“40 Years Later, China Still Isn't Discussing The Cultural Revolution - Free Internet Press” plus 2 more |
- 40 Years Later, China Still Isn't Discussing The Cultural Revolution - Free Internet Press
- WND’s Farah describes construction of cultural center as act of terrorism - Media Matters
- Debate about proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero not going away - creative loafing
| 40 Years Later, China Still Isn't Discussing The Cultural Revolution - Free Internet Press Posted: 24 Aug 2010 05:39 PM PDT Unlike South Africa or Chile, which set up truth commissions to exhume painful pasts, China remains tight-lipped. The authoritarian government in Beijing has discouraged domestic attempts at critical examination of the legacy of the Cultural Revolution. So even as analysts across the world speak of China's bright economic future, at home this August there remains a page missing from the country's past. Observers say the reason is obvious: Mao Zedong, who fanned the flames of the Cultural Revolution out of fears that the government was growing too moderate, is the historical bedrock of the Communist Party. To delve into the destruction Mao wrought could lead to a questioning of the political system itself. Chinese official histories acknowledge that the period was bloody and chaotic, but they give little detail about what happened, especially when it comes to individual murders. State museums often don't mention the event at all. The Cultural Revolution formally began in the spring of 1966 with notifications at the Politburo, but the wider bloodshed began that August after Mao, dissatisfied with the government for not acting boldly enough, urged more radical action. Red Guard units attacked those with "bad class backgrounds" with impunity, universities were shut down and millions were sent to the countryside to do manual labor. Other leaders later took the blame for the chaos, starting with the "Gang of Four," which included Mao's wife, but veneration of the "Great Helmsman" continued after he died in 1976. "The Cultural Revolution changed the life of our generation completely, and it wreaked havoc on China. It was a catastrophe," said Wang Duanyang, who as a teenager led a Red Guard group in Tianjin, a city southeast of Beijing. "I feel regret. ... I have done a lot of things that you may think ridiculous and insane, but those things were done in a particular context." Wang wrote a book that described the humiliation and beating of his school's leaders and local officials that he witnessed, and in 2007 he paid to have 1,000 copies published. In the forward he apologizes "to the people who I've hurt." He handed out the volume to friends and acquaintances, but commercial distribution wasn't an option. "According to the Chinese government, any (unauthorized) book related to the Cultural Revolution is not allowed to be published," said Wang, whose own father, an author, was denounced as a "rightist" during the movement. Why? "You should ask the Chinese government," he said. Beyond Mao's legacy, the history is sensitive because those involved in assaults on their fellow Chinese almost certainly included future leaders of business and politics. Looking over pictures of himself with fellow Red Guards in 1966 and beyond, Wang pointed to young men who grew up to be a vice minister, an influential party official in Shanghai and the director of an important state history museum. Wang Youqin, a former student at Bian's school who's written a book about the Cultural Revolution, named a prominent Chinese bank executive and a senior administrator at a Shanghai university as having knowledge about Bian's death. "They have become people with power and with money," said Wang Jingyao, Bian's husband. "The central government wants to cover up for them and protect them." The high school where Bian died was one of the best known in the country. The daughters of the general secretary of the Communist Party, Deng Xiaoping, and the head of state, Liu Shaoqi, attended the school. (The two men were named enemies of the party during the Cultural Revolution; Liu reportedly died in a jail cell, but Deng later became the country's leader.) Despite the school's visibility, there's been no official investigation of Bian's murder on Aug. 5, 1966. A Chinese filmmaker produced a short, powerful documentary about her death in 2006, but authorities forbade showing it in China. Wang Youqin, who's a senior lecturer of Chinese language at the University of Chicago, has created a website and ongoing research project about Bian's death and the Cultural Revolution, but Chinese authorities blocked the site. "If there was a trial I would go to the court and give evidence, but there is no trial," said Wang Youqin. "They say that generation was fed by wolves' milk; they never really understood that what they did was wrong." A moment later, Wang corrected herself, saying that there are former Red Guards who are sorry for their actions, but "for some people who were Red Guards, they don't want you to expose their bloody past." During the afternoon of that Aug. 5, said Wang, she saw students pour black ink on administrators' faces and drag them around and then "people went to the carpenter's room and got broken table legs with nails in them." At that point, Wang said, she left the scene. Bian already had been subjected to "struggle sessions" in which students kicked and beat her with wooden training rifles. They plastered her house with signs that accused her of party disloyalty and taunted that she'd "trembled all over" while getting doused with water and having her mouth stuffed with mud "just like a pig." The day before her death, more than a half-dozen students whipped Bian and another teacher with belts and buckles. One of the senior student leaders present the afternoon of Bian's murder, Liu Jin, agreed to talk with McClatchy about the experience. Liu was joined by a friend, Feng Jinglan, who was also there that day. The pair, now in their 