Failure to market a revolution

On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 303 intellectuals and activists signed and released a manifesto named Charter 08. Demanded changes include:

• Separation of powers
• Guarantee of human rights
• Election of public officials
• Freedom to assemble/form groups

(Translation courtesy of Perry Link at the New York Review of Books.)

The manifesto did not go unnoticed. Its authors were questioned/detained, the keyword has been harmonized, and the Western press has caught wind of it.

But within China and with its people, it’s fallen on deaf ears.

Roland Soong comments on its failure on ESWN:

…there is a huge disconnect with the abstraction notions espoused in Charter 08 and their daily realities.  If you don’t like their responses, you can always just blame them for having been brainwashed by the Communists.  Or else you can spend some time re-tooling your message and also make sure that it gets out to the intended audience.  This is what they teach in Marketing 101.  Meanwhile, Mutant Palm wrote: “Charter 08 arguably has had a more significant impact on readers of the New York Review of Books than it has on China.”  If you want to change things, you have to re-position your message and re-tool your communication channels.

See Roland’s full and brilliant analysis on ESWN. For more, read Rebecca MacKinnon’s analysis on Charter 08’s origins and its potential future.