China is a communist country, whose citizens faced many difficult situations while trying to fight for their human rights. According to the “Freedom Rankings” from the database CountryWatch China is not a free country. Specifically the Political Rights and Civil Liberties are in their maximum numbers; this means that these rights are confiscated from the people. Therefore freedoms of press, expression, speech, religion, and movement are all severely limited in China. The government has also kept a close watch on art in China; Chinese art went through many different stages starting from the year 1842. But the massacre of Tiananmen Square in the year 1989 was a turning point in the political life of China and on the country's art. Until the year 1992 art in china was underground, but it kept expanding. As a result of that some Chinese artists started to do art works that rebel against their government and express their feelings towards China. One of these artist is the famous Chinese artist Ai Weiwei who expressed in each piece of art he did, his feelings that China should let its people break away from the rotten traditional, in order to express their thoughts freely.
The government in china is very concerned with limiting the freedom of expression for it's citizens in all possible ways. Let's examine first the reason why censorship is such an important aspect for the Chinese government. According to the book “A Short History of China” by Gordon Kerr when the renaissance took place in Europe from the 14th through the 17th century it changed people's view in many different ways because it was “a period of exploration, discovery and advancement in almost every field”(Gordon Kerr 87); it was a rebirth of the ancient traditions. Mean...
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...m in the hotel and one of the cops hit Ai Weiwei on his head for no reason, this resulted in a swallowing in his head so Ai Weiwei had to go through an operation and it prevented him from testifying in the case of the earthquake activist Tan Zuoren, this last one was found guilty. Afterwards Ai Weiwei was very upset of this whole situation so he filed a lawsuit against the cop that hit him on the head. He knew that the government won’t do anything about it and will not actually listen to his complains but he didn't give up and take a step backward it was actually the opposite he kept filing several lawsuits against the cop as well as attending governmental premises hoping to be able to talk or complain to somebody. Later in January 2011, the government demolished Ai Weiwei's studio in Shangai and then in April 2011 he disappeared, everybody knew that he was arrested.
In the novel Eggers created an accurate portrayal of the events of racial profiling and looting; this becomes apparent if one views the documentary by Spike Lee, When the Levees Broke. In the novel, Zeitoun was arrested, racially profiled, and labeled a terrorist and a looter. Dave Eggers tells us that Zeitoun, Todd, Nasser, and Ronnie were arrested at gunpoint and later accused of looting a local Walgreen store and of terrorist activities. They are suspects because Zeitoun and Nasser are Muslims from Syria and Nasser and Todd had large amounts of money in their possession. This confirms the higher authorities’ suspicions of the so-called terrorists looting local shops when in fact they were helping local citizens and animals reach safety.
After Mao Zedong’s death and the collapse of the Cultural Revolution Weiwei enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy. Film did not hold him long and in 1978 Weiwei became a founding member of an avant-garde group of artist called ‘the stars’, and an obsession with democracy and a deep critique of the Chinese government began to manifest. In 1981 Weiwei moved to the United States to practice and study art. One of Weiwei’s most iconic early pieces, Dropping Han Dynasty Urn (1995) depicts Weiwei holding, dropping, and the subsequent smashing of a Han Dynasty Urn. The performative gesture of this work is entrenched in Weiwei’s personal history, the significance of smashing a valued Chinese artefact symbolises the ‘desecration of cultural heritage (Delaney, 2016 p.30)’ that occurred during the Cultural Revolution and Weiwei’s
Ah Xian born in Beijing in 1960 left china following the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989, also known as tank man incident, and moved to Sydney Australia. Having moved from his native country, Ah Xian wanted his work to represent that “cultural identity is permanent and no matter what other places and influences one
“I don’t want to be part of this kind of denying reality. We live in this time. We have to speak out” (Klayman). Ai Weiwei is an internationally known Chinese artist as well as activist, and his motivation and determination can be summed up by this quote. In all of his pieces, Weiwei critically examines the social and administrative issues facing China today. Many of his works exhibit multiple themes that can be interpreted in various different ways. This lends itself to the universal appeal of his art and makes it a more effective medium of conveying his messages to viewers. Ai Weiwei’s activist artwork—and activist artwork in general—is important to society because it effectively forces the viewer to engage in a self-reflective process that makes the viewer critically examine his or her own beliefs and world. Nevertheless, censorship greatly hinders the dissemination of the critical and thought provoking messages of Ai Weiwei’s art and makes his artwork less effective. In order to gain a better understanding of the relationship of Ai Weiwei’s activist art and the Communist Party’s subsequent censorship, I will examine Ai Weiwei’s influential childhood, his specific brand of activist artwork, the censorship of the Chinese government and the effects of censorship on the effectiveness of Ai Weiwei’s art.
China joined the global Internet age in 1994, and has been commercially available since 1995. Since then, Chinese Internet usage has seen explosive growth, doubling every six months, and the number of online users is only second to the US. The Internet age ushered in the information age with a new world of freedom and expression for the Chinese. However, soon after its inception, the Chinese government has reined in the free wheeling Internet users and has imposed new laws and restrictions to access and content on the Internet.
Everyday people in China are suffering from their government. From being wrongly accused to being executed for petty crimes. In a country where you cannot speak your opinions, talk poorly about government officials, speak about Chinese communist failures, or even browse the internet freely. China has kept its citizens in the void. One example is the great firewall of china, which sensors most social media and other sites. This essay will go into some individual stories of the Chinese government's unfair social injustices towards its people.
