Chinese Ballet at Lincoln Center Glorifies Violent Class Struggle That Killed My Great-Grandfather

Epoch Times ^ | July 17, 2015 | Leo Timm

[ubipetrusest]

My great-grandfather was a landowner in southern China prior to the communist takeover in 1949. Possessing about three acres of rice paddies and a lychee orchard placed him squarely in the “landlord” class—a group of people the new regime was determined to dispose of using “the greatest force,” as Mao Zedong put it.

Accompanying and legitimizing Chairman Mao’s coming campaign of mass murder was the remolding of national arts and culture.

“The Red Detachment of Women,” a 1964 Chinese ballet and one of many works glorifying violent class struggle, opened to New York audiences on the evening of July 11 at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center.

Performed by the state-run National Ballet of China, the piece—one of just eight Party-approved model operas performed during the 10-year Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)—showcases the heroic defeat and execution of an “evil landlord” by communist partisans in the 1930s....

Mark Harrison, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick, whose research focuses on Soviet history, said that the New York performance of “Red Detachment” underscores the Chinese regime’s need to legitimize its Maoist past—a period Harrison describes as a “black hole in which tens of millions of people died.”...

The way the slaughter has been subsumed in a broader narrative of China’s rise, and even discussed as an amoral “moment in history,” as Lincoln Center’s Nigel Redden explained it to the Wall Street Journal, dulls our recognition of the hate-filled nature of the murders. In China, the regime has done this thoroughly.

Outside China, it is less excusable. “If it’s based on social class, we don’t count it,” Harrison said. “But mass killing is mass killing. What we’re talking about here is mass killing.”

[ubipetrusest]

The Chinese Communist government is seeking to whitewash its violent actions in this ballet, which is propaganda via the arts. This article from "Epoch Times," a publication that focuses on Asia and China, reveals how major US media such as the "New York Times" and the "Wall Street Journal" have naively accepted this ballet's pesentation of historical events, and corrects these publications' erroneous assumptions about the veracity of this version of murderous events. Author Leo Timm relates his own family's loss of his great-grandfather in this Maoist "purge."

[dfwgator]

There are many here in this country that want the exact same thing to happen here.

[dfwgator]

It’s ok to commit mass genocide, as long as the victims are the same race as you.

[skeeter]

The left doesn't necessarily view mass killing the way a normal well adjusted and moral person would.

They see it, as they do almost everything else no matter how wicked, as a means to an end.

History bears this out, over and over again.

And it seems we'll have to learn this the hard way here. 'Gods of the Copybook Headings' and all that.

[C19fan]

Did NYers pay big money to see Agitprop opera? I thought at least with in post-Mao China that type of crap was swept under the rug.

[Zhang Fei]

It’s ok to commit mass genocide, as long as the victims are the same race as you.

I believe the mentality is no enemies to the left.

[mac_truck]

I’m sure DeBlasio had a front row seat to this class struggle opera.

[PGR88]

I remember reading that when Communist forces took over Shandong Province, they knew they had to look for “capitalists” and “landlords” but didn’t know how to divide the people according to Mao’s dictates, because they were all so poor.

So they decided that anyone who owned a pig was a capitalist. That was the threshold for being a class enemy, so they shot them.

[GOPJ]

Mark Harrison, a professor of economics at the University of Warwick, whose research focuses on Soviet history, said that the New York performance of “Red Detachment” underscores the Chinese regime’s need to legitimize its Maoist past—a period Harrison describes as a “black hole in which tens of millions of people died.”...

Murder on that level can NEVER be 'legitimized'... Shame on the Chinese for all time for that slaughter... how dare they... how dare they.... pigs.

[Therapsid]

Some things bother me about chinese cannibalism....vs..african cannibalism...or Japanese cannibalism...or Islamic cannibalism...............#1 the Scale....with 40-80 million killed during Maos “cultural revolution”..and the government ordering cannibalism “as a method of proving loyalty”....that means a large portion off the chinese pop....has eaten people.....................#2...the fact that it is still an accepted practice ...50 yrs later.......................................#3...The fact that it is practiced without necessity “when noone is starving” .....................................#4 The fact that the same government is still in charge of that country....#5.. .The fact that due to the size of china.......1/3 of the worlds current population has been partially dehumanized through acceptance and or practice of this primal behavior

[MrB]

When you don’t have absolute moral standards,
you always weigh means vs ends.

When you define the ends as “infinite good, perfect society, heaven on earth” and put that on one side of the scale,
you can put ANYTHING on the other end of the scale,
and the balance still tips “favorably”.

[GraceG]

[ Possessing about three acres of rice paddies and a lychee orchard ]

Three Whole ACRES and a Small grove of shrubs/trees.....

And the commies threw a fit, Just wait till the commies set their sights on the Farmers of America....

[GraceG]

[ It’s ok to commit mass genocide, as long as the victims are the same race as you. ]

It is not ethnic cleansing if it is “Communist Cultural Cleansing”....

[skeeter]

Very well said.

[GOPJ]

Because Chinese culture pushes smart but narcissistic thugs to the top what happened in the past is 'normal'... for them.

Take Chinese population control techniques... here's a contrast ...

In the West we give people Social Security. We tell them 'have fun - go on vacations - take lovers' - - when you're old the 'State will take care of you.. So don't worry about having children to protect you when you're old.. we're HERE for YOU." The West is dying... in 200 years there's won't be enough Germans to keep the language alive. We're NOT having kids - voluntarily... (incentives work)

Now in China it's been different - it's control the 'thug' way.

Chinese 'leaders; say 'You can only have one child - if you have more you are breaking the law and we will punish you'... The Chinese find it's easier to bully their citizens because all thugs like the easy harsh way. So China has lots of people and the world hates them and looks down on them as thugs...

Something is wrong at the heart of Chinese culture that makes them continually turn to thuggy people to rule them. I have no idea what it is or why...