Books
The truth about Tibet, now in book formPosted by Joel Martinsen on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 8:04 PM
Just three weeks have passed since the Lhаsa riots on 14 March, but the first book on the subject has already been published. Lies and the Truth (谎言与真相), published on 4 March by SDX Joint Publishing (aka Sanlian Bookstore), is a book with a mission: it attempts to reveal the hand of the "Dаlai clique" behind unrest in Tıbet as well as the extent of the western media's bias in its reporting on the riots and their aftermath. From the jacket copy:
The book's publication was accompanied by a media blitz, including a mention on the 7 o'clock news and a recent interview in the GAPP newspaper China Press and Publishing Journal with Sanlian's Zhang Weimin: China Press and Publishing Journal: On 4 April, CCTV's Network News reported that Sanlian Bookstore, a unit of the China Publishing Group, had just published Lies and the Truth. What was your motivation in publishing this book? Ever since Zou Taofen founded Sanlian Bookstore, we have had a tradition of championing the health of the country and the people, and of paying close attention to social problems. In recent years, Sanlian has published a number of significant books; therefore, when the leadership of China Publishing Group suggested that we edit a book responding to the western media's distorted reporting on the Lhаsa riots, there was immediate agreement, and we went straight to work. CPPJ: Could you tell us a little bit about what's inside the book? CPPJ: Reportedly, Lies and the Truth was edited and published in very short time frame. Could you tell us a bit about that process? CPPJ: What has the market reaction been to this book's publication? What sort of plans does Sanlian have for publicity and marketing? * * *
Some thoughts: Question 1: What's the point? The articles reproduced in Lies and the Truth come from the People's Daily, Guangming Daily, China News, and Xinhuanet, all of which are available online, and the glossary is taken verbatim from the Encyclopedia of China (中国大百科全书). Many of these, the Xinhua articles in particular, were republished in local newspapers across the country. The "substantial photographic evidence" originated online where it was viewed by millions of people. The first print run of the book is 10,000 copies, more or less. Even allowing for the additional printings that Zhang mentions in the interview, there's no way that the book can compete with the Internet in providing exposure to this topic. The newspaper articles shouldn't be any more authoritative now that they're in book form, although there is indeed a permanence to books that the Internet still lacks. That wouldn't explain the need for such a quick turnaround—is the China Publishing Group simply cashing in on a wave of public opinion? This task used to belong to the bootleggers, whose quick-to-press, shoddily printed and bound collections of news reports flooded the streets in the wake of major events such as the Chen Liangyu scandal, 9-11, and the death of Princess Di. Lies and the Truth falls into the same category, except that it comes on nicely-bound, quality paper inside a serious, scholarly cover bearing the imprimatur of Sanlian Bookstore. It's essentially prettied-up pamphleteering. But who reads pamphlets anymore? Question 2: How does CNN come off? CNN was accused of having an anti-China bias when Chinese netizens discovered that it had used a cropped photo of a Lhаsa street scene that left out rioters on the right-hand side who were throwing rocks at military vehicles. As online shorthand to represent anger at western media bias, "Anti-CNN" signatures and websites are understandable, particularly when you realize that netizens adapted the current catch-phrase "Don't behave like CNN!" (做人不能太CNN) from an earlier slogan lambasting CCTV for its underhanded tactics in an early-2007 poll (the slogan was revived for the recent "yellow violence" affair). But what started as an online meme has become an axiom in the discussion of the Lhаsa riots: CNN's reports can't be trusted. Unfortunately, this book's analysis is just as superficial. Page 39 (shown at right) reproduces two photos of a street scene in Lhаsa. The top one, in which the rock-throwers on the right-hand side have been cropped out, is captioned