Censorship is the practice of concealing parts of a book, movie, show, or any other form of media. Media can be censored in many ways; one of these is to block out the offensive sections of the content. This is generally done when the content of said media is not considered overall offensive or inappropriate but has derogatory and/or blasphemous language. Another way Media can be censored is to have it banned completely. For a book to be banned, it must first be challenged. According the American Library Association, a challenge “is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.” The question over censorship has been debated for years: Should we be allowed to ban Medias we deem unfit and/or inappropriate from our children?
In old times, censorships’ definition was to suppress or restrict any kind of books, articles, journals, art, even speeches and any other forms of expression that were believed to go against religious, political, moral and social beliefs usually held by powerful leading groups, such as governments, businesses and churches. Our society has thankfully evolved since those times and censorship now is used not to prohibit, but to supervise and narrow specific contents that may not be necessary or appropriate to some groups or places, within the guidelines of our law. Censorship in a way is necessary mostly in our schools, not to control and restrict the learning environment, but to make the information and ideas delivered to children more focused on important material that will give them knowledge for their future and shape their personalities and opinions.
What is censorship? According the American Civil Liberties Union, censorship is defined as “the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive."” This is a very broad definition because any part of anything put out for the world, while you may not be offended by it, someone around you may. Instead of just ignoring the words or the images, many people try to force their ideas and beliefs on others. This falls into the “If I don’t like what I see, then no one can see it” category. This is the same for books. Certain people found the Harry Potter books, for example, offensive and wanted them banned because they allegedly promoted witchcraft and the devil. They were unsuccessful in getting them banned, but it just shows how groups of people wish to stifle creativity and art simply because they do not like it for whatever reason. (Index On Censorship) Many people think censorship currently is a good thing because it stifles others as to not offend the status quo. I would like to enlighten others by showing that having free flowing of ideas and opinions is what makes our country great.
The protest that occurred in Central Beijing had effects in China as well as many other countries, and it reflected the discontent of the Chinese people toward their government. The Tiananmen Square Massacre was a tragic event, nevertheless it must be remembered in order to prevent similar events from arising in the future.
On 16th of December 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed. Although we want governments and regimes to abide with the articles not all do. Our government is formed to protect us and to provide every citizen, infrastructure in order to make the person able to live. However our governments also care for themselves as well. They want to stay in power thus they have to protect their reputation. This is where internet censorship steps in. Although censoring some sites is reasonable, some are not. If a site on the internet criticizes the government and if this happens in a country where the government is somewhat oppressive, the site is blocked to access. I believe the level of tolerance towards criticism of a government can be found by the internet censorship in that country. We can categorize these types of governments into five: No or few censorship, normal amounts of censorship, above normal, high amount of censorship and extreme amounts of censorship. I am going to focus about the last three levels. For these levels Republic of Turkey, People’s Republic of China and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea are examples I am going to talk about. These examples would be coinciding with the levels respectively.
The provocative messages in his feed support his campaign for a free and civilized Chinese society. In China, Weiwei has spent time in jail, and was not allowed by the government to leave Beijing for a year. He now cannot travel without official permission; however, Weiwei is able to use the Internet to a certain degree to circumvent authorities. As a result, he has become a symbol of the struggle for human rights in China. He uses any medium – sculpture, ready-mades, photography, performance, architecture, blogs, and especially tweets – to deliver his message. He utilizes the Internet to open up the doors to his audiences. Weiwei tweets messages in regards to the brutal treatment enforced by Chinese officers. His tweets prompt his following activists to engage in this revolutionary dialogue. These followers pledge their allegiance to the cultural movement via Twitter. Such massive feedback turned into a social media flood, causing the controversy over Chinese law officials to become viral. In this context, entertainment can serve as a unifying force to pull together social media users around a particular issue or ideal. Moreover, the identity work involved in social media activity can incentivize associations with positive political causes.
Every day, teens across America face a plethora of issues, some more obvious than others. Now, just because a problem is not well-known does not mean it is any less potent than the widely publicized issues most teens are familiar with. In fact, hidden problems are often more dangerous than those that are widely known. Amongst the ranks of the obscure issues is the censorship of books, the Internet and speech in schools; a problem that effects a large majority of the student body, often unknowingly to the students. In recent years, countless books have been removed from school libraries, an innumerable amount of websites have been blocked by school officials, and social sharing websites are regularly monitored for any activity the school deems inappropriate, even if the activity was posted before or after school. The unfortunate result of this widespread censorship is the number of ideas that are suppressed in the name of education and the subtle, negative social conditioning that occurs in schools as well. School administrations’ overuse of censorship on literature, the Internet and speech, both in and out of school, creates an authoritarian environment in which teenagers are conditioned into accepting a society where freedom of speech is suppressed, people are unable to stand up for their beliefs, where particular topics are banned for their content; this is a growing crisis that has alarmed many American intellectuals who believe the only remedy for this predicament is to make teenagers more aware of the problem with censorship.
Interests: China’s leaders desire to improve their nation’s economy while preserving political stability. They want to censor political discussions to prevent “westernization” of China,
Protecting the Innocent: An essay on Censorship What would happen if anyone in the world could obtain access to potentially dangerous information? Should this “potentially dangerous” information be concealed? Throughout history, many people have argued over whether certain material and information should be kept confidential and the verdict remains unsolved to this day. Although it is widely disputed, censorship is vital because it protects children, reduces unnecessary awareness, and protects the military.