Pooh-Poohing Islam

The curious partnership between Communist China and the Islamic State of pakistan.

- Ashali Varma

The world may see Xi Jinping as the inscrutable supreme leader of China very much in control of the power structure but he is scared. We now know that he is even scared of the cartoon Winnie the Pooh, as it has been banned in China. The fat, cuddly bear he thinks looks too much like him! He just could not deal with the fun the Chinese bloggers were having comparing a cartoon character with him. According to BBC News, this ban is part of a struggle to restrict clever bloggers from getting around their country’s censorship.

When Xi Jinping and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe endured one of the more awkward handshakes in history netizens responded with Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore shaking hands.

But apart from internet policing, there is a stricture that no one in the communist party can have anything to do with: religion. This was especially painful for my Chinese friend in Thailand, who came to me when her father was dying of cancer to ask whether I could advise him on spiritualism. As a child of diehard communists, she did not know anything about religion.