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Who even thinks up this stuff? Why? Yeah I get "to de legitimise the Taiwanese govt", 1984 Newspeak, etc. But people are going to convey the idea one way or an
by benj111 8y ago
Who even thinks up this stuff? Why?
Yeah I get "to de legitimise the Taiwanese govt", 1984 Newspeak, etc. But people are going to convey the idea one way or another. Its just petty and pointless. I suppose you could say that about a lot of censorship, but this just takes it to an extra level.
- dis-sys 8y agowhat they didn't tell you is the fact that the current government in Taiwan also refuse to display this exact same flag. I posted links in my reply this thread, don't get too shocked when you read the full story. The real question to be asked is why people always tell the censored version of the story in line with their political stands.
- benj111 8y agoFrom what I can read (wikipedia) your links say the opposite. "The flag has a ubiquitous presence in Taiwan", "found in numerous government offices in Taiwan and is that which the President and Vice President face to take the oath of office". So what is your political 'stand' in this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_Chin...
- theobeers 8y agoIt's a bit like the efforts of the Iranian government to force people to use the term "Persian Gulf" rather than "Arabian Gulf." They passed a law in 2010 that was supposed to ban any international airline from Iranian airspace, if it referred to the body of water as the "Arabian Gulf" in its in-flight maps or other public displays. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/iran-airlines-persian-gulf https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/feb/22/iran-airlines-...
- aaomidi 8y agoI don't think these are similar at all honestly
- schappim 8y agoHow so?
- darkpuma 8y agoBecause "Arabian Gulf", not "Persian Gulf" is the newspeak. Perhaps anti-Iranian bias (disturbingly common in the west these days) has colored your perception of this issue.
- theobeers 8y agoI’m a Persianist first and foremost, but I also spent time living in Oman, and it seems ludicrous to me that the legitimacy of the way that Gulf Arabs refer to the body of water bordering their countries (al-Khalīj al-‘Arabī, “the Arabian Gulf”) should be challenged. How could we possibly demand that one name or the other be used everywhere in the world?
- amiraliakbari 8y agoFrom Wikipedia: > The body of water is historically and internationally known as the "Persian Gulf". Some Arab governments refer to it as the "Arabian Gulf" or "The Gulf", but neither term is recognized internationally.
- baddox 8y agoIt’s only “petty” if you know about the censorship, which obviously is not what China intends to happen. The people in 1984 weren’t talking about how petty it was that the party censored that news article the other day. They just literally never know about that news article.
- benj111 8y agoI said 1984 newspeak. That isn't censorship per se. It's removing the vocabulary to express a dissenting opinion.
- eponeponepon 8y agoThe Orwell comparisons may seem trite to you, but the fact is that if there's no available word for a thing, it becomes difficult for people at large to discuss it. Some organisations conclude that if the masses can't name a thing, then it's impossible for anyone to think of it, and that this makes it go away. Personally I think this underestimates individual people's capacity to think up new names for things, and is therefore doomed to failure.
- benj111 8y ago"Personally I think this underestimates individual people's capacity to think up new names for things, and is therefore doomed to failure" Agreed, so I'm not sure why you're disagreeing? I only mentioned it, to show I understand the wider context, so when I ask "why?" I don't get a load of "because censorship" answers. So not intended to come across as trite.
- eponeponepon 8y agoI'm not disagreeing :-)
- benj111 8y agoOh good, that was easy :) Now lets solve Brexit! :ducks:
- geowwy 8y agoIn this case the PRC is trying to combat something that might be seen as undermining the One-China Policy. Their argument would be that you don't have flags for other illegitimate governments so why have one for this illegitimate government? Governments have to periodically kick up a fuss about these kind of things or it can be used to undermine their territorial claims, etc. Similar stuff happens when companies start frivolous lawsuits about trademarks just so it can't be argued they aren't defending their trademarks.
- benj111 8y agoDoes the British government banning or allowing the IRA flag legitimise or delegitimise their presence in Northern Ireland? What about Spain and the Basque flag? I would contend that the fact you feel you need to ban it, legitimises it. Plus Taiwan's government is democratically elected, so if you go down the path of illegitimate governments, Chinas ruling party isn't looking so great there either. I agree though, that probably is what they're trying to do. It just comes across as petty and pointless.
- philistine 8y agoWhat is at play is not the existence of the flag, but its presence amongst that flags of Earth’s country. The basque and IRA flags are not in your phone’s keyboard with every other nation. If they were it would absolutely be controversial.
- throwawayhhg5fd 8y agoThink of it like trademark protection. If a company does not vigorously protect their trademark, then they can lose it.