by the police.
On Saturday night, roads out of Shanwei for a distance of more than 160 kilometers had police checkpoints that taxi drivers said had been created to search for "fugitives" from Dongzhou.
On Sunday, villagers contacted by telephone claimed that people who visited their hospitalized relatives in Shanwei had been detained.
The deadly confrontation Tuesday was the culmination of months of tension over the construction of a coal-fired power plant at Dongzhou. Villagers said they had not been adequately compensated for the use of their land ? less than $3 per family, according to one account - and feared pollution from the plant would destroy their livelihood as fishermen. The construction plans called for a bay beside the village to be reclaimed with landfill.
"Shanwei's deputy party secretary said that he
wanted to trample Dongzhou into a flat land," said a village resident who gave her name as Jiang.
On Saturday, even as they continued their search of the village and questioning of residents, the authorities said they had no choice but to open fire.
"I'm a good friend of Dongzhou people," one party official said by megaphone as he toured the village. "Nobody wants to see anything like what happened here on the night of Dec. 6, but the people of this village are too barbaric. We were forced to open fire."
From the start, villagers have disputed accounts that said they had attacked the authorities first with explosives.
"We didn't use explosives, because we were too far away," said one villager, a 16-year-old boy who was in the midst of the crowd when the violence erupted. "Someone may have tried, but there's no way we could have reached them. These were homemade weapons, and when they started shooting, we didn't have a chance."
SHENZHEN, China Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant
News report from International Herald Tribune is below:
Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.
According to these accounts, three bodies were taken to a local clinic after the showdown between the protesters and security forces, and another to a hospital in Shanwei, a city about 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, to the north of Dongzhou, which has jurisdiction over the village.
In telephone interviews with villagers on Saturday and Sunday, witnesses spoke repeatedly of an additional seven or eight bodies seen by a roadside near the scene of the violence. Others accounts, given by numerous villagers, spoke of 13 or so bodies floating in the sea after the security forces used automatic weapons on the protesters. The villagers said they had set off fireworks and exploded blasting caps from a distance of more than 90 paces from the massed police and paramilitary forces. Villagers also repeatedly spoke of injured people being approached by security forces and fatally shot at close range.
"There were seven or eight bodies, killed by the spray of gunfire, that fell into a ditch," said one villager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The next day, going up along the ditch deep into the grass bushes, villagers found up to 10 bodies. Those inside the ditch were taken away and cremated immediately. I saw it while hiding in the grass bush on the mountain. Immediately I felt like crying, it was such a cruel scene."
The villager's account dovetails with that of several other villagers who spoke of bodies by the roadside near a village crossroads. Others spoke of the effort by soldiers to dispose of corpses, keeping villagers at a distance while they burned some of them, and loading others into a minibus, which some villagers said, then took the bodies to a local crematorium for disposal.
Dongzhou residents also said that at least 40 villagers are still unaccounted for, and it is not known whether the missing were killed, arrested or remain in hiding.
If accurate, these accounts suggest a frenzied effort by authorities to maintain an official death toll of about three people, thereby minimizing the importance of the event, which constitutes the greatest known use of force by the Chinese security forces against ordinary citizens since the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, in 1989.
Villagers said that with security agents still circulating in large numbers, and going from door to door to interrogate residents, some families that had recovered the corpses of their relatives had buried them hastily, and in secret, to avoid their confiscation.
Others said that the police had offered money to those who would surrender their corpses, as well as money for casing from ammunition recovered from the scene. Villagers said that some people had sold their casings, while others had kept them as evidence of the use of force.
The effort to manage public information about the incident was also apparent on Saturday in Shanwei, where villagers said some of the wounded and dead were taken by the police.
At one hospital, visited by a foreign journalist after 11 p.m., people said injured residents from Dongzhou were being cared for in isolation on a third floor ward. On the third floor, a wing of the hospital was fenced off and guarded by the police.
On Saturday night, roads out of Shanwei for a distance of more than 160 kilometers had police checkpoints that taxi drivers said had been created to search for "fugitives" from Dongzhou.
On Sunday, villagers contacted by telephone claimed that people who visited their hospitalized relatives in Shanwei had been detained.
