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November 28, 2005
Nuns beaten
Hundreds of faithful in the Xian diocese, along with their friends and relatives, protested in the streets of the city yesterday to call for justice against a group of “thugs” who, on the night of November 23, brutally attacked 16 nuns of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sacred Heart Missionaries. These nuns have been admitted to hospital: one has lost her eyesight and another is also in serious condition. The nuns were attempting to prevent the demolition of a school that belongs to the diocese but that city authorities sold to a commercial company.
The nuns had been engaged for several days in a sit-in to protect the empty building. A group of young thugs entered the building the night of November 23 and repeatedly beat them. It is not known if the group had been sent by the government or by the company to which the mayor had sold the building. The government has called for a black-out on news of the violence and has not yet decided what measures it will take. Yesterday, however, several Chinese Catholic internet sites spread news of the incident
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But relations between the Church and China are thawing!
The government is allowing the official "church" and the Underground Church to merge!
We should derecognize Taiwan to give them confidence!
Posted by: Samuel J. Howard at Nov 28, 2005 9:32:50 AM
Beating up and killing nuns seems to be the popular sport right now, what with all the stuff going on in Malaysia and Indonesia and what have you. Evil hates them with a special hate, it seems.
Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down!
Posted by: Maureen at Nov 28, 2005 9:45:22 AM
What is WRONG with people? Well, yes, I know, sin, falleness, ignorance, pride, etc...But beating nuns? Protesting peacefully? It makes me sick.
Posted by: Nerina at Nov 28, 2005 11:26:55 AM
Zhou,
If you read this post, do you have some insight or a more positive take on this event? I am not being nasty or facetious, I am genuinely curious.
Here is my understanding from the post:
1) building owned by the diocese is taken by government and sold to private developer (hmm, sounds like a certain recent reprehensible US Supreme CT decision)
2) nuns protest by sit-in (hmm, sounds like a certain recent action by Boston-area parishioners trying to save their church)
3) enter thugs, who beat up nuns...
I'm having trouble with this one. If government soldiers or police had been sent to remove the nuns, I actually could understand that. But it seems that's not what happened. This sounds a lot more like the government hiring the Mafia, or a king asking whether no one will rid him of a certain pesky Archbishop. Not that these things haven't been known to happen, but they are deplorable when they do.
Posted by: scotch meg at Nov 28, 2005 3:05:12 PM
Dear Scotch Meg,
There is nothing I can say about this that might provide "a more positive take."
It is tragic.
There is very little information available.
Perhaps as far as "what in the world is going on?" I might make a few comments.
(1) Western and American buisnesses are moving deeper into China, from the crowded and relatively expensive coastal cities such as Shanghai. See, for example, recent BusinessWeek article of November 14.
...In a sumptuous compound of sculpted gardens and plush banquet halls in south Beijing, executives from a long list of multinationals, including Boeing (BA ), Caterpillar (CAT ), Goodyear (GT ), Alcoa (AA ), Unisys (UIS ), and Microsoft (MSFT ), sipped cocktails and dined on such Sichuan delicacies as twice-cooked pork, diced duck with pepper on pastry shells, and dan-dan noodles. Their hosts for the Oct. 26 event were a delegation of top officials from Sichuan, a western province 2,000 km from Beijing that is eager to lure new investment away from the coastal cities that have been the center of China's business boom....
Companies including General Motors (GM ), Honda (HMC ), Intel (INTC ), and Motorola (MOT ) now run operations in interior provinces. They report no shortage of skilled labor -- and increasingly vibrant consumer markets. "Companies that don't look at inland China will find themselves disadvantaged," says Emory Williams, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, which reports that 50% of U.S. member companies have already invested in second-tier cities. Amcham-organized delegations, including executives from Chevron (CVX ), Rockwell Automation Inc. (ROK ), and Ohio-based manufacturer Eaton (ETN ), recently scouted new investment opportunities in Xinjiang, whose capital Urumqi is 2,500 km from Beijing, as well as Inner Mongolia and Yunnan, which borders Vietnam. "When I talk to manufacturers, they say they will never build another plant in Shanghai -- it's too expensive," says Michael Hart, Shanghai-based head of Greater China research for real estate consultancy Jones Lang Lasalle. "They need to go further inland to find land and people."
...
For many manufacturers, the market is right outside their door. Intel Corp. justifies the $450 million it is spending on two assembly plants for chipsets in Chengdu by pointing out that computer sales in the region are growing by as much as 45% a year. Boise, Idaho-based semiconductor maker Micron Electronics Inc. has just announced it will sink $250 million into a new plant in the ancient city of Xian in the neighboring province of Shaanxi. "Both cities have very young and energetic, ambitious, results-oriented politicians," says Ian Yang, Asia Pacific general manager for Intel.
...
Remember a couple of weeks ago the news about a bishop arrested in northern China? There were farmer protests about their land being taken, and thugs came in to beat up the farmers. There was a news blackout. They are building a new Walmart in the city where the bishop was arrested.
(2) Xian is an ancient capital of China, a city of several million people. It is in the midst of a massive rebuild and modernization.
The property in question, an elementary school, has not been in the possesion of, or operated by, the missionary sisters since the revolution under Mao. The sisters were operating their school in a different building, according to the AsiaNews article.
n the past, the building had been the location of the “School of the Rosary”, an elementary school run by the nuns. At the time of Mao Zedong, all schools had been nationalized and buildings were requisitioned. The School of the Rosary also became a state school.In the 1980s, after the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese government established that all buildings requisitioned during Maoism be returned to their legitimate owners. But still today, as far as the Church is concerned, many buildings are still held by the Party.
As a justification for not returning such buildings, the government cites their “social” function, as has been the case for the School of the Rosary which has never been returned to the Xian diocese.
The school, however, has been operating for several months in another location and the original building has been empty for some time.
I suspect, having no other information, the the building is probably in a more central part of Xian which is being redeveloped. One could even hypothesize that an American company might be building a factory on the site. Who knows? I don't.
(3) I think it is tragic that the sisters decided to "take a stand" insisting that the building that they have not possessed or used since, perhaps, the 1950's, be returned to them. Was this their idea? Why? Was it the idea of the Bishop? During the cultural revolution the Xian St. Francis Cathedral was changed into a candy factory. (Ref.)
When governments and business decide to develop or redevelop land, groups outside of power can to little to resist. Unfortunately, this happens everywhere, even in the US. Sometimes, these stand-offs between different, unequal parties claiming rights to a land or building result in tragic violence. The American Indians, the African Americans, the Mexican Americans, the Chinese Americans, and many similar groups have suffered the loss of properties and buildings, sometimes with violence, at the hands of business developers (often with government approval, tacit or explicit). It is not just a Chinese story, but a human story. It continues today around the world.
The strong, wealthy and powerful take from the weak.
The strong, wealthy and powerful beat and kill the weak if they resist.
Posted by: Old Zhou at Nov 28, 2005 4:05:48 PM
