SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

Introduction Our group created a blog (http://religiousdiscriminationgroup.blogspot.com/), focusing on religious discrimination around the world, to expose governmental oppression towards a certain religion or a religion oppressing its believers. The articles in our blog feature some events that have happened in the past century that screams racial discrimination. We believe that these events are worth writing for in this alternative platform, given its seriousness and how large their influence has been. Initially, our main focus was only on religion, and our draft topics were The Tibetan Buddhism Culture, Life and Behaviour of Muslims in China, Differences Between Catholics and Protestants, Origin of Taoism in China and Jehovah Witnesses Refuses Blood Donation. However, a discussion about the topic Differences Between Catholics and Protestants has forced us to rethink and realign our group focus because this is one of the widest topics in the world, with hundreds of denominations in each Catholic and Protestant. Three out of five topics we have decided on are related to China because the authors are from China. This has also given us a slight advantage in obtaining information because they are able to read it from the inside, looking through blogs and news articles from China itself.

SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

Design and Layout The blogs layout was designed to be neat and clear, considering the seriousness of these topics that we are discussing. We have included videos, articles and extra information for those who would like extra readings. Also, by including our contacting email, readers are able to write in any concerns or misconceptions in our articles. There is a warning included in the sidebar, to alert sensitive readers that these articles may be offensive. It is the only part of all text in red colour, to attract readers attention to that part of the blog and read the warning before the rest of the texts. Our blog is divided into 7 parts Home, China Muslims, Jehovah Witnesses, Holocaust, Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism and Resources. Home is the main page where all articles are displayed according to dates, from the latest. China Muslims, Jehovah Witnesses, Holocaust, Tibetan Buddhism and Taoism are our five topics. All articles and videos related to its own topic will be tagged and appear on its separate pages. Lastly in Resources, readers are able to find all videos and extra information on all our topics. At the end of every article, there are direct links to our story sources and extra information on the particular topic. There are also images and videos in the articles to provide some visual attraction to readers. Some images are deeply disturbing, for example in Holocaust, the first image was an actual picture of people sent to be ki lled or tortured as slaves, or the first image in Tibetan Buddhism, where it is a picture of a man who has set himself on fire in a protest. Most of these pictures are found online, however without the curiosity, it will never be seen. Therefore, we have chosen disturbing images if possible to be at the top, so that it could leave an imprint in the readers mind.

SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

Objectives and Outcome Our blog was created with the objectives to raise awareness of religious discrimination of different religion in different parts of the world, to raise awareness on religious freedom and freedom in religion, to expose discrimination and controlling behaviours, whether from the religion to its believers or from authorities towards the religion and to engage readers to think about their own religion and society. We hope that readers will be aware of religious discrimination, and its effects towards the immediate society. Our goal is to allow readers to think for themselves, to see the signs of a religion being oppressed or believers being oppressed by their religion, and realize are they in a similar situation.

SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

Religious Discrimination Article Summary There are five different topics that we have chosen to focus on: Religious freedom in China China Muslims, Jehovah Witnesses refuses blood transfusion, Holocaust in World War II, Tibetan Buddhist protesting by burning themselves alive, and Taoist banned under Communist rule. Firstly, Guan Wei wrote an article on how Taoists were persecuted by the Communist. Taoism was a widely practiced religion until 1949. In the article, there is also a comparison of Taoists position in China before and after 1949, and how drastic the change was. The governments act of banning a religion has affected not only the shamans, commonly known as the religious leaders, where they have lost both their religion and their job, but also Chinas religious dynamic. Secondly, Erika Chong wrote an article about a court ruling in Australia that forced a blood transfusion for an underage child, who is a Jehovahs Witness. The article investigated the source of interpretation that confined the childs rights to accept blood transfusion, and to look at what would happen if she did. This article has also investigated few other cases in the past where Witnesses were forced by court order to undergo blood transfusion, and what happened to them after that. Thirdly, Rosalyn Lim wrote on the killing of Jews in Holocaust during World War II. The article explains who are the Nazis, what is Holocaust and how the Jews were discriminated and later subjected to death. The article also explained how the Holocaust has impacted Jews today and those who have survived then, and how the Holocaust influenced Israels motto today.

