Roland Boer's Blog, page 37

Christmas greetings from the CPC

A couple of items recently from sections of the CPC, warning against overly enthusiastic adoptions of Christmas practices.

From the youth league: ‘Communist Party members must be role models in abiding to the faith of communism. [Members are] not allowed to have superstitions and blindly follow the opium of Western spirits’.

And from a banner at Northwest University: ‘Strive to be outstanding sons and daughters of China, oppose kitsch Western holidays’.

Yes indeed: kitsch Western holidays.

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Mao: ‘Going to see God’

I am in the process of collecting into one volume all of Edgar Snow‘s interviews (in Chinese translation) with Mao Zedong. As I did so I came across this intriguing passage:

‘Speaking of your health, as we were not, judging from this evening you seem to be in good condition.’

Mao Tse-tung smiled wryly and replied that there was perhaps some doubt about that. He said again that he was getting ready to see God very soon. Did I believe it?

‘I wonder if you mean you are going to find out whether...

Religion: Opium of the People? Ebooklet published by CPB’s Culture Matters

The first of a number of ebooklets has been published by ‘Culture Matters‘, under the auspices of the Communist Party of Britain. The booklet is called Religion: Opium of the People? and is being distributed widely by the good people at Culture Matters. You can read the book online as a webpage, or as an ebooklet.

How to buy political influence in Australia

The normal way to do business in Australia is open the cheque book and start handing over dollops of money to politicians and political parties. Soon enough, decisions will go your way and you will make even more cash. Indeed, the vast majority of those who have made their millions and billions in Australian history have done so through the government.

But – and it is a big but – you have to be the ‘right’ sort of person. I usually don’t pay much attention to this corporate news source, but t...

Get used to it: Chinese influence is the CPC’s influence

Another good article in the Global Times concerning the CPC on the international arena, called ‘CPC’s role cannot be detached from Chinese influence‘. As China becomes a global power once again, some countries have begun expressing a close-minded concern about the ‘evil’ effects of the CPC, trying to distinguish between Chinese influence and the role of the CPC.

The catch is that you can’t detach them so. As the article points out:

With its 89 million-strong members, consisting mainly of the...

Chinese students thinking twice about applying for universities in the USA

A good piece in the Global Times about a Chinese student’s experience in the United States. It depicts the bias, if not racism, against Chinese students, who are often rejected now even if they have very good marks. But more importantly, it picks apart through first-hand experience how the liberal ideals of the United States are anything but. ‘Individualism’ – no, for stereotypes abound based on race and socio-economic status. ‘Equal opportunity’ – some are more equal than others. ‘Human righ...

Red star at Christmas

Time for Christmas trees in our corner of the world. But of course, the star on the tree should be a red star:

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In the background is a socialist realist image of a miner from the DPRK (from my visit there)

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Returning to socialist realism

Socialist realism has had a bad press. Due to Cold War mindsets and the corroding effects of liberalism, many still see it as a crude ideological imposition on the freedom of artists, writers, film makers and so on. ‘Stultifying’, ‘stilted’, a sign of Stalin’s ‘dictatorship’ – these and more are some of the observations you still hear. A common narrative is that after the creativity of the late 1910s and early 1920s in the Soviet Union, Stalin stifled these developments in favour of a ‘conser...

The myth of Chinese repression of Mao’s writings

The CPC has ‘repressed’ Mao’s writings – or so the myth would have us believe. I am never quite sure whether this sort of observation is an article of unquestioned faith, myth, or simply a ‘fact’ that is believed by many due to thousands of repetitions. To wit, since some of Mao’s texts are too explosive, they have – so some believe – been hidden by a CPC keen to keep a lid on how Mao is studied and interpreted. Indeed, if you want a full collection of Mao’s writings you have to go to the ser...

Is China becoming a world leader on human rights?

They are certainly busy up north in the people’s republic. As the United States undergoes a UN investigation for extreme poverty, with the investigator citing profound human rights violations in terms of private wealth and public squalor, and as the USA refuses to ratify international human rights agreements (Australia, I should add, does not have a bill of rights), China moves on with a major ‘white paper’ on human rights. The full text may be found here, but this image provides a handy over...