Suppose there were a continuous spate of kidnappings, imprisonment in reeducation camps, forced organ transplants, rapes, and murders in a town called Nowhere Town, USA. The town government itself, taken over by mobsters and worse, is apparently responsible for these evil deeds.
It’s all done with determined secrecy. But it’s the kind of thing hard to keep a lid on.
Word gets out. Former residents of Nowhere Town testify about the terrible things that have happened to them and happened to family members and other people they know. Even a few of the evildoers themselves come forward to talk about the systematic malefaction being perpetrated in the town, which they had gotten caught up in somehow—peer pressure, maybe—but for which they now feel remorse.
It’s in all the newspapers. Not the Nowhere Town newspapers, but all the others. There are investigative reports in The New York Times and elsewhere.
The mobster town officials deny everything. Quite firmly. It’s one of their top skills, firmness of denial, they put a lot of heart and angry peremptoriness into it. Nevertheless, the town has a hard time transcending the injury to its reputation. What can the officials do to convince everybody that there’s nothing going down in Nowhere Town and never has been?
The geniuses in the mayor’s office figure it out. The town must sponsor tours.
The town must bring in groups of schoolchildren and journalists and show them all the pleasant and normal town things. Let them see flower shops, green meadows, birds chirping, bustling and peaceful supermarkets, work crews filling potholes, ethnic dancing, people mowing their lawns and walking down the street, neighbors talking to each other, children laughing—and not a single person, not one, in the process of being kidnapped, reeducated, raped, robbed of an organ, or murdered.
This is the way, the town officials explain to each other, to “counter criticism and promote a positive image of the region.” They must “tell the story of Nowhere Town.” Get the narrative back on track.
Show the people in the tour groups these things—being careful to squire them to only certain parts of town while avoiding other parts, of course—and point out to them, not in any kind of super heavy-handed way but just with standard above-average heavy-handedness, that these are all good things, not bad things.
Tell the people in the tour groups that what we have here in beautiful Nowhere Town is “unity, harmony, prosperity, progress, security and ecological well-being.”
Tell the people in the tour groups to look at the flowers, meadows, people talking, etc. Ask them, “Do these things look like kidnappings, imprisonment in reeducation camps, forced organ transplants, rapes, and murders to you? They don’t, do they? Everything is wonderful here!”
Say to all people everywhere: “We hope that everyone will come to understand Nowhere Town through seeing it with their own eyes, tell the story of Nowhere Town in different languages, and share a true Nowhere Town with the world.”
Fresh from one of these guided tours, would you be a convert to the official town view and eager to communicate it to others? Would you rush to gush on YouTube or Twitter:
“It is totally a different impression and a different reality from what we hear, especially from some media.”
Or:
“If you want to check the level of stress in a town, you should go to public places and look at the face of the people. In Nowhere Town, in the supermarket today, everyone was smiling, so that means they are happy, and if they are happy, we are happy, too. What I see is completely different from what is being told in the media.”
Would you be telling everybody that the people of Nowhere Town “are very satisfied” with the Nowhere Town government’s religious policies?
If not, why not? Would you be unable to believe your own eyes? If you see a bright sunny sky, wouldn’t that be all the proof you need that there has never been a storm?
Also see:
VOA News: “Turkish journalists on China-sponsored Xinjiang tour give positive reports”
The New York Times: “ ‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims”
NBC News: “China forcefully harvests organs from detainees, tribunal concludes”
