Jottings from the Granite Studio

A horrific story out of Guizhou this past weekend, as riots grip a county there over the death of a teenage girl and the severe beating of her uncle.  AFP has the details and Richard at TPD offers some thoughts and a space for discussion by the usual suspects inhabiting his duck pond.

It’s always tough to judge motivation in acts of collective violence, as several of Richard’s commentators have noted.  That said, latent anger or frustration can react with the catalyst of rumors or events in explosive ways if no other means are available to address ongoing problems or vent grievances.  Perhaps this case strikes me because of a slight similarity to my own dissertation research on the “Tianjin Massacre” 天津教案. In that case, as in this one, perceptions of justice obstructed or denied by the powers that be resulted in people taking matters into their own hands.  Then as now, long standing hostilities–in Tianjin 1870 it was the high-handedness of the foreign powers–find an outlet through acts of violence in a mighty yawp of vengeance.

(Ah, there’s a working title: “A Mighty Yawp of Vengeance,” flows better than what I’m currently using: “A Lynchin’ in Tientsin”)

Whatever the current status of this case, what is perhaps most interesting is the perception by the people that the local government is sufficiently corrupt so as to make the rumors–as yet unsubstantiated–plausible, plausible enough that when mixed with opportunity and given support by numbers, it can allow the participants to justify to themselves acts of violence in the name of justice.

It’s a tragic story, even more so if the charges against county officials prove to be true, and it is a situation that bears watching in the week ahead.