War on the West

Post Reply New Topic

I never heard this statement?

I know that in April 2020 there was an incident in Guangzhou denounced against Africans.
The cause was an alien Africans who refused to cooperate with medical procedures and bit a female nurse in the face when they were confirmed to be infected. Photos of the beaten and disfigured victim are still available online.
At the same time, the official refused to take the matter seriously for the first time. The perpetrators were not arrested until ordinary people expressed enough anger at the unfair treatment.

At that time, There was another incident in Qingdao, while waiting for public service, several foreigners (Africans) jumped in line and shouted "Chinese get out of here". Combined with the background of preferential treatment of foreigners throughout the policy, those caused widespread indignation at the time.
Local administrators didn't even see anything wrong with the behavior. Officials did not ask for a written apology from those involved until a clear video spreads across the web and the incident caught the attention of many.

And these indignations mainly point to officials who condone foreigners and despise our own citizens. It's like we still live in a colony.
When accusing the Chinese of nationalism, it is actually ridiculous and sorrowful.
I don't know of any other big country that would make its citizens, especially the main ethnic groups, second-class citizens.

I have seen how Western media distort information from China.
If these well-known phenomena in China are never mentioned and condemned, I don't think the Western media is "anti-CCP and concerned about the Chinese" to any extent. I think they just hate China. And that's most likely racism.

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 26 May 2022, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am puzzled what some commenters have in mind when they speak of Americanism. Considering the US, there are basically 2 main categories of music promoted domestically, namely hip-hop and country/western, then you have English language pop music, much of which is produced in the US but originates all over the world. Then you have Asian culture and Spanish speaking culture. I won't dispute that country/western has a distinctly American origin, but if some kid in Stockholm becomes obsessed with it, that can't be blamed on some American conspiracy. Same applies to film/video, literature, etc. A lot originating in America but probably most of it from elsewhere.

A considerable amount of today’s popular music originated from African-American blues and jazz.

Obviously, many “twists” have been added all over the world since the 50s, when rock-n-roll started.

Not necessarily "conspiracy". This is usually subconscious. Cultural works inevitably carry ideology. Some audiences will unconsciously internalize these ideologies.

Quite a few Japanese pop culture lovers overlap with Japanese nationalist sympathizers. Soviet military enthusiasts often had strong communist sympathies.
Ironically, the Soviet March in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, the American work to vilify the Soviet Union, recruited a large number of Soviet sympathizers around the world.
And, incomprehensibly, the American flag was once a fashion element in China. Although the Chinese flag can be embarrassing to ordinary people in most of the everyday moments.

It’s a solid example of how pop culture output affects how people perceive the world.
Whoever has the ability to export pop culture will benefit from it. Whether it's conscious or unconscious.

https://theconversation.com/mistreatmen ... acy-136348
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/05/chi ... t-africans
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... r-covid-19

Americanism is everything - clothes, skateboarding, surfing, fashion, food, TV, cinema, music, entertainment, speech basically culture. Again this is something perhaps European conservatives should examine when they wonder why their children are so disconnected to their traditions.

Do these reports also fairly point out that Guangzhou's black community has a disproportionately high percentage of illegal stayers? When large numbers of Africans have been hiding from the police, how not to worry that they are not cooperating like other ordinary citizens with policies that apply to everyone?
Do these reports also fairly point out that the inter-city/provincial movement of Chinese citizens would have been subject to stricter restrictions and segregation than this?
Since 2020, the cross-border movement of Chinese citizens has been extremely difficult, much more difficult than foreigners. To date, most of the tickets on some state-run airlines are sold only to foreigners, not to our own citizens. This has resulted in some Chinese staying abroad for two years with expired visas.

Sorry, still biased selective elaboration.


I find the Western(Forgive me for not being able to distinguish accurately) mainstream media to be no less disgustingly biased on China-related topics than Chinese pro-establishment media. At least I haven't observed Chinese pro-establishment media making "evidence" by themselves when smearing the West.
Pointing out the sinister propaganda would be seen as a fair heroic move by quite a few factions, at least on the Chinese web. And somehow, on the English-language internet, this is often accused of being a "CCP propaganda machine."

Last edited by SkinnedWolf on 26 May 2022, 10:31 am, edited 4 times in total.

I think the tenant of the reports is that the local Chinese in Guanzhao did not care if they were discriminating against domiciled or illegal Africans. A number of black residents (some with Chinese wives) were interviewed after being thrown out of their rentals by paranoid landlords. The signage was also placed on restaraunts saying "No blacks" which was reminiscent of Jim Crow in the United States.

