Today I came across this impressive article written by a punk musician Tang Shui’en (I would assume it was translated by a professional), who discussed his understanding and practice of anarchism, freedom of expression and action. This was published almost 5 years ago. I tried to Google and Baidu Tang Shui’en (and 唐水恩) quickly but didn’t find much information about his updates…. Still thought this is an interesting piece. Tang seems to be a well-read punk.
It is a super long article and I copied and pasted some interesting pieces:
I know now that punk is not merely noise, that it is interwoven with a profound alternative sociology and philosophy. The moment this window opened, all sorts of ideas relating to activism and social resistance came rushing forth, such as anti-authoritarianism, direct democracy, direct action, anti-consumerism, anti-neoliberal economic globalization, anti-eviction struggles, and “participatory media” [人人皆媒体].
My friends and I started to believe that, by changing (or “revolutionizing”) our everyday lives, we could change the world, or at least change ourselves through study, going from modern slaves to social actors with a sense of dignity.
Regardless of whether communication is being carried out within our collective or with outsiders, we have no choice but to work on redefining terms we will inevitably have to use – such as the word “politics.” Politics is not state administration by parties or special interest groups, it is our participation as subjects in the construction of social relations.
At almost every level there are terms that must be redefined toward the restoration of our dignity as subjects. This task is not just the duty of intellectuals, but also an obligation for everyone to carry out in our daily lives.
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Authors are CEO of Ctrip Liang Jianzhang; and Huang Wenzheng, graduated PhD from John Hopkins’ Biostatistics, has worked in Millenium Operations in New York
作者梁建章为“携程旅行网” CEO兼董事会主席，黄文政为约翰霍普金斯大学生物统计学博士
1, The family planning trajectory and change of population trend in Singapore deserves China’s careful retrospection. Compared to the time in Singapore when it was going through population policy change, the current low birth rate in China is actually more serious.
1, 新加坡的生育政策轨迹和人口形势变化对中国具有重大的警醒意义。相较于人口政策逆转时的新加坡，中国目前的低生育率危机更加严峻。
2, First, China’s family planning policy has been implemented much longer than Singapore. From 1970 to 1988, Singapore only carried out its family planning policy for 18 years. China started in 1977 and it has been 44 years. Singapore is a small country and it is faster to change direction for a small boat. But still it was difficult to change the strong habitus of low birth rate. China is a huge country. And there is huge resistance towards changing any kind of thoughts or social mechanism. It is going to be more difficult to deal with the low birth rate crisis.
2, 首先，中国限制生育的时间远比新加坡更久。从1970年到1988年，新加坡节育政策仅持续了18年，而中国自1971年开始推行计划生育迄今已持续44年。新加坡是个小国，船小掉头快，但即便这样也难以扭转生育率下行的强大惯性。中国是个大国，各种观念、社会机制的惯性远比新加坡更大。应对低生育率危机将更加艰难。
3, Second, China carried a much more intensified family planning policy than Singapore. At its hey day, Singapore made people have two children at most. For each family’s third child in Singapore they simply got rid of relevant welfare. However, in China in cities generally only one child is allowed and for the countryside they only allow families to have a second child if their first was a girl. For those who exceeded the quota of family planning there is serious compulsory punishment including huge fine, demolition of houses and demotion.
3, 其次，中国限制生育的力度远比新加坡更大。新加坡限制生育最严厉的时候也允许生育两个孩子，对三孩的惩罚不过是取消一些相关福利，而中国在城市里普遍只允许一胎，农村一般也只是允许头胎是女孩的家庭生育二孩。对所谓“超生”的惩罚包括征收高额社会抚养费，牵牛扒房，到开除公职等各种强制性手段。
4, Third, when the birth rate in Singapore was around 1.6 they had started to realize its damage and timely stopped the family planning policy. They started to encourage giving birth. However in China in the past few years birth rate is less than 1.4 and right now there is still just discussion on whether they should allow more second child. Even if there is complete permission of the second child, its birth control is much more severe than the policy in Singapore which stipulated that “two was enough”. In terms of encouraging birth, China is far from getting there.
4,再次，新加坡在生育率处于1.6时就意识到低生育率的危害，果断停止节育，并开始鼓励生育。而中国近年的生育率不到1.4，到今天还在讨论是否要放开二胎生育。就算是全面二胎政策，其生育限制的强制性也要大于新加坡限制生育最严厉时期的"两个孩子就够了"的政策。至于鼓励生育在中国更是遥遥无期。
5, Lastly, the culture of giving birth is much more severely damaged than in Singapore. In Chinese cities, giving birth to just one child has become a default and the countryside is also trying to copy cities. This is unprecedented in human history. What’s more worth noting is that since Singapore has shifted its family planning policy and started to encourage giving birth, it couldn’t stop the trend of a decreasing birth rate. This signifies that the crisis of low birth rate is going to become more serious. For a country that has not fully realized the necessity of encouraging birth, China is going to be on a difficult path to recover birth rate.
5, 最后，中国生育文化遭受的破坏程度远比新加坡严重。在中国城市，生育一孩已经成为正常的默认选择，而农村在向城市看齐。这是人类历史从未有过的现象。
更值得注意的是，新加坡在生育政策逆转后，强力鼓励生育也未能阻止生育率的一路下滑。这预示着，低生育率危机更严重，根本还未认识到鼓励生育必要性的中国，未来要将生育率恢复正常将难上加难。
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