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PRC¡¦s harsh crackdown only fuels
instability
By Wang Dan ¤ı¤¦
About half a century ago, the sociologist Robert Merton coined the term
¡§self-fulfilling prophecy.¡¨
According to Merton, a ¡§self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false
definition of the situation,¡¨ but because people choose to believe in the
prophecy, it evokes a new behavior that directly or indirectly causes the
resulting situation to coincide with the prophecy, and it will thus ¡§make the
original false conception come ¡¥true.¡¦¡¨
Similar ideas existed in ancient China: One example is the expression ¡§three men
a tiger make,¡¨ which tells of how rumors about tigers convinced people that
there really was a tiger, although there never was one in the first place.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are quite common in our daily lives. As teachers, for
example, we often encourage our students, who are then stimulated and often
improve.
Self-fulfilling prophecies work not only at an individual level, but often also
have a psychological effect on groups, and as such they can play a major part in
social or historical change. Rumor is often rife in a society prior to major
change, and this is one example of how self-fulfilling prophecies work on
groups. Looking at the calls for a ¡§Jasmine Revolution¡¨ in China today based on
the relationship between group psychology and social change, another significant
aspect appears, and that is that these calls are forcing the government to
create such a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Chinese Communist Party¡¦s (CCP) main concern is stability. By suppressing
freedom of expression and blocking the Internet, it is creating a false
impression of stability. Ironically, it is the CCP that has been the main
destabilizing factor with its response to Jasmine Revolution-inspired incidents.
Although three waves of calls for jasmine-style protests failed to mobilize many
people, the sheer size of the police forces mobilized by the government as a
response was astonishing and rather absurd to behold. Not only did the
authorities seal off venues in Beijing, Shanghai and other big cities, they also
organized street patrols consisting of neighborhood committees and other
organizations that maintain public order at the grassroots level. At
universities and other sensitive institutions, they also began urgently
disseminating propaganda. This created a tense atmosphere around the country.
The only result of this excessive response was to tell the whole country that
something is about to go wrong in China.
Stability predominantly comes from a feeling of stability among the public.
Unrest begins with a feeling of unrest in their minds. If the authorities
repeatedly create an atmosphere of tension at a time when outsiders all agree
that the CCP will be able to maintain its highly suppressive rule and that its
position will not be shaken for the foreseeable future, this holds the seeds of
a self-fulfilling prophecy about instability. If this atmosphere is extended for
a longer period of time, it will take root among the general public, who will
naturally begin to take a more active interest in the instability. When everyone
begins to feel that something is about to happen in China, any small issue is
much more likely to set off a major crisis. In other words, if a prediction of
instability spreads among the public, that instability will sooner or later
become real. This is precisely what a self-fulfilling prophecy means.
By itself, the Jasmine Revolution may not have been able to create this
self-fulfilling prophecy, but it has succeeded in forcing the government into an
excessive reaction and this has resulted in the creation of such a prophecy.
This is necessary for a revolution to break out. Unknowingly, the Chinese
communist authorities have dug their own grave.
Wang Dan is a visiting assistant professor at National Tsing
Hua University.
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