The focus on elephants has finally come down as the truth emerges.
The third elephant herd in Xishuangbanna has also begun its migration, indicating that the elephants there are about to meet a generally tragic fate. It is now certain that the reason for the elephants’ departure is not “the leading female elephant getting lost” as the experts said at the beginning or “geomagnetic disturbance”, but rather the destruction of habitat.
In Xishuangbanna, there may be a real ecological crisis. People are cutting down native forests and planting cash crops such as medicinal herbs, which still look like “forests” on satellite photos, but there is nothing left for the elephants to eat –So, they had to flee.
There is nothing romantic about this, but it is real investigative journalism, but apart from China Newsweek, it is rare to see any media investigating the destruction of the forest there. This time, one can no longer use the excuse that “no journalists are paying attention”, but on the contrary, there are many media outlets that go to cover the elephants. -That’s what’s scarier: people, consciously or unconsciously, have mystified, romanticized and even abstracted the elephants, deliberately ignoring the real crisis. If an elephant running away is a “distress signal”, such deliberate neglect is a second murder of the elephant.
Several institutional media sent reporters to broadcast live to the herd. A typical one is probably, “I saw the elephant! ” with headlines like this, it’s hard to click in and see the elephant. People were so anxious to see the elephants that they were marveling before they saw them.
Another media outlet started to publish a series of articles about the migration from the perspective of a small elephant, writing a “travel diary” from the elephant’s point of view. This is very much like a middle school essay, more childish than the college entrance exam essay two days ago.
The culmination of this “adorableness” is the widely circulated scene of a herd of elephants sleeping together. The official media accounts, including the People’s Daily, have reposted it. This is undoubtedly the masterpiece of privileged institutions to gaze at close, many people associated with their hard work, want to “lie flat” but can not get, the elephants quiet and naive look. It was “very healing” – everyone pretended not to know that these elephants were facing What a miserable fate these elephants are facing.
The elephant is perhaps the most imaginative of animals. It is large and mostly gentle; it is highly intelligent, but ultimately firmly in the hands of humans to guide it to where it belongs. Things should not be too easy; it should be full of legends: two elephants returning drunk, a baby elephant drunk on two hundred pounds of mash – the herd, like the actors on those reality shows now, is on camera and in the hands of humans. It is the most dangerous and the safest, and it is lost to prove that humans are infinitely right.
The fleeing elephant eventually became a created “image” and a propaganda tool. Japanese television made a 30-minute live show about the elephant’s long migration to Japanese viewers, and patriots brought in some screenshots, exclaiming that the Japanese were amazed that they finally knew how good China was. Knowing that Kunming is a city of several million people, and knowing that China is doing such a good job of ecological conservation. Elephants became a prey of patriotism.
There is a phrase elephant in the room in English, and its Chinese meaning is also widely known, “the elephant in the room”, used to refer to something “obvious but deliberately ignored” or something fatal that we know about but pretend not to know about. -Like the crisis. This crowding of objects is like a real-life version of this phrase: we all know they have lost their homeland forever, but still imagine it as romantic and mysterious.
And how could we ourselves be any different.
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