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Local officials rig vote for China's top ordinary heroes
By Ni Tao |
January 8, 2011, Saturday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
IN my line of work as a reporter, I've written about peasants who protest violent land grabs and get locked up as a result; I've blasted officials who crush the very people who keep them in power and comfort. In a word, my angle is mostly "negative."
That, of course, is the nature of journalism. We are not hacks paid just to pen puff pieces. But although it feels great to be given almost full rein to exercise my critical faculties, I know that criticism alone does not and cannot convey a full picture.
There are too many stories of bravery, dedication and sacrifices out there that deserve to be told, but somehow they don't make headlines.
These lacunas are filled with the annual release by the country's state broadcaster of a roster honoring people of distinguished moral character and ethical behavior.
For the past few years, the online vote of "People Who Move China," launched in 2002, has glorified people who would normally be of little note.
Toward the end of each year, China Central Television (CCTV) profiles select candidates on its website and encourages the public to vote for them. The ten getting the most votes will be publicly honored at a CCTV gala early in February. The date this year has not been set.
Since many people on the list are ordinary heroes with laudable traits, the poll and the awards even move those people who are generally emotionally inert and sobbing can be heard from those who are merely tearful.
But as this year's grossly rigged poll has shown, emotion can be cheaply manipulated by official edicts, however genuine the tears shed on TV may appear.
In mid December, the public was surprised to learn that the three candidates topping the poll all hailed from Yichun City in Jiangxi Province. A check of their supporters' IP addresses indicated that over 80 percent were based in Yichun.
Suspicion of vote-rigging was later confirmed by microblog revelations that local students were ordered to vote every day for their hometown heroes, thereby catapulting them into top spots.
It was reported that Yichun publicity officials had issued circulars demanding the daily routine of voting.
The sham vote has done a great disservice to the trio, whose deeds, judged in their own light, do merit accolades.
There has been no official comment from CCTV organizers of the poll.
True models
The two frontrunners, twenty-something teacher Wang Maohua and his father-in-law, Tan Liangcai, were severely burned on March 21 after rushing into a blazing house to rescue the children inside. Wang died from his injuries and was declared a martyr.
This spontaneous act of ultimate sacrifice contrasts sharply with the brazenly selfish words of a teacher who abandoned a roomful of pupils and ran for his own life after the Sichuan earthquake struck in 2008.
The other Yichun candidate is Zeng Kai, a female warden at a local detention house. Her profession alone was enough to spark a furor over her credentials.
At a time when China's jails and detention houses primarily evoke memories of inmates' strange deaths - often caused by beatings either by fellow inmates or by guards - and police's clumsy cover-ups, Zeng's presence in the list is extraordinary.
She is said to be affectionately called "Mother Zeng" by the inmates her care and guidance have tamed, soothed and reformed. During her 12-year tenure, she supported them in seeking redemption from their sins and in rehabilitation after their social ostracism.
Her benevolence paid off, it seems, as grateful former inmates frequently wrote to her about their new lives and thanked her for making that possible. No case of abuse or strange deaths was reported on her watch, said her profile.
While these candidates' resumes, dotted with extravagant praise, make the figures sound like stodgy propaganda role models, their deeds do epitomize dedication and should be credited.
But the way they were elevated above others has considerably undercut their credibility, even though they appear destined to be elected the final "winners," given their current high rankings.
Sham votes
The ham-fisted official move to mobilize shills to fix the poll is again driven by the imperative to rake in political capital. This imperative is generally known as the thirst for GDP. In Yichun it has assumed the form of boosterism - the official urge to raise the city's visibility and capitalize on it.
Online voting only made things worse. In the absence of stringent rules, such as "one person, one vote," it's easy for the vote to be hijacked for less-than-lofty purposes.
And since heroism and philanthropy, however meager, do matter, as officials often proclaim, can a single vote determine who are the heroes to be remembered, and who are not?
How relevant are the rankings when the results are open to manipulation?
In a country where honesty, righteousness and other virtues are now thought to disadvantage one in business and thus are tossed away like trash, the annual coronation of ethical models helps to remind us of our lost qualities.
Every candidate is or was distinguished in his or her own way and deserves a place on the honor roll. To measure their contributions by ranking them is to squander their spiritual legacies on a superficial contest for clicks.
