Ai Weiwei is a Big Bad Bully
KOPENHAGEN - Ai Weiwei is at it again. Punishing Denmark because he disagrees with the nation's despicable records of human rights abuses. Never mind that Denmark is in the Top 10 of the ‘Best Human Rights Rankings’ in the world, according to Insider Monkey.
The Chinese master of self-promotion, known for his revenge art, for posing naked, and for writing F.U.C.K. on his Beijing garden wall, became a global superstar when he showed potential as Western puppet dissident to be weaponized against the evil Communist Party of China. Western media evidently love that endless drama and brain damage. Despite Mr. Ai’s being off-the-charts with his sense of entitlement, his free multi-million dollar Western media coverage, and his first-class traveling expenses,… let alone the pecks and perks resulting from his passive-aggressive victim complex. The nude master commits felonies, say: tax evasion. He gets arrested. He calls the Western media mafia and says he’s a Chinese human rights activist and therefore innocent. Not only innocent, but arrested because he was a Chinese human rights activist, see! Basically, that is his existential fry. Always oppressed. Always wronged. The corrupt Western media apparatus works 24/7 as his personal management and PR team, handing him lucrative wall-to-wall brand advertisement and story-telling worth easily $10,000 a piece, thousands of pieces, let alone the interviews, documentaries, and exhibitions (the Tate History of Modern Art!). All this made him what.. the Donald Trump of the Art world?
With his planet-size superstardom comes a planet-size superego: Last year master Weiwei felt he ought to coerce the British government big time. For not granting him quick enough his celebrity status plus special privileges in all visa matters. Ai Weiwei is special. So special that he demands to be treated exactly not like ordinary folks with a criminal record. Even the schadensfrohe German authorities called the British oppressive idiots—fools—for daring to pick up a fight with Ai Almighty. And can we say… in just one day of massive media blitzkrieg, the British authorities succumbed to the pressure and deeply apologized for their inhumane treatment. The visa office issued the master his super master promo visa—pronto. All that embarrassment internationally could have been avoided if only nobody Britain had not disrespected that fat sweaty egotist.
But then Mr. Ai turned against the Germans. Some journalists at the German Times (Die ZEIT) planned a ruse and got the master to endorse the paper’s own legal case against the Chinese government over freeing a certain Chinese lawyer. The journalists, all in cahoots with their country’s intelligence service BND, thought Ai Weiwei would cooperate with them as he always did. In fact, Mr. Ai had been so helpful in the demoralization of China, he was offered permanent resident status and a professorship in Berlin even. Imagine that.
But the master didn’t feel the reciprocity today and said Fuck You German media people! No, he didn't say that. He said: Cry me a river! Something like that. He infamously broke up the hideous interview with the remark that [Thanks for trying but] “I feel very much Chinese!” This little foofaraw caused so many ruckuses from Hamburg to Munich, from Frankfurt to Berlin…, the German press even speculated about Ai Weiwei’s quick exit from Berlin’s short holy list of untouchable Chinese dissidents: “During his Germany tour, the regime critic talked almost conciliatory about the Chinese government, and irritated a lot of [German] people.” [from ‘Outch! Ai Weiwei: Public Interview Spat with Die Zeit’] But that’s Ok, press people! Because Ai Weiwei got over it. He went on that year straight to the Universität der Künste in Berlin and assumed his “Einstein Professorship.” Yep, Einstein. I’m not making this up.
His next collateral damage was the country of Denmark. To be precise, Denmark's only notable economy: the LEGO company. The Danish toymaker, an inbred, very vulnerable family-owned business, felt at first skeptical when the nude master of controversy and drama ordered a bulk order of million bricks during high Christmas season in order to abuse the LEGO brand's appeal with children all over the world for his own personality cult and political gain. When denied the privilege of 'Political LEGO' like everyone else, Ai Weiwei immediately accused the Danish family of political oppression and censorship—read: anti-democratic tendencies. Translated into Danish it goes like this: LEGO, du er fucked!
Bowing to instant international outrage, after having realized that Ai Weiwei was not just an artist but the most valuable asset of the CIA too, and shielded by powerful political interest groups in Washington, Brussels, and Berlin, let alone the media mafia and hordes of mindless internet trolls, the toymaker broke down in tears, lifted the embargo, and begged for mercy.
Of course, little mercy was given. It could be shown that socialist Denmark was just as oppressive as communist China. Any time. So, earlier this week, Ai Weiwei decided spontaneously and out of the blue to punish blinking Denmark by closing his latest exhibition, 'Ruptures', in Kopenhagen. World News. They reason he gave was Denmark's latest immigrant policy: "I can't coexist." Then he threatened – oh Gott oh Gott – to withdraw another piece of his art from a museum in Aarhus, Denmark's second largest city. What do we do, what do we do!? "It's unreasonable to punish an entire country and its people for the politics of its government,” cried museum director Erlend G. Hoyersten.
Which goes to show that Denmark is a tinsel country with almost no power to fight back against Ai Weiwei. Cynics could also say that ach-so-perfect Scandinavian societies are getting their own poisonous human rights medicine. Or, as the English saying goes: They're taking the piss! Master Ai's followers had trashed the tiny Kingdom of Denmark to a pulp in just under 48 hours. A country with 5.6 million people, all working for LEGO. Well, not all of them. Most of them. I guess. I do not know. And I do not care. Ai Weiwei continues to demonize the Danish regime. That I do see. Holy Mother Jesus of Avenge.
Oh, and, yes: Ai Weiwei blocks and bans his critics from seeing his Twitter feedback and reading his public tweets. Comments disabled. So there goes his last clean shirt on the issue of censorship. Hypocrisy? You bet. The master is a fraud. When his bottom is on the line, big Ai censors just like the next best Eastern tyrant.
