Flowers for a Cultural Hero !

 Just over a year ago, a doctor working in a hospital in Wuhan province, China noticed a strange new disease appearing in his patients who were connected to a bush meat abattoir in that city.  This disease had SARS like qualaties he had seen before and he quickly alerted his colleagues that a new and dangerous disease had emerged.

That doctor was  Li Wenliang, and he was promptly arrested by his government and humiliated, charged with " spreading rumours " and threatened with disappearing permanently into its extensive prison system.  Cowed into silence, he was released to again work in his hospital, where he treated the growing stream of patients suffering what became known as " coronavirus ".  This 34 year old doctor caught the disease himself, and subsequently died.

For many weeks the Chinese government denied the existence of the disease and this allowed it to escape China and become a world pandemic.  The age of air travel let infected travellers spread the disease to every world continent and now - a year later - it has cost economies trillions of dollars, cost the jobs of millions of people and left behind a death toll of over two million victims.

China has consistently lied to deflect the blame.   They have claimed the disease had an American origin and was introduced into China by their enemy, and then changed that story to claim the disease originated in Europe and travelled to China in frozen vegetable exports.  They have consistently blocked all attempts to determine how this disease started and imposed restrictive tariffs on exports from Australia because our prime minister insisted on making a proper investigation an issue.

Li Wenliang was one of eight doctors disciplined for revealing this new disease.  He was married and his wife was pregnant when he died.  He was proclaimed a " hero " by a noted Chinese epidemiologist and it seems the Chinese public have not forgotten this courageous doctor.  Floral tributes are suddenly appearing on the street where he worked and plain clothed security people are trying to make them disappear.

At long last, a United Nations investigative team is touring Wuhan, long after the Chinese government has erased all evidence from that bush meat abattoir.  Entry to China was steadfastly refused for many months and members visiting this floral tribute are consistently blocked from taking photographs. The Communist government is trying to erase any memory of Li Wenliang..

The Communist party rules China with an iron fist.  Citizens are denied access to the internet and all forms of news is heavily censored.   Perhaps the grip that Xi Jinping exerts on public opinion is less than he imagines.  His heavy handed crushing of democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong have not gone unnoticed, and now those arrested are being held in mainland jails.   The more China tries to suppress the democracy movement, the more it grows.

Perhaps the " cultural revolution " is not yet over in China and as it progresses the name Li Wenliang will be named in its pantheon of heroes  !