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How Jiang and His Followers Took Advantage of the People's Pre-existing Mindsets to Defame Falun Gong (Part I) By Ouyang Fei, a Minghui reporter
(Clearwisdom.net) Jiang Zemin fabricated many stories to slander Falun
Gong for the purpose of persecuting practitioners. Theoretically, the Chinese
people have gone through many political movements and are supposed to be immune
to media lies. In addition, Jiang Zemin does not have the kind of personal
reputation and popularity that some former Chinese leaders had. So, how could
people easily believe his lies?
One very important way people were deceived was through Jiang tailoring his
lies to take advantage of the public's pre-existing prejudices and blind spots.
People have the freedom to like and dislike certain things. People have their
own philosophies and their own way of living. There is nothing wrong with this.
However, in order to defame Falun Gong, Jiang intentionally took advantage of
certain mentalities held by the public which tended to lead to a
misunderstanding of Falun Gong. He thus created stories that took advantage of
these mentalities, so that the public would become unwitting accomplices in the
persecution of Falun Gong.
I write this article in an effort to analyze the various mentalities that
led to a misunderstanding of Falun Gong. My intention is not to criticize the
public, but to help people somehow realize that their underlying prejudiced
opinions were taken advantage of by Jiang and his followers. I hope everyone
will put forth his own efforts to help stop the persecution against Falun
Gong--a persecution that should have never happened.
1. Dozens of years of atheistic education established an ideological
foundation for the persecution of Falun Gong.
The atheistic education (in China) equates "belief in God" with "feudal
superstition." So people truly believe in their hearts that disciples who
believe in God are benighted, anti-scientific, deceived and fooled. The saying,
"Advocate science and oppose superstitions" in fact negates all religious
beliefs. In China, there exist several religions in name only. But the Chinese
government retained these religions historically for the purpose of uniting the
people. In recent years, some people who proclaimed themselves as "scientists"
or "academicians" have attacked religious belief as "pseudoscience." In an
environment where atheism predominates, the public has very limited room to
accept any new beliefs.
Actually, in the western developed countries, a lot of accomplished
scientists are devout religious disciples. Religion or belief in God does not
conflict with science. On the contrary, it has the irreplaceable function of
upholding moral standards and stabilizing society.
2. Previous political movements have created the fear of "politics" in the
public.
People easily classify those who are suppressed by the government as being
politically motivated, regardless of whether the suppressed group has any
political agenda or not. Whenever something has the label of "politics" slapped
on, people immediately think of "schemes and intrigues," "being used by others"
or "being fooled and deceived." In addition, people believe it will certainly
"come to no good end." Thus, people naturally dislike the concept of being
"politically motivated" and shy away from it.
3. Past political movements have created a public mentality of refusing to
bear with things that they don't believe in.
Many people learned to be worldly wise and play it safe, as a result of
their experiences in the many political movements of the past. They don't
sympathize with things they themselves don't care about. Some people even
believe that it is right to persecute the things they don't believe in, or that
those things deserve persecution. The bottom line is, because of this
mentality, those people who don't believe in Falun Gong easily fall for the
slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong by the government media, and they
don't care to find out if it is true or not.
4. When hearing about "murder and arson," people would rather believe it
than doubt it.
The lies fabricated by Jiang's group have a very obvious pattern. As the
persecution of Falun Gong escalated, the lies became bigger and bigger, even
contradicting each other. It started with accusing practitioners of refusing to
take medicine and escalated to self-injury, suicide, and self-immolation. Then
it went even further, accusing practitioners of killing family members,
eventually to killing police officers, and finally to the killing of 16 people
by one person. In February 2004, Zhou Yongkang, Minister of Public Security,
even shouted out to people to strictly guard against "Falun Gong's sabotage
activities" in his speech on preventing serious fire and traffic accidents.
This put ideas in people's minds as if he were laying a foundation for even
bigger lies in the future.
Jiang's regime is very skilled at telling lies. Everyone already knows it.
