Chinese Patriots in Foley Square

This video clip is produced by my senior in Fordham University. I don't know exactly the purpose of that assemblage in Foley Square, but I think it wants to show how Chinese feel proud of their country.

On one side of the coin, the clip shows how Chinese people can express their patriotism in a peaceful way without hotile, anti-French sentiment. Not every Chinese is insecure, xenophobic nationalist as Time magazine correspondent Simon Elegant portrays. Many Chinese still want to show a nice face to the world.

But on the other side of the coin, a person who questions the wisdom of a call to boycott Carrefour or the way Chinese government handling Tibetan issue can easily be the subject of attacks and be branded as "traitor" under the rising nationalism of Chinese.

Jacques Ellul warns us in Porpaganda that "man is terribly malleable, uncertain of himself, ready to accept and to follow many suggestions, and is tossed about by all the winds of doctrine." An individual's emotion, impulsiveness and excess can be stimulated with ease when he or she is in a group. I think the same peer pressure that makes people become the prey of propagandists is also happening on the torch-grappling anti-China protesters. Does political assemblage do any good?