Tuesday, June 12, 2001

There are some interesting contradictions in the Government's attitude towards Falun Gong. I know nothing of the finer points of the [group]'s religious opinions, but as a subject for political infamy, it displays a most inconsistent set of features. First of all, we have the critics who say Falun Gong is a threat to the central Government. This is a dramatic assertion. The central Government is a substantial and well-funded organisation with several large uniformed forces devoted to its protection.

If Falun Gong is a threat to this durable institution, then we must suppose it to be well-organised, militant and rational. Otherwise, the charge is a con. Actually, Falun Gong appears to have no political views except that it should not itself be persecuted. If this is a deception, it is an extremely deft and persistent one.

So far we are clearly still in rational territory. I suppose it is possible for sensible people to believe that beneath the group's apparently placid exterior there lurks a serious rebellion in the making. Certainly, if local officials really believe this, then they are justified in keeping an eye on things.

But this suspicion is scarcely compatible with another charge levied at the group: that it is a small bunch of raving loonies likely at any moment to attempt a gas attack on an MTR station.

The two pictures simply are not compatible. Either the group is an efficient underground organisation like - well, like the [party' name omitted] Party used to be. Or it is a madhouse. It cannot be both.

Then there is the third possibility, advanced by the "give a dog a bad name and hang it" brigade: the group is likely at some unspecified future moment to feel a sudden overwhelming urge to mass suicide. I cannot help detecting a whiff of hypocrisy in the pretence that the SAR Government's real concern is to protect the group's members from themselves.

How much credit, after all, can we give to the claim that Falun Gong is in some way reminiscent of the Jonestown massacre? Jim Jones' group, the People's Temple, was a small tightly knit sect that went off to live in the jungle in incestuous isolation. Its members did not burn themselves to death in a politically sensitive square.

Someone who claims to have been irresistibly reminded of the Jonestown tragedy by the alleged Falun Gong suicides in Tiananmen Square has a memory with a highly developed sense of political self-censorship. Otherwise, his memory would surely have thrown up examples - such as those Buddhist monks who burned themselves publicly in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s - in which suicide was used with some political purpose.

I find the comparison with the Jones group completely spurious. Local members of Falun Gong are clearly not under the mesmeric spell of their [founder] Li Hongzhi, who is never here. If there is something which keeps them attached to the group, it is probably the excellent effects on their health.

I am surprised the local medical profession has not deigned to comment on this point. We are told Falun Gong members engage in controlled breathing, gentle exercises and meditation. They find they feel better. This is not surprising. It is well known that with controlled breathing you can produce a mild and harmless euphoria, which is no doubt welcome.

The good effects, both physical and mental, of meditation were amply documented long ago by scientific supporters. And then there is the exercise. Some members have claimed publicly that they do gentle exercises for two hours every morning. This is good for you. We should all be so energetic.

Of course, it is true Falun Gong members do not just do exercises. They are required to believe some things which seem unlikely to the rest of us. But then, so are local members of the National People's Congress. About the Buddhist, or Taoist, or both, part of Falun Gong, I would like to say only two things. The first is that any religion you are not used to tends to look implausible. Most faiths ask you to believe the impossible. That is why they are called faiths.

The second point, which to some extent follows from the first, is that we should not suppose because people believe in a strange religion they are in any serious sense different from the rest of us.

It is a notorious fallacy to suppose that all religions are the same, as the population of Afghanistan would no doubt tell you, if they were allowed to. But people who believe in unusual religions can be perfectly normal in other aspects of their lives.

I once had a close personal relationship with a woman who deeply and sincerely believed the 16th incarnation of God was alive, well and living on the banks of a river in Pakistan. She meditated regularly and followed strict, inconvenient rules about diet, which also applied to me, at least in her presence. In other respects, this woman was perfectly conventional. She did not attack stations, attempt suicide or wish to subvert the government any more than was fashionable for students at the time.

Emphasising the strangeness of Falun Gong beliefs is just another way of preparing the ground for persecution.

The scene is depressingly reminiscent of some of the sadder episodes in European history in which members of particular religions and cultures, now regarded as boring and respectable, were accused of heinous crimes. It was said Catholics could not be loyal because of their allegiance to the Pope. Quakers were traitors because they would not serve in the armed forces. Calvinists cheated everyone but each other. Gypsies were witches and horse thieves. Jews ate babies.

This is a sordid business. Better for all our reputations if the Government steers well clear of it.

Tim Hamlett (hamlett@hkbu.edu.hk) is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism at the Baptist University.

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