But when it comes to lies about Falun Gong practitioners killing people in fits
of insanity, because it involves the issue of human lives, the public tends to
believe rather than doubt them. Thus, people naturally become wary of Falun
Gong.
5. Magic of TV -- "Believing in what we see with our own eyes," caused
people to drop their guard against the CCP.
In the past ten years or so, TV has become very popular in China. According
to the official statistics in 2003, the number of people watching TV has
reached 1.07 billion. People have the tendency to "believe what they see with
their own eyes." So when the TV showed the "real people and real events,"
confessions of the people involved, tears of the victims, accusations of the
neighbors, plus heard the "absolute authority" in the reporter's voice, the
audience truly believed the TV programs. The audience had no idea about the
interviewing, editing and production methods of modern TV programs; they knew
nothing about "stealthily substituting one picture for another" in editing or
the montage techniques in filming. How could they possibly not believe what's
shown on TV?
Compared to the political propaganda of the past, which utilized newspapers
and radio, by utilizing TV, Jiang's group was able to spread lies and rumors on
a much larger scale then any previous propaganda movements.
6. Deep-rooted jealousy.
If anybody becomes well known, the first intuitive reaction of many people
is, "How could they be so famous... what's their gimmick?" Thus, it is a fairly
common scheme to defame a person or an organization with rumors of "seeking to
accumulate wealth through dishonest means." Because of underlying jealousy,
many people unknowingly tend to believe the attacks on others by the media. In
addition, using modern technology, some "real scenes with real objects" can be
shown on TV programs. It can be very misleading.
7. The public is alert to groups with certain beliefs because there were
cases in Chinese history where secret religious groups rebelled.
Historically in China, some groups that were derived from religious groups
developed into political groups that fought for power. Jiang's group accused
Falun Gong of having a hidden political agenda and purpose. Because of the
historical analogy, it is psychologically easy for many people, especially in
intellectual circles--including some intellectuals who value freedom of
thought-- to accept the accusation.
A fundamental difference between Falun Gong and those secret religious sects
is Falun Gong's openness: for example, exercises are practiced in public, Fa
study took place in public, and Falun Gong was spread in public places to the
people openly. It is exactly because of Jiang's suppression that Falun Gong
practitioners put themselves at risk of being arrested if they practice Falun
Gong in public or if they share their experiences in public. One reason Falun
Gong practitioners put enormous efforts into opposing the persecution is to
gain back their right to practice publicly. In fact, even after several years,
Jiang's group has not been able to find any evidence that Falun Gong has any
political purpose.
8. Education regarding the Inquisition in the Middle Ages has left a
negative impression in people's mind toward religion.
The middle school textbook in China describes how Bruno was burned to death
during the Inquisition in the Middle Ages. Students are given a strong
impression of religion as being ignorant and anti-scientific. In modern times,
the violent and belligerent acts of some extreme religious groups have become
excellent "material for negative education" for the Chinese public who believes
in atheism. This has further confirmed their belief that religion is an evil
thing that endangers society.
In fact, in modern society, church and state have been separated in many
countries for a long time. The extremist religious groups are only a small part
of the greater population of religious believers. In China, the media seldom
talks about the positive functions of righteous religions. When President
Clinton and President Bush made speeches in well-known universities in China,
they both repeatedly mentioned the necessity of religious freedom in the US and
the tremendous contribution of religion in stabilizing society and upholding
morals.
9. The public has the mentality of "enjoying laughing at God because they
don't believe in God."
"Don't you have God? Isn't God capable? How come you are still bullied by
others?" People with this kind of mentality tend to take it as evidence of the
nonexistence of God when they see disciples being brutally persecuted. They
also tend to accept the slander by the media of those people who "believe in
God."
Actually, religion or belief in God is different from the issues among
ordinary people. It has a deeper reason that is unknown to ordinary people.
Jesus was a god, however he was mocked and nailed to a cross by human beings. (To be continued) Posting date: 7/5/2004 |