The photo was not taken directly from CNN but rather from a forum post complaining about the cropping (see the watermark in the lower left). And the text, with its gratuitous jab at the AFP's own watermark, is obviously inspired by the commentary in the original post, though the book's editors wisely chose not to reproduce the references to "human scum" in the cropped portion of the picture. Ironically, the "original photo" on the bottom of the page bleeds off the right-hand margin of the book—it ends up as a cropped photo that omits the AFP citation. Nowhere in the text is CNN's original caption to the cropped photo: "Tıbetans throw stones at army vehicles as a car burns on a street in the capital of Lhаsa" (screengrab via ESWN). Question 3: Anything special about the title? "Truth" (真相) is often used in the title of books that purport to pull back the curtain on conspiracies—Mirror Books' famous 真相 series, for example, includes June Fοurth: The True Stοry, The Last Days of Zhou Enlаi, and Sky Buriаl. The term was once on a list of sensitive words, probably because of this series. On the other hand, Sanlian's book is not the first one to use the title Lies and the Truth. A compendium of hoaxes bearing the subtitle "Great Hoaxes and Mysteries Revealed" was published by Enterprise Management Publishing House in 2003. So this pamphlet's in good company. Lies and the Truth can be found on displays by the front entrances of major Beijing bookstores, and ought to be available online before long. Links and Sources
|
Warning: include(/home/danwei/webapps/htdocs/sidebarA.inc): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/laodanwei/www/www/books/lies_truths_and_the_profit_mot.php on line 336 Warning: include(): Failed opening '/home/danwei/webapps/htdocs/sidebarA.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php74/lib/php') in /home/laodanwei/www/www/books/lies_truths_and_the_profit_mot.php on line 336 Warning: include(/home/danwei/webapps/htdocs/sidebarB.inc): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/laodanwei/www/www/books/lies_truths_and_the_profit_mot.php on line 342 Warning: include(): Failed opening '/home/danwei/webapps/htdocs/sidebarB.inc' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/local/php74/lib/php') in /home/laodanwei/www/www/books/lies_truths_and_the_profit_mot.php on line 342 |
Comments on The truth about Tibet, now in book form
when the "truth" is so easy to tell, is it unreasonable that it be told so quickly?
reflection is folly.
The Met's finest will surely be miffed at being mistaken for les flics...
link
I think they have given the book a very dialectical title.
This book is useless because it's written in Chinese and the aim should be to "educate" the west. Unless the purpose of it was to further increase the patriotic feelings of the Chinese people and make a few bucks for its publisher.
Flex: and vice-versa, to so much printed in the West.
to the last paragraph of "Question 2: How does CNN come off? ":
Why cnn title the picture"Tibetans throw stones..." AND cut them off??
How about a picture titled "Joel Martinsen walking his dog"AND only a dog on show
Such a cnn fan~
The speed in which this all encompassing study comes out reminds me of how major newspapers shelf pre-written obits so when the famous personality passes, they have a long, ready-for-print piece asap for the morning editions!
Guess the CCP does the same thing in reference to "incidents".
I can't quite understand why people think cutting off the part of the photo showing the stone-throwing youths to be necessarily pro Tibetan.
Many people looking at such a scene would find it an inspiring example of courage as lightly armed citizens take on the military might of the authoritarian state. Certainly more admirable than lynching your neighbours on ethnic grounds as other young Tibetans did.
I suspect the splenetic educated youth who infest the Internet are in fact so effete as to not understand the genuine uses and readings of anger in the real world they are so divorced from. Just like they so little understand the past and present of the country they think they are defending.
All nations, and especially the US should boycott the open ceremonies. I believe it is the best compromise position. The athletes still get to compete but China gets exposed to the full measure of world displeasure with their horrible human rights abuses.
这本书的标题很搞笑.都到21世纪了,竟然还在提"谎言与真相"的说法,谁能告诉我什么是谎言,什么是真相?
作为中国人,我承认中国人有很多问题,西藏,新疆,包括我们汉人自己.但我觉得各国的朋友不应该抵制中国办奥运会,如果你们真的是有所谓的良心,不要老是在政治上作出姿态(反正中国又不报道,谁不参加也无所谓,咱们自娱自乐也行),光说不做.而应该利用此次举世瞩目的机会向中国GOVT施加压力,促使其履行其所作的承诺,促使中国的改变.这样才对一个更加健康的中国有好处,对中国人民有好处,也对全世界有好处.
any one have read the mind blowing book the Shadow of Dalai Lama by Victor
and Victoria Trimondi? they are former insider of the Dalai circle who turned disillusioned with the man and his religion. they are said to be black listed for what they wrote in the book.
Seems the Republican Party in the US and the citizens of the PRC can unit against the common foe of "the biased western media"
First they unite with the commies and take down Richard Nixon, now they have aligned themselves with the exiled monarch of a feudal slave society to break apart the hegemony of the PRC.
Just don't let those western media people trick you into watching that purple telletubby