60s, recounted the political history of the Cultural Revolution and gave a chronology of events at the school; but after an hour of talking, neither of them had described a specific act of violence. Only when pressed on the murder did the two women say that Bian and four other administrators were frog-marched around the schoolyard and beaten. Both said they were in another part of the school when it happened. So who, exactly, was responsible? "It was a group action. A lot of students beat Bian Zhongyun, maybe just hitting her on the back or slapping her," said Feng. "But her death is not the responsibility of any one individual." Intellpuke: You can read this article by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Tom Lassiter, reporting from Beijing, China, in context here: www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/08/24/99595/4-decades-later-china-still-isnt.htmlThis entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| WND’s Farah describes construction of cultural center as act of terrorism - Media Matters Posted: 24 Aug 2010 10:22 AM PDT Right-wing media figures like Cal Thomas and Dick Morris have preposterously suggested that the proposed Park51 cultural center in Manhattan would be a staging ground for future terrorism. But now Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily's Birther in Chief, has taken things a step further, contending that construction of the cultural center would itself be an act of terrorism:
How long before right-wingers like Farah start insisting that falafel stands are acts of terrorism? This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Debate about proposed Muslim cultural center near Ground Zero not going away - creative loafing Posted: 23 Aug 2010 05:30 AM PDT Time As Time and other media organizations have reported over the past week, there are similarly heated debates about mosques in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and Temecula, California. A certain segment of the U.S. populace simply doesn't like Islam and doesn't want a mosque built anywhere near them, and some of that prejudice has been getting expressed in the debate about the particular structure proposed in Lower Manhattan. There have been conflicting reports about the Imam at the center of Park51, Feisal Abdul Rauf, and whether he is a moderate Muslim that our leaders say is needed to defend Islam against the radicals who befoul it, or whether he is anti-Western in his viewpoint (critics have called him out for saying on 60 Minutes weeks after the 9/11 attacks that U.S. foreign policy in some ways was responsible for Osama bin Laden). Somewhere lost in that equation is whether if you're American and Muslim, does that mean you can't have legitimate critical feelings about our foreign policy, as other Americans can express, without fear of being labeled "a terrorist supporter" or "Anti-Semitic?" On ABC's This Week, host Christiane Amanpour asked the Imam's wife, Daisy Khan, if she would be amenable as per the suggestion of New York Governor David Patterson to find another site away from its current proposed location.
Some critics have raised questions about who might be funding the proposed $100 million mosque/cultural center. Khan responded that she doesn't know yet.
There are those betting that Park51 will never be built at its current location. Politico reported last week that in fact the organizers currently only have $18,255 in the bank for the project — "not enough even for a down payment on the half of the site the group has yet to purchase." Speaking up for the Imam yesterday on Meet the Press was Jeffrey Goldberg, the Middle East correspondent for Atlantic magazine, who disputed claims by New York GOP gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio about Imam Rauf.
Lazio looks in all polls like he'll be slaughtered by Andrew Cuomo in the race for NY governor in a couple of months (is he the best the NY GOP can offer? The man's biggest claim to fame was losing to Hillary Clinton for Senate a decade ago). He was asked if this Republican jihad against the mosque/cultural center could easily hurt the U.S. with Muslims overseas in the war on terror. Lazio didn't seem to get the question.
As some of the most heated rhetorical bombs have come from GOP stalwarts like Newt Gingrich, who compared Muslims to Nazis, some in the commentariat over the past week have suggested that this would be an appropriate time for George W. Bush to emerge from relative isolation in Dallas to comment on the situation. He memorably called Islam a "religion of peace" shortly after the 9/11 attacks, after all. But a spokesman said last week that he will not delve into this thicket. However, Karen Hughes is. One of W.'s closest advisers in the White House, the fellow Texan served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs from 2005 to 2007, where one of her main jobs was trying to bolster the U.S. "brand" overseas, including Muslim nations. In an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post, Hughes took the stance of Governor Patterson, Howard Dean and others, who espouse that there's no reason for Imam Rauf to walk away from building two New York City long blocks from Ground Zero, but it probably would be best for all concerned,though she admits to do would be an act of "uncommon courtesy."
In Florida, Democrats Jeff Greene and Alex Sink have notably spoken against having Park51 built at its currently location, and they and GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott have bashed Barack Obama for saying that the mosque/cultural center should be built at its proposed location.  This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
magazine this week has encapsulated what seems to be behind the raging debate over the proposed mosque/cultural center called Park51 in New York City.| You are subscribed to email updates from cultural - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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