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Fourthly, Luo Zheng Ping wrote an article based on the Tibetan Protest, where Tibetan Buddhist burned themselves alive in protest for freedom. The article explains why the Tibetan Buddhist are protesting this way, and what has driven them to this extent of protest. The article also gives readers a brief overview of Tibetan Buddhism, its structure and the impact it has in China. Lastly, Huang Luxi wrote an article about Muslims in China, how they are seemed different in their communities although the government had declared religious freedom. This article mainly focuses on issues surrounding the hijab. The article also explores some religious practices that are lawfully banned, and how it is a common phenomenon in China to see a Muslim looked down upon.

In a nutshell, we have written all articles after reading both sides of the story. We have included original links to ensure transparency and for ethical purposes. We believe that alternative media, especially the internet, can make a huge difference in peoples views and opinions.

SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

Attachment: Original Articles China Muslims Are They Really Free? Chinese Muslims have been in China for the last thousand years of continuous interaction with Chinese society. In every region of China, you can find Muslims. The highest concentrations are in the northwest provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu, and Ningxia. Majority of people in China have no religion, leading to the effects of Muslims being looked down and discriminated.

Muslim women uses hijab, a piece of cloth covering their head and neck. But in China, people stare at them and give them weird looks. What is worse, Chinese will ask them lots of unnecessary questions and so on. For example, Chinese like to take photos with the people who are wearing hijab. But if he suddenly wrapped his arm around the Muslims shoulder as if she is a tourist attraction, what will he feel? As a consequence, many Chinese Muslims felt very embarrassing and stopped covering their head.

According to a news report on Weibo which is written by a Chinese Muslim, she said that she did not like wear a hijab in China because it is weird and she felt that she was attracting everyone's attention by covering her head. In addition, in many Chinese Muslim food restaurants, people also can find bottles of Chinese liquor. All these social phenomenon is against the Muslims religious beliefs

According to the Quran in Surah 24, verse 31, it clearly says that: "And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their modesty and do not display their beauty and ornaments except what appears thereof, and let them draw
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their veils over their bosoms, and not reveal their ornaments except to their husbands". From this sentences, we can know that, as a Muslim, it is their religion belief to wear a hijab. But in China, they are not treated fair, their religion is discriminated by the Chinese. In China, even though there is no specific law to restrict Muslims to wear covers but there has the social environment affects their religion behaviour. To worsen the condition, the government also do not have any rule to protect Islam in China.

In Muslim countries, a man can have many wives. But in China, it is not legal and permitted. Because according to Chinese law, a Chinese citizen only can have one life partner no matter their religious beliefs. All Chinese Muslims are forced to disregard their religious beliefs, just because the law said so and they are often disrespected and discriminated for what they believe in.

Basically, besides the discrimination above, there are still many religion discrimination phenomena in China. Under thousands of years' interaction with Chinese culture and society, the religion will become more and more Chinese due to Chinization and loses its characteristics.

Read more about Chinese Muslim: http://www.emel.com/article?id=77&a_id=2139

SM210 Alternative Voices & Issues in Mass Communication

References: Abul-Fazl Ezzati. (1994). The Spread of Islam, Tehran: Ahlul Bayt World Assembly Publications. Aliya Ma Lynn. (2007). Muslims in China. University Press. p. 44

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Save Your Soul, or Your Life? In April this year, a 17-year-old Australian Jehovah's Witness refused blood transfusion as a treatment for blood cancer. The Supreme Court has overruled the patient and ordered the patient and his parents to undergo the lifesaving procedure. (Davey, 2013)

But what would happen to this teenager in the Watchtower Society? How would other Jehovah's Witnesses see them? Penny Pease, a former Jehovahs Witnesses, has written her experience taking a blood transfusion as terribly, terribly sinful, fearful No one could feel it but me. She was frightened and crying while her husband, who was never involved with the Watchtower Society, was trying to understand and comfort her (Pease, 2000). This continues to make me wonder, how would a devoted Witness feel when they are forced to receive blood transfusion on court orders?

