Read the Italian Version of the interview

EVERYONE IS LOOKING BUT nobody knows who he is. Bloggers around the world, censors and guardians of the World Wide Web, national and foreign press. In recent weeks, there is too much talk about him, Crazy Crab, pseudonym of the first cartoonist who challenges China’s Great Firewall doing political satire.

Hexie Farm is a political satire comic book and has attracted lots of attention from internet users all around the world, because it reveals the contradictions and the dark side of China’s society with one ruling Party and corrupted protagonists. Hexie Farm is ruled by its party, the Party-Party, the protagonists are all Party members.

Following the publication of Hexie Farm, the name of his comic, in the new list of Sina Weibo’s banned search terms and “sensitive words” (as “Tiananmen square”, “democracy” and “leadership change”), The Post Internazionale found Crazy Crab and gave him a voice through a unique and exclusive interview.

Hexie Farm is the first and most famous example of political cartoon and political satire in the history of contemporary China. Its popularity has spread beyond the Great Wall in Europe and the United States. But what does it mean to do political satire in China, today?

It’s hard to say what political satire means in China today. Public political satire is rare in China. Public critic on Chinese politics is dangerous. People might lost jobs, be detained or arrested for doing this.  Due to strict censorship, it seems that most Chinese political cartoonists lose their courage to criticize. But what a harmonious time we live! Every day, hilarious news of tragicomedies pops up from the corner of GFW. What a waste it would be if we remain silent at this.  Although no media in main land China dares to publish my cartoons, and the authority is trying hard to locate my cartoons and delete them, they are still got reposted to more audience.

How can Hexie Farm, in a “great, glorious and correct era of harmony”, awaken the political and critique consciousness and change the course of events?

There are lots of political cartoons published in Chinese media every day. Unfortunately most of them are boring and meaningless. These cartoons never criticize the Party or the government, they do not question the system, and they do not make people think. This situation reflects the existence and consequence of censorship. You can criticize a local officer for his taking bribery, but you cannot criticize the government when it abridges people’s rights.

What’s the goal of Hexie Farm?

This is one of the reasons that I started drawing Hexie Farm. I want to show the picture to the world by depicting the one Party dictatorship and censorship. I want to combine the history and reality together in my drawings, and figure out how ridiculous the logic behind the Party’s politics is. And I also hope my audience will get a new perspective and start to think differently when they read my cartoons. The cartoons turn bloody stories into hilarious black humor and sometimes even make readers laugh loudly. I am in fact sometimes confused about this effect. But I believe laughter is our strength, the Party has tanks, and we have laughter.

How can dictatorship, censorship and propaganda influence China’s society?

Today, when you walk on the streets in Beijing, You can hardly believe there are also “black prisons” (secret detention places) in such a modern city. These “black prisons” are run by some local city governments. The government officers hire local gangsters to look for petitioners who want to seek justice from the authority and lock them up. The petitioners are often beaten and mistreated in the black prisons. Some of them are sent to mental hospitals and treated as mental patients. When the great famine happened in China (1958-1961), some village authority did not want the outside world to know there was famine in their locality; they prevented hungry villagers from leaving to beg foods in other places for their lives by guarding guard village roads by militia security. This caused millions of villagers starved to death in their villages. The bloody logic behind those events is the same today. The Party is always great, glorious and correct. If there is any query, it must be erased. Forty years after the great famine, lots of people still believe that Chairmen Mao is their great savior. The modern China has changed greatly since Mao was dead. But his ghost never leaves, his face is still there, smiling and watching.

What does it mean for the new generation of China’s internet users the Great Firewall, the largest internet censorship program in the World?

The GFW is a perfect system. Working together with media censorship in China, the GFW filters information and websites that the CCP do not like. This in fact constitutes an information black hole. Until now, most Chinese people don’t know who the 2010 Nobel Peace Laureate is, Who is Mr. Liu Xiaobo, or what is ‘Charter 08’. And in fact, more unfortunately, most Chinese Internet users hardly notice its existence, just like they do not care about censorship and the control of freedom of expression in China.

Your cartoon on Mr. Fang is spreading via social networks, on the Chinese Internet and micro-blogging platform. The cartoon portrays Fang Binxing, the Father of China’s Great Fire Wall, sitting on a toilet with a toilet dispenser showing a “404 Error: Page Not Found” message. Who is for you Binxing Fang?

Binxing Fang is just a symbol of censorship. He is a scientist who helps the Party to build GFW in China and changed the Internet in China forever. Thanks for his hard work, most students in China don’t know how to use Google, Facebook, twitter and Wikipedia. Although there are similar services in China, such as Baidu, Renren and Weibo, if you use Baidu search engine, you might not find the answers you want to know. For example, You can’t find anything about my cartoons if you type 蟹农场 in Baidu or other Chinese search engine (except Google and Bing). The title of my cartoon has been categorized into the list of “sensitive words”. To those who want to know what has happened outside and inside of China but does not appear on Chinese news, climbing over the GFW is not easy.  They have to spend a lot of time figuring out a bunch of software or apps, VPN or proxy setting. And because GFW changes fast, they have to keep on learning new ways to climb over it. Understanding this, you might understand why there is a tight relationship between Bingxin  Fang and swear words on Twitter.

How can Internet speed up the process of democratization of information and participatory pluralism?

New technology and innovation of the Internet is changing the way how we receive and spread information. The changing is so fast even the GFW can hardly stop people using new technology and new services (such as twitter, tumbler and G+). News nowadays can spread widely and quickly before the government deletes it. More and more people, especially young men use twitter and G+ to get information. The Ministry of Propaganda tries hard to control all new media, but most of their attempt becomes hilarious jokes.

For security reasons, we cannot reveal your personal identity. But, we know that Crazy Crab is an artist. Art and aesthetics are often exploited by the central power in an authoritarian state, but they can also subvert it. How Art can change “political system” and “old cultural society”?

The CCP has a long history of using art as a powerful propaganda tool. However, artists can also use art to protest against the one party dictatorship and censorship. If an art work shocks the audience, give them a new perspective and let them think in a different way, then it can help to change the system gradually.

In your opinion, has the Jasmine Revolution from Northern-Africa really arrived in China?

Under the tight control of the CCP, it is difficult for China to have a similar revolution or movement as what happened in Tunisia at present, compared to the huge population, the number of those who fight for their rights is still very small. However, I also believe that the whole world is changing fast, and so does China.

Are you worried about your life?

I am happy to become the first one to draw cartoons depicting dictatorship and censorship. Although I keep anonymous cautiously, I do fear. And the more I draw the more I fear. Some artists got warnings or got arrested by the security police. Their life and families were threatened. The police might find me sooner or later too. But I will not give up drawing. Hexie Farm is a record of the Party’s political logic. This record can never be erased by the intimidation from the authority.

Author: Maria Dolores Cabras

Date of publication: November 9, 2011

The Post Internazionale