The oppression of a civilization

The world was turned into an ocean of colonies of subject people during the few centuries of ‘friendly’ European conquest. The Africans were turned into slaves, the natives of both Americas massacred. The ancient civilization of China was crippled and dismantled into pieces. After the Western powers brought down the decadent Qing Dynasty with the might of modern firearms, the Chinese civilization was turned into a pariah race of nothingness by the invaders in their country. The foreigners did not bring anything good but oppression, bullying and raiding China’s wealth and dignity by all kinds of deceptive means, and by the barrel of the gun. The Japanese joined in and even thought of conquering and ruling the whole of China as their colony.

There was a moment of salvation when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour and declared war on the Western power. China and its peasant soldiers were needed to open another front to sap the fighting power and resources of the Japanese. A large part of the Japanese Imperial Army was held down in China by the peasant soldiers. History would not be the same if the Japanese could run through China without resistance and conquer the whole of Asia.

After the war there was a brief moment of equality for China as a key member of the Allied Forces that fought against the Japanese. Chiang Kai Shek was seated with the Allied leaders like Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt in Potsdam and Cairo to divide the world among the victorious Allied Powers. China was lucky to have its lost territories back. Chiang was more like a flower vase, inconsequential, and would not be deserving of any war loot. His presence among the leaders of the big powers was a consolation that gave China a little recognition as a big nation.

This little moment of dignity did not last long when Mao Zedong defeated Chiang and China adopted communism as a state ideology. This turn of event led to a renewed and concerted Western effort to brand and condemn the Chinese civilization as peasants, rogues, dumb, uncivilized, aggressive and the pariahs of the human race, a good for nothing race that was lack of talent, unproductive and unimaginative, and unfit to join the advanced nations of the West. This was the hopeless China painted by the West. They kept repeating the misinformation daily in all western media, like they are doing to North Korea today that the whole world simply believed so. Chinese are useless, Chinese are lame, Chinese are bad.

Cold Wars, containment policies, encirclement, depriving China of its rightful seat in the UN, blocking China from joining international organizations like the WTO and the Groupings of rich nations, were history now. In the last 40 odd years, China came storming back on its own despite all the sanctions and barriers and threats against its rise as a nation and the Chinese people as a civilization, old, ancient, but not useless and remote of talents.

Throughout the two hundred years of Western oppression and suppression, the Chinese civilization was not allowed to surface, no opportunity to break out and be the equals of other nations. The Chinese civilization was down and out, the Chinese in despair. Many Chinese had doubts in themselves, and were ashamed to be Chinese. The Westerners reinforced this belief by sneering at them, contributing negative literature furiously to debase the Chinese, discriminated against them in practically every human endeavour and industry. In the USA there were racist laws forbidding the Chinese from higher skill jobs. The image and perception of useless and untalented Chinese became a self fulfilling prophecy. The Chinese civilization was a joke, a condemned race that was lacking in industry and innovation.

On its own, slowly and steadily the Chinese rebuilt their nation and their civilization, with little foreign talents and assistance, China has over taken Japan and is closing in on the US as the number Two world power, economically and militarily. They have proven that they could match the West in every field of industry. The oppression and suppression of a civilization have failed, and a revitalized China has assumed its rightful place as a proud nation among nations. The Chinese civilization is no longer to be spitted at, to be kicked around by the Western powers or by teeny weeny little Asian states. It is now a force to be reckoned with and to be respected on its own merits.

The tag of being the Sick Man of Asia, a semi colony of the West, a broken country with nothing, no inventions, no modern industries, no talents except poverty and all the trappings of a poor and backward third world country vanished over a few decades. There is renewed pride as a people, a nation and a civilization in the new China. A phoenix has risen from the ashes. There is no turning back. The Chinese have found their way back and will leap frog over the West in science and technology and in all things, while the West are still trying to restrain their advances by hook and by crook.

Today, the overseas Chinese are also starting to rediscover themselves, their pride and dignity as a respectable people. They too find some renewed confidence that they are not rubbish and useless as the West wanted to hole them in, to be bullied by even little third world people, to be told to go home in western countries. They too share the pride of an ancient civilization seeking a second chance in renaissance, to achieve in whatever they seek to do, to be a respectable people and civilization on par with the best in the world. They no longer lower their heads in shame as they go about their lives. They are standing tall, heads and shoulders to the Western civilization with the knowledge that they are just as good if not better. The Chinese civilization is reviving and will no longer be oppressed and suppressed again.