China divided as WeChat deletes LGBT accounts from platform
www.bbc.com
Dozens of LGBT social media accounts run by university students,were deleted without explanation.

They apparently announced they would delete all posts related to homosexuality back in 2018 but backtracked after outrage but I guess they’ve felt its been enough time that people won’t be paying as much attention now =\

    • Muad'Dibber
      1•3 years ago

      big demonstrations for instance which would encourage such discussions are not that common.

      There are plenty of LGBT groups, and they all have full rights to protest and raise awareness, just as much as unions do. One of the vids I posted above references one such group.

      i don’t know much about how these discussions are in practice but i imagine that the older generations have much more actual power in these discussions, altough the younger generation might be present.

      I’m not too aware of internal party discussions on this, but the NPC, the largest and main governing body of the does have younger members, but it does skew older and male.

      There are zero female politicians in positions of high power it seems, for instance the president.

      The NPC is currently 25% women, so they do have some work yet to do in that area. However when you compare that number to other countries, its about average. Also doing better than the US, Ireland, Greece, and a lot of others. And of course socialist Cuba is the model for all countries to emulate with respect to women’s rights.

      Also wanna mention that ever since the cultural revolution in China, the societal focus on women’s liberation has been astounding: women have received free birth control since the 1960s ( this isn’t available in the 2020s in the US), communal kitchens and child care.

      This lack of political power leads sometimes to riots, for instance the stonewall riot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots - and i think in china something like that would be very impossible because it would be seen as danger of counterrevolution

      Strikes are a fairly common occurrence in the PRC, and usually get the support of the government.

      So when people want real change (so for instance female politicians in high positions of power) instead of endless debates without changes, in “western” countries the solution to that is to start a riot to gain attention and force a response.

      This is true in all bourgeois democracies, because there is no democracy for anyone but the rich, and recourse through government channels is impossible, so only riots outside the system can address its ills. That’s not the case with the PRC, which has a fluid working class democracy. I apologize for not being as well read on those internal debates as I can’t yet read Chinese, but I’m sure they’re happening, otherwise its clear that even the state-run media like CGTN wouldn’t be so pro LGBT. And again, this is mostly a generational issue that’s not isolated to one country.

      So in short: this is a good example why i don’t trust china. communism/socialism is interesting but the big authoritative rule in china is bad because riots and demonstrations are healthy for democracies.

      Actual working-class democracy is so incomprehensible to westerners that they can’t imagine a system that’s responsive to its people without riots. This is because governments are not neutral, multi-party bourgeois democracies are in fact capitalist dictatorships, while one-party socialist states are worker’s dictatorships. I suggest reading this thread on worker’s congresses to learn about just one such organ of China’s responsive democracy.

      • @fruechtchen@lemmy.ml
        -1•3 years ago

        Actual working-class democracy is so incomprehensible to westerners that they can’t imagine a system that’s responsive to its people without riots. This is because governments are not neutral, multi-party bourgeois democracies are in fact capitalist dictatorships, while one-party socialist states are worker’s dictatorships. I suggest reading this thread on worker’s congresses to learn about just one such organ of China’s responsive democracy.

        please, don’t call me westerner, altough i live in such a country. This term doesn’t differentiate between any political spectrum and simplifies a lot. Please don’t use it, at least not for me.

        For instance i organize in some leftist anarchocommunist organization and therefore i know how alternative decision making systems can work. I have experienced difficult times where these alternative form of organizing can survive. (so no power abuse and such).

        So its not about lack of imagination, its about trust. Belief in anarchism means for me the belief that every person with big power probably will abuse this power in some kind of another. I don’t think this is different in any countries.

        An actual example from i think soviet russia: i think emma goldman as well as other anarchists have visited the early days of the russian revolution (so i refer here to a book from 1924). There, she writes that there have been some politicial disputes in the communist party and instead of solving them with good consensus the bolshewiki tried to remove those people from power positions.

        The above mentioned anarchocommunist organization has not done that even with heavy conflicts. That’s the reason i trust them.

        But i don’t trust regular stalinist/leninist organizations because they have the political history of solving dispute with power abuse. I don’t trust them because the only way of preventing power abuse from any person is to simply not give one person much political power. That’s the reason why i don’t trust stalinist/leninist organizations, because they usually have a very centralist strategic approach.

        I don’t trust them because they have a strong belief that their viewpoint is the correct one, for instance when i view the work of the local Marxist leninist party. So when faced with criticism, instead of trying to understand the criticism and fixing it, they react with “this divides leftists”.

        Because of this political history, i have deep deep trust problems. It’s not about excluding rich people (that would be fine for me), it’s about actual decision making power by workers.

        The NPC is currently 25% women, so they do have some work yet to do in that area.

        I am not sure who “they” refers to, but in case it is women: i disagree, i see the most responsibility in the people having most power. Xi Jinping or Li Keqiang could stepping down from their position with the condition that a poor working class female worker can fulfill this position.

        But they don’t do it because then they would have much less political influence. And that is what i mean by political power. Xi Jinping or Li Keqiang have political power and they use it for their moral beliefs, as long as they don’t loose political power.

        That’s the reason why i am anarchist. i think many many people would act very similar as Xi Jinping or Li Keqiang in this position. Therefore the only good alternative is to reduce such positions of power or at least regularly change it.

        According to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang this person has had political power for 10 years. That is a very long time, very similar to for instance some western government. So china has to me very similar problems in terms of power and democracy.

        Also doing better than the US, Ireland, Greece, and a lot of others. And of course socialist Cuba is the model for all countries to emulate with respect to women’s rights.

        Yes, that is no suprise and i completely understand that. But still, i see structural sexism in casea of china because i expect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Keqiang or some person in a similar powerful position to be replaced by a female worker.

        in the above anarchocommunist organization, it is very common to regularly change positions of power (for instance people talking to the press or something). This is active work against power abuse because people are not used to be in positions of power. But when you are 10 years in the same position of power, this changes your viewpoint.