Getting rid of Mao Zedong is the real Jasmine Revolution
Rome (AsiaNews) – China’s crackdown continues. For weeks, the authorities have arrested human rights activists and lawyers representing people seeking redress against unjust seizures of land and homes, people whose religious rights have been violated as well as those who have been arrested for no good reason. The crackdown appears to be motivated by fear that the Jasmine Revolution sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa, and shaking the foundations of autocratic regimes, might reach China itself. In a few weeks, an anonymous online posting urging people to “gather” in certain squares in given Chinese cities was enough to trigger a full-scale onslaught by the government.
According to Harry Wu, founder of the Laogai Foundation, an organisation dedicated to denouncing China’s concentration camps, a “Jasmine Revolution” is impossible in China “as long that Mao Zedong cannot be radically criticised,” which can happen only if the members of the leadership are at loggerheads with each other.
Harry Wu is currently in Italy for a meeting of the Italian chapter of the Laogai Foundation. This year’s focus is on the curse of abortion and forced sterilisations caused by the one-child law. On the sidelines of the conference, Mr Wu, who spent 19 years in a laogai (a forced labour and concentration camp) said that a popular revolution is impossible in China. Neither peasants, isolated in the countryside or enslaved as migrant workers in the cities, nor city residents, who seek prosperity, are ready to overthrow the regime and this despite their struggles and demonstrations to improve their conditions. Intellectuals (like the signatories of Charter 08) may seek democracy and come up with proposals for political change but they are too weak. For Wu, change can come only from the top, from inside the leadership, and that can occur only if its members can radically criticised Mao.
The myth of the Great Helmsman is still strong in the country, even though on his death, Deng Xiaoping said that about 30 per cent of his action deserved criticism. In fact, it is still impossible today to attack Mao’s policies or objectively study his period of rule. For many, he continues to be the man who liberated China from foreign invasions and put the country back on its feet.
Many scholars disagree with this idealised vision, viewing it as both false and disastrous. For one thing, even if Mao claimed that he defeated the Japanese invaders, Japanese historians note that he never fought against Japan, as Chang Kai-shek did. Likewise, his Great Leap Forward was an unmitigated disaster that caused famine in the countryside and the death of at least 35 million people. The Cultural Revolution that followed killed millions in the civil strife that accompanied it. In addition, the many campaigns and purges against “enemies of the people”, i.e. anybody who stood in the way, also came with a hefty human price tag.
Despite all this, few doubt Mao’s right to be considered the “father of the nation” and his portrait triumphantly hangs from the walls of the Forbidden City looking out towards Tiananmen Square.
Years ago, a scholar called for the Mao Mausoleum to be removed from Tiananmen Square, but his proposal was not heeded. A few months ago, a statue of Confucius was erected in front of the mausoleum, but it disappeared some time later.
For Harry Wu, all this is a sign that a conflict is going on within the leadership between hard-line Maoists who want to maintain the Communist Party monopoly of power and “Confucians” who want to put it in the “service of the people”.
Something else signals a conflict inside the politburo. On several occasions last year and this year, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in interviews and speeches said that it was urgent for China to implement political reforms. Yet, official media have usually given his proposals a short shrift. His latest appeal for reform was made for example as police cracked down on and arrested Jasmine Revolution activists.
It is also true that Wen has never said what kind of reform he wants. For some, this is a sign that he is only trying screen the party’s increasingly bloody image.
At the same time, the party is home to people like Bo Xilai, party secretary in Chongqing, and Wen’s probable successor in 2013.
Unlike his future predecessor, Bo has pushed for the rediscovering of Mao Zedong’s “red culture”, praising the Cultural Revolution and the glory days under the Great Helmsman. As was the case under Mao’s reign, each school, university, factory, radio and TV station now must play songs that extol the Party.
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22/12/2003
09/03/2017 16:09
17/01/2017 09:07
