Doctor Freudelstein's National Grief Therapy

It’s 2029, and Doctor Freudelstein is helping patients cope with the death of National Sovereignty

(audio version available - and recommended!)

It’s 2029, two years after the fall of Taiwan, one year after PNG’s Special Relationship with the PRC and 6 months after PM Richard Marles’ “Restitution For the Feelings of The Chinese People” speech at the National Press Club coordinated by Lorna Ting Le and the Think Tank - China Matters The Most. The good doctor is working overtime.

Patient: 

Doc - I’m at a loss. This can’t be happening.

Freudelstein:

OK, get up off the floor, lie on the couch and let’s do this properly.  You are in DENIAL, this is the first stage of National Grief. Talk me through it.

Patient:

The Universities, the schools, the whole curricula now reflects the CCP view of the world.  At my local school a kid who came as a refugee from Taiwan had his flag rubbed off the artwork when the class made a flags of the world mural¹. A Fa Lun Gong related media group wanted to sponsor a Chinese New Year event and the local council prevented them under instruction from the Chinese Consulate².  A group of Hong Kong migrants wanted to protest in Ryde³, but the Mayor there stopped it, and went on to become a state MP. I turn on the TV and the media give airplay to CCP propagandists and liars, the computer system in the council library censored my search choices on behalf of the CCP⁴… my local MP⁵ gets funding from individuals coordinated by United Front Groups and attends functions symbolising support for the CCP and it’s actions …..

No reds under the bed, they work for the councils technology contractor.

Freudelstein:

(interrupts): Ok, nothing you are telling me is new, this has been going on slice by salami slice for decades, like many others you are only now coming to terms with it. I was wrong, actually, you are ANGRY - this is the second stage of National Grief.

Patient:

Years ago, surely I could have said something or done something when I realised what was happening. I was afraid of being sued for libel, or being accused of being racist, or being sacked from my job, or scaring away students from the university, or customers from the business, or being kicked off my favourite social media app. I thought it was a one off, only happening for a while, only happening on a limited basis in a small area, not Australia wide, across all fields. I should have investigated further, I should have learned more about it, I should have realised it was happening everywhere, It’s like they took the countryside and surrounded the cities⁶, one small infringement of our freedom and sovereignty at a time and now…(trails off not knowing how to continue)

Freudelstein:

I think your situation will settle in the near future. Actually you are at the BARGAINING stage of grief, bargaining with your own conscience, asking “if only” questions of yourself, when actually we are all to blame. This is often seen with middle aged and older people who, how can I put it, ……actually, through collective inaction, ARE to blame.

Patient:

Thanks Doctor (sarcastic tone). I feel so depressed. When I was young we were scared of nuclear war and then all of a sudden the Berlin Wall fell, Eastern Europe had a fair crack at becoming normal countries and George Bush toasted the “Peace Dividend” - all the money we didn’t have to spend on weapons could instead be spent on beer and champagne to celebrate the End of History. All we had to do was stand back and wait for China to go through “Peaceful Evolution”⁷ ie be patient with dictatorship and not do or say much, and everything would somehow be ok. Now it’s not, and even if the Second American Civil War hadn’t started, we’d still be screwed.

Freudelstein:

I can see you are DEPRESSED, which I think is positive, you are on the path to acceptance of the hopelessness of the national circumstance. This is a normal and appropriate response.

Patient:

Some days I think to myself - who cares what happened in the past, if the history books are re-written to please the CCP, who cares ? Who cares if the news media and entertainment media play to a narrative consistent with the 2029 Chinese Peoples Feelings Restitution Declaration, entailing acceptance of the 14 plus 4 polite requests implemented as national policy ? Who cares if all political parties are united on only one thing, that whatever China wants, China gets, so long as MPs get political funding and directorships on state enterprises after retirement ? Who cares if Sovereignty is overrated, Freedom is unnecessary, and Democracy is just a name, like the dictionary says ?

Freudelstein:

I think you are starting to turn the corner, toward ACCEPTANCE of Australia’s vassal status, something that was clear to the nations leaders at least as early as 2022. It took much berating from a series of snarky, smarmy Chinese Ambassadors and the drumbeat of WeChat, but in the end, the whole nation has come to accept we are not an independent state and the bounds of our sovereignty are constrained by the 14 + 4 polite requests - you need to get with the program.

Remember the optimistic happy ending in George Orwell’s 1984 ?

“But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

You’ve got to love Xi DaDa. Or fake it till you make it through to the next day.

简单

1. link to article describing similar scenario already happened.

2. link to article describing similar scenario, CCP defeated on that particular occasion.

3. link to article describing real events that inspired the fictional example in this story.

4. Photograph included of failed attempt to access Pro - Democracy writer Clive Hamilton’s Website from the Hornsby Council Library, 2018. Former ACPPRC patron Philip Ruddock was Mayor (at that time). Pure speculation - but maybe they wanted to check his emails as well. Expect this to be normalised in future.

5. My legal advisers tell me this would never happen in real life, after all, it’s just a story, about the future.

6. “Take the countryside and encircle the cities”, in practice in Australian states , and the origin of the phrase.

7. Although it does convey the general idea of “peaceful evolution”, this Wikipedia entry seems to have been created by either a CCP propaganda worker or someone of extreme looney left inclinations. In the context of the 1990’s discussions by western leaders of “Peaceful Evolution”, it was not a conspiracy against China, it was an argument against any specific intervention. The logic was that Chinese are smart and appear to have already figured out communist economics doesn’t work. Give them time and they’ll chill out politically, even if what develops is not like our democracy it will probably be ok. Unfortunately in the fevered mind of the Communist, if the west exists, mere knowledge of it’s existence will corrupt China, and this is regarded as infiltration of China. see “Silent Contest” (较量无声) on YouTube. If you don’t understand Chinese, you can spot the point where they talk about Peaceful Evolution because it’s where the music evokes Dracula about to bite a victim.