The deadly confrontation Tuesday was the culmination of months of tension over the construction of a coal-fired power plant at Dongzhou. Villagers said they had not been adequately compensated for the use of their land ? less than $3 per family, according to one account - and feared pollution from the plant would destroy their livelihood as fishermen. The construction plans called for a bay beside the village to be reclaimed with landfill.
"Shanwei's deputy party secretary said that he
wanted to trample Dongzhou into a flat land," said a village resident who gave her name as Jiang.
On Saturday, even as they continued their search of the village and questioning of residents, the authorities said they had no choice but to open fire.
"I'm a good friend of Dongzhou people," one party official said by megaphone as he toured the village. "Nobody wants to see anything like what happened here on the night of Dec. 6, but the people of this village are too barbaric. We were forced to open fire."
From the start, villagers have disputed accounts that said they had attacked the authorities first with explosives.
"We didn't use explosives, because we were too far away," said one villager, a 16-year-old boy who was in the midst of the crowd when the violence erupted. "Someone may have tried, but there's no way we could have reached them. These were homemade weapons, and when they started shooting, we didn't have a chance."
SHENZHEN, China Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant accounts of the villagers, dozens of whom have been interviewed since Friday.
According to these accounts, three bodies were taken to a local clinic after the showdown between the protesters and security forces, and another to a hospital in Shanwei, a city about 25 kilometers, or 15 miles, to the north of Dongzhou, which has jurisdiction over the village.
In telephone interviews with villagers on Saturday and Sunday, witnesses spoke repeatedly of an additional seven or eight bodies seen by a roadside near the scene of the violence. Others accounts, given by numerous villagers, spoke of 13 or so bodies floating in the sea after the security forces used automatic weapons on the protesters. The villagers said they had set off fireworks and exploded blasting caps from a distance of more than 90 paces from the massed police and paramilitary forces. Villagers also repeatedly spoke of injured people being approached by security forces and fatally shot at close range.
"There were seven or eight bodies, killed by the spray of gunfire, that fell into a ditch," said one villager, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The next day, going up along the ditch deep into the grass bushes, villagers found up to 10 bodies. Those inside the ditch were taken away and cremated immediately. I saw it while hiding in the grass bush on the mountain. Immediately I felt like crying, it was such a cruel scene."
The villager's account dovetails with that of several other villagers who spoke of bodies by the roadside near a village crossroads. Others spoke of the effort by soldiers to dispose of corpses, keeping villagers at a distance while they burned some of them, and loading others into a minibus, which some villagers said, then took the bodies to a local crematorium for disposal.
Dongzhou residents also said that at least 40 villagers are still unaccounted for, and it is not known whether the missing were killed, arrested or remain in hiding.
If accurate, these accounts suggest a frenzied effort by authorities to maintain an official death toll of about three people, thereby minimizing the importance of the event, which constitutes the greatest known use of force by the Chinese security forces against ordinary citizens since the Tiananmen massacre in Beijing, in 1989.
Villagers said that with security agents still circulating in large numbers, and going from door to door to interrogate residents, some families that had recovered the corpses of their relatives had buried them hastily, and in secret, to avoid their confiscation.
Others said that the police had offered money to those who would surrender their corpses, as well as money for casing from ammunition recovered from the scene. Villagers said that some people had sold their casings, while others had kept them as evidence of the use of force.
The effort to manage public information about the incident was also apparent on Saturday in Shanwei, where villagers said some of the wounded and dead were taken by the police.
At one hospital, visited by a foreign journalist after 11 p.m., people said injured residents from Dongzhou were being cared for in isolation on a third floor ward. On the third floor, a wing of the hospital was fenced off and guarded by the police.
On Saturday night, roads out of Shanwei for a distance of more than 160 kilometers had police checkpoints that taxi drivers said had been created to search for "fugitives" from Dongzhou.
On Sunday, villagers contacted by telephone claimed that people who visited their hospitalized relatives in Shanwei had been detained.
The deadly confrontation Tuesday was the culmination of months of tension over the construction of a coal-fired power plant at Dongzhou. Villagers said they had not been adequately compensated for the use of their land ? less than $3 per family, according to one account - and feared pollution from the plant would destroy their livelihood as fishermen. The construction plans called for a bay beside the village to be reclaimed with landfill.
"Shanwei's deputy party secretary said that he
wanted to trample Dongzhou into a flat land," said a village resident who gave her name as Jiang.
