The thought of ‘prohibiting instead of managing’ lead to De Jiang Dagon Dance Scandal

On the 8^th February, the De Jiang country government of Gui Zhou Province prohibited the Dragon Dance activity in the main town for the reason of ‘safety factor’. Then some of performers who were not comprehended gathered the audiences encircling the country government and a conflict with government stuff took place. After the incidence, Shi Zongyuan, Secretary of Gui Zhou provincial Party committee, required immediately that an effect arrangement and dredge were necessary to guarantee the Lantern Festival safe and harmonious. Through negotiation with each party, the country government agreed that the mass could launch the Dragon Dance safely and well-ordered according to the routine in former years.

This news remind us some related fable about “the prediction achieved by itself”: While the government department afraid of the “unsafe factors”, they strangled it in the cradle, nevertheless, these “unsafe factors” knock the door unexpectedly.

Similar news is not rare to read. In the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in 2006, since the Ying Tan city of Jiang Xi province worried that the dragon boats activities got attracted by too many gathering audience which might lead to accidents or conflicts, the government just decided to ban the activities and destroyed all the dragon boats. The custom handed down from thousands of years ago was ended without any regret. While the complaints were heard everywhere, it also cost the local government nearly two million yuan.

The prohibition does not mean safety, but a well-management can reach a good order. It is not hard to found that the same thought of ruling in the news described above, which is “fear + prohibition”, or saying, the fear is the reason for prohibiting. Therefore, the meaningful public management is far from enough. Obviously, this is a Utopian dream – prohibition is a solution that holds good for all time, which could remove the hidden peril. However, in fact as the government lack of the intelligence of management, the situation presenting after this simple thought is like solving one problem only to find another cropping up – a temporary conscious gets a long term complaint in return, which is apparently the loss outweighs the gain.

Logically speaking, people hustling and bustling all around dose not means making trouble and gathering together doesn’t equal to disturbance. Public entertainment is a social right. The key point of how to utilize this power is how the society carrying out an effectively self-management and the government’s regulating such as stopping the activities before going too far, rather than all troubles ending when the main trouble ending just because of the fear of hidden peril. For example, whenever it comes to the end of the year, it also exist some hidden danger for transport during the Spring Festival period. So why don’t the department of government requiring banning or cancel the Spring Festival? The actual cause is that the official and general people share a common sense – people need to celebrate the Spring Festival and it’s the government’s responsibility to hold it well.

In the same way, after the De Jiang country government providing all sorts of convenience and safeguard, the expecting safe problem never happened. It shows that when accessing whether a society is rich and populous, not only depending on whether there is a contention of a hundred schools of thought, but more importantly, determined by if people are able to choose what they want in the given condition and any conducts can be found in the aspect that the government guaranteeing this right of people. 

The reporter of Xinhua News Agency saw at De Jiang country yesterday noon that there were a large number of people from all directions watching the dragon dance and the sound of firecrackers had never stopped. This fact also disproof that the thought of ‘prohibiting instead of managing’ is apparently not the best way out, and what the government should do is to detail the management and service consciousness. 

Today, in the name of culture diversity various parts of the world do the utmost to protect their local conditions and customs. As to China, it has a universal appeal that in recent 30 years the traditional culture has recovered with the growing of the society. But if the government just prohibits everything for trying to simplify matters when doing the management, the consequence must be not only the lost of the conventional culture, but the life either. In fact, through the conflict describe above, the so called ‘safe’ is already far from its real sense.