Sunday, August 26, 2012

Random mobs



Who knows what really proceeded the events in the above video, but the crowd in the video thinks that the foreign driver, after getting in a traffic altercation with a Chinese woman, slapped her twice and spit on her.  

The clip is in Chinese, but the China Smack post I found it at, Foreigner Slapped & Spat On Chinese Woman, Angers Crowd, breaks it down into its major pieces and explains what's going on. It is an ugly scene, but the resentment isn't really directed individually towards the Westerner in the car. A lot of it is directed towards the police, who they see as serving the elite, as well as against the humiliation Chines feel their 2,000 year old civilization -- which is surely the finest on the planet Earth -- has suffered over the last few centuries.

For example, the woman in green who is seen emotionally yelling towards the end of the clip is saying, “Why must us Chinese be like this? Why is it like this? We demand that he must make an apology, make an apology on the internet, he must. Why did he spit on us Chinese people? Why? Apologize. He must apologize to Chinese people.”

The leap in logic from a traffic accident to the need for a blanket apology to the Chinese seems like a bizarre leap in logic, but to be an outsider is always fraught with a certain amount of danger when things go pear-shaped.

We can see that in today's Mail Online article, Grieving mother blames mob for suicide of her son after rumours he was one of James Bulger's killers in hiding.

The James Bulger killing is a notorious crime in England where two 10 year-olds lured James Bulger, who was a toddle, to some railroad tracks where they tortured and killed him. Because they were juveniles the two killers only spent 7 years in jail before being released and then given new identities. One ended up back in jail, but the other id still free under his secret identity.

Scott Bradley, the man who hung himself, was a handyman and pretty thief who moved to his Mother's house in a rural Scottish village. From the article:
Scott Bradley, 36, was accused of being child murderer Robert Thompson, whose real identity is protected, and suffered months of malicious abuse and torment from a hate mob in the village of Garlieston, Wigtownshire, in Scotland.

His mother Sue Bradley, 66, found her beloved son hanging from the top of their stairs three weeks ago.

Mrs Bradley said her son, a handyman, had turned into a nervous wreck after a campaign of hate in which he was branded a killer and a paedophile.

She said: '(One man) went round telling everyone that my son was definitely Thompson. People started shouting abuse at Scott in the street and calling him a child killer.'

'It was a build-up of months and months of pressure. The worst part for him was feeling helpless. He just couldn't take anymore.'

She said she was shocked at how callous people have been about his death and how little remorse his tormenters have shown.

She told the People: 'The night Scott died a friend was at a party and a woman talked about it and said, "Good result".'

Lest you think the crowd got the right man after all, James Bulger's mother Denise Fergus was horrified when she heard of Bradley's suicide. Also from the article:
Mrs Fergus said: 'What happened to Scott makes my blood run cold.

'I’m shocked and upset that he has apparently taken his own life.

'Whatever the rights and wrongs of this case, this is one that shows how dangerous it is to spread false rumours and gossip about something as serious as the identity of child killers.'

She said: 'Sadly Scott’s death goes to show it is other people who are left to suffer as a result of the official conspiracy, lies and deceit that the authorities have used in this case.'

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They spent 8 years in custody, not 7 (actually nearly 8.5 years as they were released half way through 2001, I believe). Goes to show the authorities were right giving new identities to Thompson and Venables. The British public clearly can't be trusted with some information. (I notice the US has had to do the same with Casey Anthony).

Bit disturbed by Mrs Fergus's statement. She seems to think that action like villagers took against the poor guy in this case would be fine as long as the right people were attacked.

ambisinistral said...

Anon,

Thanks for correcting that. Embarrassingly for me, the article says 8 years too.

Casey Anthony is another good example. I went with two examples because I didn't want to seem like I was whacking the Chinese alone. That stuff happens everywhere.

I'll cut Denise Fergus slack because it was her child that was killed. I can understand her having no sympathy whatsoever for his killers.

Anonymous said...

Lack of sympathy for people who caused such devastation is one thing. Implying that nasty vigilante justice is fine as long as the right targets are 'got at' is not.

As far as I'm concerned, she's been cut enough slack over the years. She has a right to hate. I have a right to say I'm sick of the sight of her. She should be pulled up on such statements.

But with regards mob-law. Perhaps we really haven't developed much from pitchforks and torches.