An angry Raybon Kan

Raybon Kan is well known as a very funny man. But today in the SST he is angry, and with good cause. He is angry at the spineless Mayors who didn’t attend a performance because the Consulate of China rang them and asked them not to. Some extracts which one can only endorse:

Let’s get some facts out of the way. The Divine Performing Arts troupe includes practitioners of falun gong, which as far as I can tell, is an earlier, slower form of pilates. It’s banned in China. Then again, so is freedom of speech. And freedom of the press. And the Dalai Lama. Well, if it’s as bad as any of those things, falun gong must be terrible. It might even be as bad as democracy. Democracy is so bad, it doesn’t even need to be banned. China’s 1.3 billion people simply reject it unanimously. (What do you mean, how do they know? They just know. Of course there’s hasn’t been a vote. Don’t be ridiculous. That would be democracy. They. Just. Know.)

Well then. Imagine you’re a mayor of Auckland. How lucky that the Chinese government rang to save you. Your delicate mind might have been brainwashed! What a near miss, with the Olympics next year!

China’s website says falun gong is a cult. Let’s say it is. Let’s say falun gong is a cult, bent on bringing down the government of China (through tai chi). Hell, let’s say it’s a cult waiting to be picked up by a UFO. Maybe the giant gatherings for tai chi are really a human crop circle, to guide the spaceship in. Wouldn’t you still find it just a teensy bit suspicious, here in New Zealand, to be rung up by the government of China, and urged not to see a dance troupe? For a country that doesn’t allow protest, it seems China protest too much. Scientology might be a cult, but you don’t see the White House telling Dick Hubbard not to see Mission: Impossible.

I never imagined dance could be this powerful a political act. Then again, China’s always been into the arts: how well I remember the dance of the sugarplum panzers. Oh, that killed them in Tiananmen Square.

So here’s the thing. A New York performance troupe visits New Zealand. A third country, China, rings New Zealand leaders and tells them not to attend. And the Kiwis, without exception, do as they’re told. I’m starting to agree with Winston Peters: we have become part of China. Hmmm. I wonder what it costs to get a mortgage in Tibet?

This dance troupe comprises people of Chinese ethnicity, but obviously, no carriers of Chinese passports. Chinese nationals tend not to be seen dead professing falun gong. The last they get seen is while being arrested. Then they tend not to be seen, all becoming permanently, strangely reclusive. If falun gong is a religion, I can only imagine its main tenet must be life after death. Or life after life imprisonment. Or after torture. Or execution. You’d better hope there’s some reward for these people.

The very least that people in free countries can do is encourage freedom for those who don’t have it.

I just love the way his sarcasm drips with contempt. And he is absolutely right.