On Saturday, even as they continued their search of the village and questioning of residents, the authorities said they had no choice but to open fire.
"I'm a good friend of Dongzhou people," one party official said by megaphone as he toured the village. "Nobody wants to see anything like what happened here on the night of Dec. 6, but the people of this village are too barbaric. We were forced to open fire."
From the start, villagers have disputed accounts that said they had attacked the authorities first with explosives.
"We didn't use explosives, because we were too far away," said one villager, a 16-year-old boy who was in the midst of the crowd when the violence erupted. "Someone may have tried, but there's no way we could have reached them. These were homemade weapons, and when they started shooting, we didn't have a chance."
SHENZHEN, China Five days after a fatal assault by security forces put down a demonstration in a village near Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities began Sunday to consolidate an official version of the events, blaming villagers for the violence, but also punishing at least one local commander.
The delayed response by the Chinese government appeared, at least in part, to be part of a carefully measured public relations effort intended to defuse public outrage over the deaths of 20 or more residents of the hamlet, according to villagers' accounts, as well as upholding Beijing's own vision of public order and the "rule of law."
In the first widely circulated account the incident, which occurred in the village of Dongzhou, in southern Guangdong Province, the Xinhua press agency Web site cited the information office of the nearby city of Shanwei, saying that a "chaotic mob" had begun throwing explosives at the police Tuesday night, forcing the police to "open fire in alarm." The report said that three villagers were killed and eight others were injured.
The Chinese news reports said that 170 villagers, led by a few instigators, attacked a local wind power plant as part of their protest against another planned development there, a coal-fired power plant, using knives, blasting caps and Molotov cocktails.
On Sunday, as detailed accounts of the incident given by villagers were being reported in the foreign news media and commented upon in Chinese-language Web sites, the authorities announced the arrest of a local commander who was in charge during the incident. Without naming him, they said he had mishandled the situation under "extremely urgent circumstances."
The Xinhua report did not make clear whether there had been one or more arrests of officers in charge. Villagers interviewed Sunday said they had been told of two arrests.
The official account of the incident, as well as the death toll being reported in the mainland Chinese media, remain at odds with largely concordant
November 26, 2005
Another chemical explosion in China -
An explosion at a chemical plant in southwest China killed one worker and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes, Agence France-Presse reported.
The explosion happened yesterday at Yingte chemical plant at a town near Chongqing, AFP said. A female worker died and more than 10,000 residents were evacuated.
An initial explosion went off near barrels of benzene, sparking a second one which created a yellow cloud. Officials ordered people to stop using water from taps and started gathering water and air samples.
A previous explosion on November 13th at a chemical plant in the northeast of the country spilled nitrobenzene into the Songhua River, leading to reports of contamination of the drinking water of Harbin, a city of 3 million.
These kinds of accidents are to be expected in a vast country, growing rapidly, populated by millions on low incomes who are struggling to survive economically, and for whom short cuts may bring promise of higher productivity and wages.
Accidents can happen in any country and any industry and it is easy for smaller nations to point the finger, when the main reason they have fewer accidents is the relative size of their industries - together witht the fact that they have had the benefit of relative wealth for some decades.
It is hard for the government when accidents happen because the lines of authority may be long, information may not always be available and when announcements are made, they may not always be believed by citizens who suspect local officials are playing down the situation. The result can be rumour and panic.
One way to deal with this problem would be to allow greater freedom in the media to investigate and criticise. A free media might be more trusted at such times - for example over whether local drinking water is safe. However, freedom in the media may bring other challenges, making it easier for organised protest movements to develop, perhaps leading to destabilisation. These are the dilemmas facing government leaders as they seek to lead the country along the delicate path of rapid growth, job creation, digital revolution, internet access and mobile telephone on the one hand, and secure, stable party rule on the other.
The explosion happened yesterday at Yingte chemical plant at a town near Chongqing, AFP said. A female worker died and more than 10,000 residents were evacuated.
An initial explosion went off near barrels of benzene, sparking a second one which created a yellow cloud. Officials ordered people to stop using water from taps and started gathering water and air samples.
A previous explosion on November 13th at a chemical plant in the northeast of the country spilled nitrobenzene into the Songhua River, leading to reports of contamination of the drinking water of Harbin, a city of 3 million.