I will be fair to say that there is a kind of racism against "all" black people in some Chinese. I have fought with them for a long time.

But even the most objective and least racist people need to express that illegal overstayers, who in China are almost always black in the Guangzhou community, are causing a lot of trouble. Moreover, illegally resident Africans are often harboured by legitimate Africans. A fair slogan is that "we don't discriminate against race, we discriminate against illegal behavior".
(In case you haven't noticed, "you can be special, but don't make trouble for other people" is a guideline throughout East Asian culture.)
And given that the majority of the black community in Guangzhou is truly from Africa. There are many conflicts over economic level, culture, and HIV/AIDS issues.
The trouble is also reflected in the fact that some of them refuse to apply policies that apply to all, and even violently attack those enforcers.

Rational people don't condemn all Africans/Blacks in this situation.
But you can't expect everyone to be calm about it.


A little tip:
Although "Penis Defense War" gave no information about the foreigner's ethnicity. But his medical records showed he had Sickle Cell Anemia. That is, Africans.
This is a government-led discrimination against Chinese. This even rises to the inequality of the right to life.

And China's TERF group, of whom there is evidence that at least some of them are funded by Western funding, is still blatantly insulting the genes and personality of Chinese/Han men and showing the need to combine with other races to "improve our genes".

Those who choose nationalism, sadly as it is, is a pitiful counterattack. What other country has foreigners dare to shout "Get out of here" to the locals?
In this case, it is a shocking virtue that the Chinese still have the upper hand in internationalism rather than nationalism.

More demands are cruel and even racist in my opinion. "We're just privileged and it's not fair for you to be angry about it."
It's easy to paint the image of "sinister Chinese" when the media only captures clips about "be angry".
Also, on the apparently racist issue of privileges for foreigners/non-East Asians, the Western media marvelously agreed with the "evil CCP" without any condemning.
This seems like a lamentable continuation of Yellow Peril. Although there is a sugar coating of "against the evil CCP" on the outside.

Skateboarding originated in America. I don't see anything intrinsically American about any of that other stuff. Asia and Europe aren't that strongly influenced by American culture. Mexico and Canada more so due to proximity. Clothes, for example in Mexico and Canada are somewhat similar to American. But European and Japanese clothes are very very different. I can remember when I was in Germany, bars that had an American theme were the sort of places one went to find hookers. In both Germany and Japan, pimps and gangsters drive American cars. Nobody else does. Maybe what you say is actually true for somebody who happens to be a gangster. Hmmmm.

Sorry I am ignorant about much of Australian culture that would be your point of reference.

It is true that in the UK American Style IPA has become popular. Not a bad thing IMO. When I was young nobody in the UK was interested in any sort of American beer or ale.

First: of course national culture is being taught at schools in the respective countries. But it is disected and dead, it's something you have to learn to pass exams, not something you experience as an integral part of your life.
That has a lot to do with what media high culture is produced and consumed in. In Germany, high culture means literature and theatre. Particularly theatre isn't exactly a cheap hobby. But the dominant media consumed in everyday life are TV, film and most of all for the younger generations: internet.

It should be noted that the US put a paragraph into the Marshall plan - the plan that financed the rebuilding of Europe after ww2 - that a certain percentage of films playing in the cinemas had to be American. They knew exactly how putting dreams into the heads of people worked, and Germans learned to dream of America.
It's not that there wasn't rebellion against this - Werner Herzog, Fassbinder, that generation. But the German film industry is financed by the state, so the state decides what gets made. Can you imagine something as cool and violent yet fun like a Tarantinonfilm getting greenlit by a government committee?

France was excempt from this part of the Marshall-plan, so they evolved their own, distinct Film-culture. France however was, just like Beitain, an empire in decline, and I don't know the current state of French culture, but Macron only barely won against the far-right candidate a few weeks ago.

So the education systems in Europe have a problem: there's national culture to teach, but also international - so the students don't grow up like they did in the first half of the twentieth century - and in their soare time, the students consume media from the countries that put out distinct pop-cultural products, which is mainly the US, and Japan, to some extent.
Why watch a domestic film, when the American films have bigger explosions, more sexualised actors and actresses, more blood, better jokes, etc. - or domestic animation, when the coolest, weirdest stuff - and frankly, the most aesthetically pleasing - is coming from Japan?
So the most successful German films are of the 'regional dialect crime comedy' variety, or made for children.

