Harmoniouser than thou
The Communist Party decided after he died that that Mao was 70% good and 30% bad, and that’s been the official line to this day. Defenders have claimed that China simply has a different form of democracy, and maybe it’s true: percentages of Americans vote wholly in favor of one leader or another, whereas the Chinese vote unanimously in favor of a percentage of their leaders. Of course anyone would surely be contented to have their life so validated, but since only 30% of Chinese emigrants later return for good, they seem to be tacitly claiming that China itself is just the opposite. Plus, the Communist Party may say that Mao was 70% good, but they never specified which 70%. I would imagine that his internal organs and arms and legs are about as good as anyone else’s. In fact, I think his only problem was his brain, which only weighs a couple pounds (and perhaps his incapacity to grow a suitably sinister identifying dictator mustache), so I might grant him an even higher score. And finally, although they may still claim him as a patron saint, they no longer hold to his revolutionary ideal but instead claim to be a “harmonious society,” which has also met a certain skepticism abroad. But again, I think they might be right: after all, China is such a harmonious society that even its supposed terrorists and rebels don’t put up a fight, and the chief of them all has won a Nobel Peace Prize! Then again, Yasser Arafat and Henry Kissinger have both also won Nobel Peace Prizes. Hm. Alright, let’s just move on.
April 14th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Which 70% of good and which 30% of bad are judged by history, unfortunately the Communist Party writes the history. But westerners only get to know his bad like human beings have tendency to pay 90% of their attention to the bad news and scandals. Politics is a game ~~~only people who are a part of it can really have fun !
April 17th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Well, in reality I’m guessing that most Westerners are too ignorant about Chinese history to know much about his good side or his bad side, and he’s had plenty of defenders in the West as well as in China for those that want to hear his achievements lauded, such as they are. But you’re right, politics is fun for those that run things, it’s what that means for the poor rest of us that’s the problem.
April 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Well, Im not a defender of Mao either a follower of Communist Party , for what I gave a point to what you are talking was just out of patriotism. Like most Chinese people recently work on protest Carrefour since French try to shift the Olympic into Olympolitic and I really wanted to take my sympathy back for France ‘s several failures to hold the Olympic. Meanwhile Im wondering what is the meaning for us quitting the Carrefour while I don’t even know whether it will cause any changes or who will have more losses. And this comes to what is the politics for the poor rest of us. I dont know since when people started to care about China so much which flatters us. But how much do they know about China or do they really want to know China ? I guess not. Actually most people in China are trying to work out their living standard first but not politics, like students only want to gain high grades to go to a good university and working people only want to raise their family or improve their living standard even the government really want to make China a good future. Chinese people may lack of sense of democratic or human rights partly from the Government control and partly from the 2000 years of deep and strong feudalism thought which can be said that Chinese people are habitual to be controlled but partly also from the people like to handle the economic situation first . Economy goes first ! Countries are enemies in politics but when things come to economics, they are eager to work together hand in hand. It’s the same true of us. And it has a far and long way for our college students to figure the politics out since the price of each of consuming product keep rising up except the value of the graduates which make it so hard for us to take a job or for people who have to support the family. Anyway, compared to our hard situation right now, we need to focus on the life first like Mark said : the superstructure is based on the economic foundation~~~ figure it out later !