These kinds of accidents are to be expected in a vast country, growing rapidly, populated by millions on low incomes who are struggling to survive economically, and for whom short cuts may bring promise of higher productivity and wages.
Accidents can happen in any country and any industry and it is easy for smaller nations to point the finger, when the main reason they have fewer accidents is the relative size of their industries - together witht the fact that they have had the benefit of relative wealth for some decades.
It is hard for the government when accidents happen because the lines of authority may be long, information may not always be available and when announcements are made, they may not always be believed by citizens who suspect local officials are playing down the situation. The result can be rumour and panic.
One way to deal with this problem would be to allow greater freedom in the media to investigate and criticise. A free media might be more trusted at such times - for example over whether local drinking water is safe. However, freedom in the media may bring other challenges, making it easier for organised protest movements to develop, perhaps leading to destabilisation. These are the dilemmas facing government leaders as they seek to lead the country along the delicate path of rapid growth, job creation, digital revolution, internet access and mobile telephone on the one hand, and secure, stable party rule on the other.
April 15, 2005
Outsourcing impact on business, jobs and the economy
Outsourcing impact on business, jobs and the economy
The truth about the speed, scale and unstoppable momentum of outsourcing. What will be the net impact on the American and European economies? How should company executives and union leaders respond? Can or should the process be reversed? Advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?
Outsourcing is very controversial and affects every part of business from manufacturing through to design, software development, financial control, logistics management, customer support and sales. Outsourcing has been praised as cost-effective, efficient, productive and strategic - but also condemned as evil, money-grabbing, destructive, ruthless, exploiting the poor.
Outsourcing can generate weeks of hostile media coverage, widespread protests and industrial action. The issue is so sensitive that decisions are usually taken behind closed doors at the most senior levels in the organisation, and only announced after much careful research into how the proposals are likely to be received.
If handled badly, outsourcing can damage corporate image, weaken a brand, unsettle customers, and result in lower quality of products and services. But when handled well, the results can be good enough to save a failing corporation.
You have to show why outsourcing is right
(extract from Building a Better Business - book - take the online $20,000 Challenge - relevant to outsourcing, change management, leadership, marketing and motivation)
If you want to save money fast and take everyone with you, you have to convince those involved that the world will be a better place as a result. Take the high moral ground.
A good example of this has been tensions over relocating call-centres and software support from countries like the UK and the US to India . More than 230,000 jobs are bring lost each year in America as a result of outsourcing - but many economists believe that a similar number of new jobs are being created at the same time (see below).
Union members have protested that jobs are being destroyed in an immoral way, not only because communities are hit back home, but also because they argue the new jobs created in other countries pay very little and exploit the poor. They have often driven vigorous campaigns at work and in the media, designed to block the process.
This has happened because many of the corporations concerned have failed to tell a good news story in a convincing way, to explain why outsourcing will result in a better future in a broad sense � not just for shareholders.
So what is the good news story? First you have to tell the bad news, and prepare the ground for how you are going to save the day. Corporations may differ, but when it comes to outsourcing to a developing country, the �better world� promise is nearly always identical.
BAD NEWS
We need to take urgent action to reduce costs
If we don't run our business efficiently, everyone could lose their jobs
People who have entrusted their life-savings to us (mainly pensioners), will also lose their money
Customers will feel exploited by our high prices, and will go elsewhere
GOOD NEWS
We can easily save costs, save the company, save most people's jobs, keep prices down and offer great service � by relocating some jobs to other, less expensive parts of the world
Highly skilled people are available in some of the poorest nations
Their daily costs of living are lower, and we can pay them less while still enabling them to enjoy a good standard of living � see table
People in these countries really do need our support and investment
Every job we create in these countries can create many others as new money flows into the national economy, and is spent on local goods and services
By investing in these countries, we are also helping them develop into new markets for our own business, which is good for everyone
We are also doing our part to help tackle the greatest moral challenge of our time, which is the growing gap between richest and poorest nations, helping build international peace, prosperity and security for a better future
And so the message continues: In summary, if we continue as we are, the result will be disaster for everyone � customers, workers and the community. If we outsource, the future will be better for all, apart from a few who we deeply regret will lose their jobs for the sake of those who remain. We are deeply indebted to them for the contribution they have made and are committed to their future. We will do all we can to help them find employment elsewhere.