So why do Jehovah's Witnesses refuse blood transfusions? The answer from the Jehovah's Witnesses official website has stated that it is a religious issue rather than a medical one, where both the Old and New Testaments in the Bible commanded them to abstain from blood for which blood represents life in Gods views. So by not taking blood, it is in obedience to God and also respect for God as the Giver of life.

A particularly horrifying example of how seriously Jehovah's Witnesses take the Society's prohibition, Paul Blizard, a former elder, had to accept a court order requiring his daughter receive blood transfusion. Later, in one of the published materials by the Watchtower Society, an elder of the Society has said that he hopes Blizard's daughter

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gets Hepatitus (sic) from that blood. After that, Blizard and his family were shunned by the congregation for not avoiding the transfusion at all costs. (Chretien, 1988)

"The receiver of a blood transfusion must be cut off from God's people by excommunication or disfellowshipping." ("Questions From Readers", 1961) Isolation and cutting off ties with people who has betrayed the Society seems to be the only way for others to stay; or is it just a way the Society controls Witnesses? Apparently, isolation is not just a punishment, but a way of life as a Witness.

Families with Witnesses among them often suffer from the isolation process. Christmas, Easter celebrations, anniversaries, birthdays, funerals, Thanksgiving, and Patriotic holidays are just some of the occasions where you never hear from Witness relatives. Avoiding non-Witnesses socially and refusing gifts and cards, seems to be how the Society has taught them to live. The Society has succeeded in replacing your family with their "family," made up of other Witnesses. (MacGregor, 2001)

With religious discrimination in title, many Witnesses are treated differently because what they believe in is perceived as ridiculous by the society. However, the Society treats people who believe in blood transfusion the same way, by rejecting them and isolating them from their friends and families.

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References 1. Melissa Davey. (2013, April 18). Teen Witness Must Have A Transfusion, Rules Judge. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved July 20, 2013,

from http://www.smh.com.au 2. Penny Pease. (2000, December 9). When an Ex-Jehovahs Witness Takes a Blood Transfusion [Web log post]. Freeminds, Watcher of the Watchtower. Retrieved July 20, 2013, from http://www.freeminds2.org 3. Why Dont You Accept Blood Transfusions?. Retrieved July 20, 2013, from http://www.jw.org 4. Leonard Chretien, Witnesses of Jehovah (Eugene, Or: Harvest House Publishers, 1988), p. 197. 5. "Questions From Readers," Watchtower, January 15 (1961), p. 64. 6. Lorri MacGregor. (2001, January). The Isolation of Jehovahs Witnesses. The John Ankerberg Show. Retrieved July 20, 2013, from http://www.jashow.org

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6 million Jews killed in Holocaust during World War II During the World War II, the Nazis led by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party had 6 million Jews killed during The Holocaust. The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. The word Holocaust is originated from the Greek word which means sacrifice by fire. Thus, the Nazis who came to power in Germany in January 1933 believed that they, the Germans, are racially superior than the Jews so they are subjected to death.

So what are the effects from the Holocaust? The impact is actually noticable on Jewish children and the survivors of Holocaust. In 1992, J. S. Kestenberg conducted international study of organized persecution of children by examining the effects of persecution on Jewish children who survived the Holocaust. He states that psychological defenses emerged within the children which includes numbing effects, personality splitting and identification with the aggressor. In addition that, his study suggests that the loss of identity and the loss of a feeling of belonging and being worthwhile was the most outstanding psychological effect of persecution. Many of them feel a sense of guilt and they experience conflict which is wanting to remember but also wanting to forget. Therefore, until today, the Jews are still rebuilding their homes and lives as they did not want to remember the despairing past.