So, let stories of heroes be heard, and paeans to them sung, but do let the public have its own say in deciding what heroism means.
That, of course, is the nature of journalism. We are not hacks paid just to pen puff pieces. But although it feels great to be given almost full rein to exercise my critical faculties, I know that criticism alone does not and cannot convey a full picture.
There are too many stories of bravery, dedication and sacrifices out there that deserve to be told, but somehow they don't make headlines.
These lacunas are filled with the annual release by the country's state broadcaster of a roster honoring people of distinguished moral character and ethical behavior.
For the past few years, the online vote of "People Who Move China," launched in 2002, has glorified people who would normally be of little note.
Toward the end of each year, China Central Television (CCTV) profiles select candidates on its website and encourages the public to vote for them. The ten getting the most votes will be publicly honored at a CCTV gala early in February. The date this year has not been set.
Since many people on the list are ordinary heroes with laudable traits, the poll and the awards even move those people who are generally emotionally inert and sobbing can be heard from those who are merely tearful.
But as this year's grossly rigged poll has shown, emotion can be cheaply manipulated by official edicts, however genuine the tears shed on TV may appear.
In mid December, the public was surprised to learn that the three candidates topping the poll all hailed from Yichun City in Jiangxi Province. A check of their supporters' IP addresses indicated that over 80 percent were based in Yichun.
Suspicion of vote-rigging was later confirmed by microblog revelations that local students were ordered to vote every day for their hometown heroes, thereby catapulting them into top spots.
It was reported that Yichun publicity officials had issued circulars demanding the daily routine of voting.
The sham vote has done a great disservice to the trio, whose deeds, judged in their own light, do merit accolades.
There has been no official comment from CCTV organizers of the poll.
True models
The two frontrunners, twenty-something teacher Wang Maohua and his father-in-law, Tan Liangcai, were severely burned on March 21 after rushing into a blazing house to rescue the children inside. Wang died from his injuries and was declared a martyr.
This spontaneous act of ultimate sacrifice contrasts sharply with the brazenly selfish words of a teacher who abandoned a roomful of pupils and ran for his own life after the Sichuan earthquake struck in 2008.
The other Yichun candidate is Zeng Kai, a female warden at a local detention house. Her profession alone was enough to spark a furor over her credentials.
At a time when China's jails and detention houses primarily evoke memories of inmates' strange deaths - often caused by beatings either by fellow inmates or by guards - and police's clumsy cover-ups, Zeng's presence in the list is extraordinary.
She is said to be affectionately called "Mother Zeng" by the inmates her care and guidance have tamed, soothed and reformed. During her 12-year tenure, she supported them in seeking redemption from their sins and in rehabilitation after their social ostracism.
Her benevolence paid off, it seems, as grateful former inmates frequently wrote to her about their new lives and thanked her for making that possible. No case of abuse or strange deaths was reported on her watch, said her profile.
While these candidates' resumes, dotted with extravagant praise, make the figures sound like stodgy propaganda role models, their deeds do epitomize dedication and should be credited.
But the way they were elevated above others has considerably undercut their credibility, even though they appear destined to be elected the final "winners," given their current high rankings.
Sham votes
The ham-fisted official move to mobilize shills to fix the poll is again driven by the imperative to rake in political capital. This imperative is generally known as the thirst for GDP. In Yichun it has assumed the form of boosterism - the official urge to raise the city's visibility and capitalize on it.
Online voting only made things worse. In the absence of stringent rules, such as "one person, one vote," it's easy for the vote to be hijacked for less-than-lofty purposes.
And since heroism and philanthropy, however meager, do matter, as officials often proclaim, can a single vote determine who are the heroes to be remembered, and who are not?
How relevant are the rankings when the results are open to manipulation?
In a country where honesty, righteousness and other virtues are now thought to disadvantage one in business and thus are tossed away like trash, the annual coronation of ethical models helps to remind us of our lost qualities.
Every candidate is or was distinguished in his or her own way and deserves a place on the honor roll. To measure their contributions by ranking them is to squander their spiritual legacies on a superficial contest for clicks.
So, let stories of heroes be heard, and paeans to them sung, but do let the public have its own say in deciding what heroism means.
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