It matters how outsourcing is done
It is harder to argue for outsourcing if the corporation is making record profits, is not facing significant competitor pressures, and is making people redundant against their will.
On the other hand, few labor organisations consistently oppose outsourcing if the corporation is vulnerable, competitor pressures are severe, other companies have already led the way, and if existing workers are being offered voluntary redundancy on reasonably generous terms as well as retraining. And of course, people also want to see assurances that new workers in emerging countries will get an appropriate, fair wage and safe working conditions.
Facts about Outsourcing
Some say that it is wrogn to pay people in India less than the same job would justify in somewhere like the US. However we need to compare not just salaries, but what those salary levels will actually buy in different countries. An IT professional in India may be far better off in terms of lifestyle, even though paid only a third of the US salary. It all depends on exchange rates. The pressures will continue to grow, not just for cost saving, but also for quality, service and speed.
* India produces more than 870,000 new IT graduates a year and produces more than a million engineering graduates a year, plus 16 million others with engineering diplomas. India is leading the way in new areas of pharmaceuticals, biotech, electrical and mechanical engineering. China also.
* One in 5 UK workers at risk from outsourcing have difficulties reading and writing. The UK struggles to turn out just 8,000 IT graduates a year.
* Most outsourcing is by large companies, yet small comopanies provide most jobs in America and Europe, and most of the economic growth. Big companies create headlines but the greatest impact is elsewhere and almost invisible. The UK has 3.3 million companies. If each one takes on just one more person on average, the result would be more than 3 million new jobs, and that is what has happened in the last few years, with unemployment at very low levels despite several million people added to the labour force. Yet 6,000 redundancies at a factory is mistakenly seen as a national crisis.
* Each outsourced job in India can generate work for more than 20 other people as the money flows around the national economy, usually at a far faster rate than in countries like the US.
* When a product is manufactured in China instead of the US or Europe, only a small part of the total retail price lands up in that country. Most is taken as before by the retailer, wholesaler, distribution system, research, design and development teams and company owners as profit. So the impact is less than you might expect.
* Research shows that some of the new economic activity generated in developing countries by oursourcing will generate new demand for goods and services in the country where the jobs have moved from (eg America).
* Outsourcing saves money for corporations which means lower costs for consumers, and higher dividends for pensioners who own 75% of US and UK wealth - that means more money to spend on other things such as local services (meals out, beauty treatments, gardening, decorating etc) and that produces new jobs.
* Outsourcing has meant for example that you can buy a DVD player for less than $100. It is one reason why retail costs of products has halved in many sectors over the last 20 years, allowing for inflation.
* Future economic growth depends on new generations of creative, dynamic entrepreneurs, with good access to venture capital, who will drive national economies through transition.
The truth about the speed, scale and unstoppable momentum of outsourcing. What will be the net impact on the American and European economies? How should company executives and union leaders respond? Can or should the process be reversed? Advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing?
Outsourcing is very controversial and affects every part of business from manufacturing through to design, software development, financial control, logistics management, customer support and sales. Outsourcing has been praised as cost-effective, efficient, productive and strategic - but also condemned as evil, money-grabbing, destructive, ruthless, exploiting the poor.
Outsourcing can generate weeks of hostile media coverage, widespread protests and industrial action. The issue is so sensitive that decisions are usually taken behind closed doors at the most senior levels in the organisation, and only announced after much careful research into how the proposals are likely to be received.
If handled badly, outsourcing can damage corporate image, weaken a brand, unsettle customers, and result in lower quality of products and services. But when handled well, the results can be good enough to save a failing corporation.
You have to show why outsourcing is right
(extract from Building a Better Business - book - take the online $20,000 Challenge - relevant to outsourcing, change management, leadership, marketing and motivation)
If you want to save money fast and take everyone with you, you have to convince those involved that the world will be a better place as a result. Take the high moral ground.
A good example of this has been tensions over relocating call-centres and software support from countries like the UK and the US to India . More than 230,000 jobs are bring lost each year in America as a result of outsourcing - but many economists believe that a similar number of new jobs are being created at the same time (see below).
Union members have protested that jobs are being destroyed in an immoral way, not only because communities are hit back home, but also because they argue the new jobs created in other countries pay very little and exploit the poor. They have often driven vigorous campaigns at work and in the media, designed to block the process.