The Jewish people are ethnoreligious group who practices Judaism. Judaism is the religion, philosophy and way of life of Jewish people. The Jewish Question on the other hand, is the debate of the appropriate status and treatment of Jews in society which involved the civil rights particularly in Europe. Nevertheless, religious discrimination of
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Jews has occurred on many occasions and different geographical locations throughout the ages but still, the Holocaust is the worst as two-thirds of Jews in Europe died in the Holocaust. Therefore, it is an unforgetable event in the history of Jewish people. It has huge impact in their lives and it influences them in many ways.

As a result, Irael is founded in 1948 as a refuge against anti-Semitism with The Jewish Defense League. Their motto is "Never Again" with the ultimate goal, "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary".

For further reading; http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005143 http://www.angelfire.com/az2/holocaustchildren/ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/herzl2b.html http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/groups/jewish-defenseleague

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Protesting In Flames According to the CNN news "The timeline of Tibetan protests in China" on January 31,2012, the CNN reported all the details and list all of the information about Tibetan protests. In total, this protesting in flames had occurred 11 times from 2008 to 2012. Why this kind of issues always happened in Tibetan? On December 12, 2012, Tibetan of voice reported that aim at the worsening tensions in Tibet and Tibetans self-immolation protests happened constantly, One Tibetan complained to the mass in the world , the communist party of China discrimination Tibetan religious culture, suppression and harassment of Tibetans, so that lead to more protests set himself on fire.

Based on the two reports we can understand that Tibetan faced trouble in their religion practice and freedom. Due to the china government always refer to the Tibetans religions culture ,it makes the Tibetans scared the communist party of china ,in order to protect their religions culture, they would to give up life to set themselves on fire. According to one Tibetan had statement that the communist party of China government deliberately rising prices in Tibet area.They change the teaching policy, restricting the action of the Tibetan and limit speech freedom. The government destroy Tibetan ethnic traditional culture and custom, so that Tibetan self-immolation protests happened in succession.In the face of strong but without the communist party of China government, the only choice is that set themselves on fire. Tibetan protest is the worst way, however they hope can change to the current situation of Tibet, and through self-sacrifice, in exchange for all the Tibetans freedom and human rights.

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There are over 5 million ethnic Tibetans in China, most of whom are Buddhist. The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, as well as an active participant in the ongoing debate about Tibet's political status. Since 1987, he and his exiled government in India have played a key role in garnering international support for Tibetan independence. Buddhist monks within Tibet have also been active political dissidents, organizing anti-government demonstrations (which erupted into violent riots in March 2008). Experts say that demonstrations like these have convinced the CCP that Tibetan monks are the ringleaders of political dissent in the province.

Isn't this religious discrimination? Tibetans are faced with the choice of assimilating and relinquishing their Tibetan identity, religion and culture or facing the perpetual potential of discrimination. Tibetans lack access to healthcare, partly due to the concentration of medical facilities in urban areas rather than rural areas where the proportion of Tibetans is greater than Chinese. In the area of education, Tibetan children face many obstacles compared to their Chinese counterparts including expensive school fees, poorly trained teachers, struggling to retain Tibetan language skills through primary school, difficult transitions to Chinese- medium secondary and tertiary schools, and being subjected to the degrading messages of prejudiced curricula. Tibetans also face discrimination in employment and have less access to training and special business permits.

Additionally, they must compete with Chinese settlers who frequently have the connections needed to expedite the ability to attain permits, government- provided housing or job opportunities. Among the most consistent human rights violations by the Chinese authorities in Tibet is the suppression of religious and cultural freedom.
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Approximately half of Tibetan political prisoners are Buddhist monks and nuns. Moreover, the attitude in China toward religion in Tibetan culture constitutes a type of discrimination that has been recognized by the UN Committee to Eliminate Racial Discrimination.