Music is a little bit different: it's mainly knock offs of American styles, devoid of any rootedness in culture. German rappers have to pretend to be urban criminals because, well, there just isn't enough gang vience, no one owns guns, you can't authentically sing about getting shot at by police, etc.
I think some French immigrant kids can authentically rap about gang violence in the suburbs of Paris, but here, it's a style that's .. cool.
And that's how American culture is received overseas: like a fashion trend, disconnected, ever changing. Perfect for teenagers, for whom the changing fashions are enough to try out identities, but nothing that comnects with anything local.

So: Bars with American theme are rare, in Germany, yes. american drams and sitcoms on TV are not. Educated Germans don't consime German high culture, they can feel high brow by watching American TV in English on Netflix. And of course, there's German theatee and Opera, but that's for rich people.

American dating culture has only become a thing within the last two decades, thanks to American TV having a larger impact on sexual relations than local tradition, and then came tinder - an app designed for American dating culture, but available everywhere, accelerating the process.

American RAP became popular in China, although later in development it became strangely localized. There are quite a few African-American elements in it, like talk of crime and drugs (which are quite out of place in China) and Dreadlock.

Also, China has no black community except Guangzhou. But strangely a never-ending debate about black people began nationwide. Both racist and anti-racist jokes are welcome.

Another bizarre and objectionable phenomenon is that in some artworks made by Chinese and aimed at Chinese people, the Chinese people in them fit American stereotypes about Chinese people. The worst cases include small or slender, slanted eyes, which are considered ugly in Chinese culture.


The above is from a clothing conference of the top art academy in China. Some models deliberately wear makeup to have small eyes.


I think these are pretty "American".

These also happened in China, but they weren't really widespread.
I guess this is because China has a deeper cultural foundation. And, ahem, network isolation. A person looking for entertainment offerings with less elegant content still has more local options to choose from.

To be fair, in China, the cultural export from Japan is more thorough than that from America. But it seems to have at least a more similar cultural background, so it's more relevant to local things.

And, ironically, watching American TV shows is seen as relatively elegant in China, even though British TV shows are more elegant.

The language barrier between any of the Chinese languages and English is also a bit larger than between any of the European languages.

A few years back, I was trching at a university in India. The culture shock was immense, but in the classroom, the 20 year olds were talking about the latest south park episode, some anime, and in breaks they were playing counterstrike over the university's local Network.

India has a much broader English base.

In China, only the most affluent are likely to provide an English-speaking environment. Beyond that, the teaching of English in the public education system seems to only want us to have the ability to read papers.
But that's not the main impediment to the spread of popular culture. We have a sufficient volunteer translation team.
Sometimes watching American/British dramas is even a means of learning English in itself.

The underlying point isn't how American cultures have become, Its accepting that from the time of the industrial revolution that traditional culture in almost every country has transformed as the world economy has become globalised. European colonisation accelerated this process not just in Asia, Africa and Latin America but also in the colonies and even in their homelands. Globalisation has become synonyous with Americanisation but much of this cultural shift happened 100 years ago. If you bring a pre-indistrial Japanese or Korean person to Japan or Korea in 2022 they would not recognise the people they see as Japanese or Korean and they would think they have arrived in a foreign country.

Likewise take a British Londoner from the 16th century and they would have nothing in common with a British fellow in 2022. Therein lies part of the problem with conservatives. They are adamant that things are moving too quickly but they infact are contributing to the situation in which their own children are disengaged with their own traditional identity/culture.

The proof of the pudding is being "white". Just about the only thing that unites Europeans whether in America, Europe or Australia is "whiteness". A fact Murray doesn't release.

Murray identifies a problem in the west - agreed
He says that people in the west are waging a war on the west - agreed
But he says it's because of the left wing - here he's wrong.

Murray doesn't actually see when he talks about the "west" he is invoking the post-colonial and post-industrial world which in my view is post-historic in terms of cultural identity. By the end of the industrial era meaningful indicators of cultural identity started to die off. isaac newton, Einstein or Heddiger or even Marx are no longer a product of their culture but also transnational figures. Globalisation means ownership of achievements as western become more meaningless as governments, companies and even people become transnational in their impact. Taking ownership of individuals as "one of ours" is therefore meaningless. It's like somebody who has a sibling who is famous. Just simply being related to a famous person doesn't make you famous. In 2022 you need to demonstrate worth. In this sense Murray's central thesis is "that's my famous person" "not yours" and "I have the right to speak about him/her" "not you".