This has happened because many of the corporations concerned have failed to tell a good news story in a convincing way, to explain why outsourcing will result in a better future in a broad sense � not just for shareholders.
So what is the good news story? First you have to tell the bad news, and prepare the ground for how you are going to save the day. Corporations may differ, but when it comes to outsourcing to a developing country, the �better world� promise is nearly always identical.
BAD NEWS
We need to take urgent action to reduce costs
If we don't run our business efficiently, everyone could lose their jobs
People who have entrusted their life-savings to us (mainly pensioners), will also lose their money
Customers will feel exploited by our high prices, and will go elsewhere
GOOD NEWS
We can easily save costs, save the company, save most people's jobs, keep prices down and offer great service � by relocating some jobs to other, less expensive parts of the world
Highly skilled people are available in some of the poorest nations
Their daily costs of living are lower, and we can pay them less while still enabling them to enjoy a good standard of living � see table
People in these countries really do need our support and investment
Every job we create in these countries can create many others as new money flows into the national economy, and is spent on local goods and services
By investing in these countries, we are also helping them develop into new markets for our own business, which is good for everyone
We are also doing our part to help tackle the greatest moral challenge of our time, which is the growing gap between richest and poorest nations, helping build international peace, prosperity and security for a better future
And so the message continues: In summary, if we continue as we are, the result will be disaster for everyone � customers, workers and the community. If we outsource, the future will be better for all, apart from a few who we deeply regret will lose their jobs for the sake of those who remain. We are deeply indebted to them for the contribution they have made and are committed to their future. We will do all we can to help them find employment elsewhere.
It matters how outsourcing is done
It is harder to argue for outsourcing if the corporation is making record profits, is not facing significant competitor pressures, and is making people redundant against their will.
On the other hand, few labor organisations consistently oppose outsourcing if the corporation is vulnerable, competitor pressures are severe, other companies have already led the way, and if existing workers are being offered voluntary redundancy on reasonably generous terms as well as retraining. And of course, people also want to see assurances that new workers in emerging countries will get an appropriate, fair wage and safe working conditions.
Facts about Outsourcing
Some say that it is wrogn to pay people in India less than the same job would justify in somewhere like the US. However we need to compare not just salaries, but what those salary levels will actually buy in different countries. An IT professional in India may be far better off in terms of lifestyle, even though paid only a third of the US salary. It all depends on exchange rates. The pressures will continue to grow, not just for cost saving, but also for quality, service and speed.
* India produces more than 870,000 new IT graduates a year and produces more than a million engineering graduates a year, plus 16 million others with engineering diplomas. India is leading the way in new areas of pharmaceuticals, biotech, electrical and mechanical engineering. China also.
* One in 5 UK workers at risk from outsourcing have difficulties reading and writing. The UK struggles to turn out just 8,000 IT graduates a year.
* Most outsourcing is by large companies, yet small comopanies provide most jobs in America and Europe, and most of the economic growth. Big companies create headlines but the greatest impact is elsewhere and almost invisible. The UK has 3.3 million companies. If each one takes on just one more person on average, the result would be more than 3 million new jobs, and that is what has happened in the last few years, with unemployment at very low levels despite several million people added to the labour force. Yet 6,000 redundancies at a factory is mistakenly seen as a national crisis.
* Each outsourced job in India can generate work for more than 20 other people as the money flows around the national economy, usually at a far faster rate than in countries like the US.
* When a product is manufactured in China instead of the US or Europe, only a small part of the total retail price lands up in that country. Most is taken as before by the retailer, wholesaler, distribution system, research, design and development teams and company owners as profit. So the impact is less than you might expect.
* Research shows that some of the new economic activity generated in developing countries by oursourcing will generate new demand for goods and services in the country where the jobs have moved from (eg America).
* Outsourcing saves money for corporations which means lower costs for consumers, and higher dividends for pensioners who own 75% of US and UK wealth - that means more money to spend on other things such as local services (meals out, beauty treatments, gardening, decorating etc) and that produces new jobs.
* Outsourcing has meant for example that you can buy a DVD player for less than $100. It is one reason why retail costs of products has halved in many sectors over the last 20 years, allowing for inflation.
* Future economic growth depends on new generations of creative, dynamic entrepreneurs, with good access to venture capital, who will drive national economies through transition.
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