Read more: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/31/world/asia/tibet-protests-timeline http://buddhism.about.com/od/vajrayanabuddhism/a/shugden.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serfdom_in_Tibet_controversy http://tibet.net/about-tibet/issues-facing-tibet-today/

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Taoism Banned Under Communist Rule Since 1949 When Mao Zedong lead People's Republic of China and took control over China in 1949, the country has declared allegiance to communism and has remained as a communist country ever since. As a result, Taoism was officially banned by the Chinese government, under the Communist rule. Taoist temples which were used as government offices, schools and dormitories, were viciously ransacked and persecution of practitioners reduced the number of people practicing Taoism to virtually zero under the Communist rule.

As reported in New York Review of Books by Ian Johnson (2012), "(Even) Back in the 1980s and 1990s, government officials widely saw Daoism as the most backward religion practices like palm reading or fengshui were routinely condemned as feudal superstition". Jeffrey Hays (2008) also has wrote about "Taoism's Uneasy Existence with the Chinese Communist Government". Below is his description of the religious discrimination in the country.

Four months ago, for example, a very different international conference on Daoism had been held at exactly the same location a conference that the government was far from excited about. Organized by Chinese and international scholars and practitioners, the conference did not have as much high-level support but it reflects something potentially more powerful: an explosion of popular interest into Daoism and Chinese religion. The authorities not only shunned it but put up roadblocks. It was almost canceled at the last moment and was eventually curtailed from five to three days, with many panels cut or abbreviated. But religion is still fighting an uphill battle. The recent conference gave Daoism an
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unprecedented amount of media attention, but most of the time religious life is completely absent from Chinese television or other media outlets. Then again, as the Daodejing makes clear, human endeavors often miss the point: Thirty spokes converge on a hub but its the emptiness that makes a wheel work

So, what are the influences for Taoism with the discrimination ban? The ban really brought serious influences to Taoism in many aspects. These various aspects can divide into the influence to Taoism itself, shamans and Taoism's development. In general and to Taoism practitioners, the ban was a big shock because it was a really big shift for the religion. Before the ban, Taoism was widely accept by the government and its people, so it still plays an important role in people's lives.

In ancient China, there were many powerful and famous people who are taoists, so these favorable factor benefit the Taoism. For example, Yu who was a Taoism and a emperor, he saved the people from rising flood waters by designing a system of dikes and canals that not only saved the kingdom from disaster but led to its future prosperity. It stands to reason that Taoism became popular with the emperor. So the ban is a really big shock to the Taoists.

To the shamans, the ban also was a really big shock because the shaman lost both religion and jobs at the same time with the ban. This is because in past, the shamans have the same importance such as doctors. So, it is natural to have a big impact on the shamans.

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As for Taoism's development, it is obvious. Although it is currently undergoing a revival after the persecution, the discrimination which is caused by the ban did not disappear. This is because people's opinion are also influenced by the Communist's rule in which many of the Taoism's traditions, such as fortune telling, geomancy, possession by spirits, and popular rituals were labelled as superstitious. Thus the ban is a huge obstacle to Taoisms development in China.

Taoism began as a philosophical tradition in early China. It often associated with the Daodejing, written by Laozi who is regarded as the founder of Taoism. The Daodejing focuses on dao as a "way" or "path" which is the appropriate way to behave and to lead others but the Daodejing also refers to Tao as something that existed "before Heaven and Earth". In English, it is commonly referred as "Tao Te Ching".

As a conclusion, religious discrimination of Taoism that has occurred in China was due to the official ban. However, every religion has it own culture, behavior and opinion. Thus, governments should give the freedom to religions which are without political threat to the government.

Read more about Taoism http://www.taoism.net/supplement/history.htm http://www.patheos.com/Library/Taoism.html http://www.daoisms.org/article/lundao/info-7112.html http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=93

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