Posted on 09/18/2007 5:24:07 AM PDT by shrinkermd
Mao is back, not with a vengeance but in an uncanny and pervasive way. Try to knock Mao down here, and he pops up there. The symbolic game of Whack-a-Mao has been going on for some time; his portrait transformed into avant-garde art, his Little Red Book -- real and counterfeit -- unloaded on hordes of undiscriminating tourists.
By and large, the Mao statues that were once so ubiquitous in Beijing are gone, but Mao never really went away. In fact, one can hardly make a purchase in China without seeing his dreamy visage, especially on the 100-yuan bill, the bill of all bills at a time when making money is truly the lifeblood of China.
The August song-and-dance extravaganza that began the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics was staged in the heart of Tiananmen Square, visually anchored by the brightly lighted portrait of the controversial chairman. It was choreographed with an uncanny resemblance to the revolutionary theater of the Cultural Revolution. There have been periodic bouts of nostalgia for Mao before, none more potent than the spontaneous popular uprising at Tiananmen in 1989. The demonstrators, despite their media-pleasing democratic rhetoric, had a decidedly Maoist cast. No one understood this better than Deng, the man who ordered the crackdown in fear of being deposed in a second Cultural Revolution.
Mao might have been a tyrant, as aloof as an emperor, but he won the civil war and united China, not unlike a ruthless predecessor he was said to admire. China's founding emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, was not a nice man by any reckoning.., but he is remembered for uniting China and setting it on a course for prosperity. Every time we utter the word China -- "land of Qin" -- we inadvertently invoke the tyrant's legacy.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Mao, like Princess Di and many others seems to have become a transference object for millions. The masses identify, respect and live through their transcendental hero or heroes. This gradually ends with the passing of generations but some heroes are remembered forever. Such seems to be the case with Chairman Mao.
Another limitation of hero worship is that there is also a contrary human tendency to resent those they are dependent upon. You can see this in very young children who treat their mother much worse than anyone else because they depend and love her so much. No one has a satisfactory explanation for this but force and parental control is the usual answer. Similarly, dictators eventually find that only ruthless force keeps them in power.
I guess Che t-shirts will become passe on HS and college campuses and replaced with Chairman Mao.
???
There’s little to be said in favor of worship of any sort, but worship of a viciously cruel mass-murderer like Mao is especially vile.
“Mao might have been a tyrant, as aloof as an emperor, but he won the civil war and united China, not unlike a ruthless predecessor he was said to admire.”
Chairman Mao made it so much nicer. This author sounds like a real commie lover.
I guess that that is why the Tienanmen protesters built a "statue of liberty", denounced communism and opposed the PLA?
Agreed. Some of the Chinese students studying stateside during the Tiananmen incident really struck the lottery - George HW Bush gave them all green cards, in spite of the fact that large numbers of them were the children of wealthy party members. Most of the Chinese I know who got green cards via that route were big time fans of Mao and as anti-American as they come. I guess the Bushes just have a thing for handing out green cards to hostile foreigners.
Their "statue of liberty" was basically a replica of Guan Yin in Western dress. It meant exactly what they wanted it to mean - no more and no less. You do realize that ostensible Christians headed by a guy who claimed to be Jesus's younger brother started a rebellion in China that killed 20 million people during the mid-19th century, don't you? And yet I would think of them as Christians as much as I think of the average Muslim as Christian.
As for the denunciations of communism, I can't remember that they did that. If they had done that, the decision to move against them would have been easy. Communism is something like holy writ in China, complete with several punishments for blasphemy. No - what I remember they did was denounce segments of the leadership, which is also what they did under Mao's tutelage as a means of purging Mao's opponents. As to opposing the PLA - they also did that under various ideological movements - including the Cultural Revolution.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.