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picture of Chairman Mao overlooking Yao as he carries the olympic torch

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by Commodore, Aug 7, 2008.

  1. Commodore

    Commodore Contributing Member

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    [​IMG]

    so this picture was posted in the GARM and I posted my reaction to it, which is better suited for this forum:

    The disturbing thing is not Yao, who loves his country and his people, it's the idol worship of a brutal dictator and the indoctrination of the Chinese people by it's communist rulers.

    I am a huge fan of many aspects of Chinese culture (in grad school atm and no one is nicer or smarter or more hard working than the Chinese students I know), but you can see the blind nationalism that has been pounded into them from birth (as all authoritarian regimes do) in the reactions here, as if any criticism of the Chinese government or its past leaders is a personal affront to them.
     
  2. maud'dib

    maud'dib Rookie

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    hey at least they are killing their own people.
     
  3. weslinder

    weslinder Contributing Member

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  4. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Contributing Member
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    I think it might be hard to understand the importance of Mao to the PRC for people outside the country. My impression is that most Chinese won't deny that Mao was brutal and did many things that brought great misery to many people. At the sametime there might not be the modern China now without him. In the 100 years prior to the PRC China was a beaten and chaotic country cut up into spheres of influence and preyed on by foreign powers. Mao and the Communist did restore a sense of order and at the same time also did away with many older traditions and cultural institutions that were holding back China. It is terrible that these were done at a very high costs but history can't be undone.

    I don't want to come off as an apologist for Mao but I don't think his legacy can be reduced to just being an evil dictator. He was that but his impact on China, and the World, is more than just that.
     
  5. Nuclear Yak

    Nuclear Yak Member

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    Meh. I don't think think its a matter of idol worship. The Chinese will admit that Mao made some major mistakes. However, they view his contributions to China as overshadowing the mistakes that he had made.

    This is apparent, especially after Deng Xiaoping took power and after Mao's death.

    Here's a NYT article published in 1989

    http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE0D71E3DF934A35751C0A96F948260

    Legacy of Mao Called 'Great Disaster'
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

    LEAD: In one of the harshest official appraisals so far of Mao Zedong, a leading Chinese newspaper has said he brought great disasters to the Chinese people.

    In one of the harshest official appraisals so far of Mao Zedong, a leading Chinese newspaper has said he brought great disasters to the Chinese people.

    Guangming Daily, an official paper with a largely intellectual audience, also said China should not flinch from re-examining the legacy of the man who molded Chinese Communism.

    The long critique, which took up nearly half a page in Thursday's issue, has aroused attention in Beijing because it appeared to have official backing and may be a sign of a greater willingness to assess Mao's record.

    The article was written by Li Rui, a former Government official who is one of 200 members of the prestigious Central Advisory Commission to the Chinese Communist Party. Statues No Longer in Vogue

    The article reflected the general decline in esteem for Mao, who dominated China's Communist Party from its days as a rebel organization in the late 1930's until his death in 1976. In his later years his cult was extraordinary not only for the number of its followers but often for their zeal.

    In the last decade, China has moved away from Mao's beliefs, and his pictures and statues have largely disappeared from around the country. When a three-story statue of Mao was removed last year from Beijing University, it left only a handful of Mao statues in various nooks of the capital.

    Yet China's senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, was reported to have said in 1978, ''We will never do to Mao what the Soviets did to Stalin,'' and the official verdict remains that Mao was 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong. Reassessing Mao's role in China is far more complex than re-evaluating Stalin's position in Soviet history, because Mao dominated China's Communist Party for so long that without him there is not much left to praise. Mistakes in His Thought'

    The article in Guangming Daily praised Mao's achievements, particularly in his early years, and said he was without doubt the greatest Chinese figure of the 20th century. But it added:

    ''In studying Mao Zedong, the most complicated, difficult and important area is the examination of the activities and thought of his later years -especially the mistakes in his thought. There has been little study of this in the past. Mao was a great man who embodied the calamities of the Chinese people, but in his later years he made big mistakes over a long period, and the result was great disaster for the people and his country. He created a historical tragedy.''

    And from an interview with Deng Xiaoping
    http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/dengxp/vol2/text/b1470.html
     
  6. bronxfan

    bronxfan Contributing Member

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    perhaps some of this is the fact that the criticism is coming from (I presume) someone who is not chinese while they are away from china...

    as someone who was born in india (but lived here since a toddler) I often find myself defending india/indian customs to my "american" (read caucasian) friends and defending america to my indian relatives...

    i also find many of my relatives (who are in india) are sensitive to any criticism from me, but they will tear apart the indian government amongst themselves... :)
     
  7. jli

    jli Member

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    A few things about why ordinary Chinese people love him:
    1. He is not afraid of bigger bullies, whether it is US or Russia.
    2. When he decided to go to the war against US in Korea, he sent his older son to the battle field, and he died there. (his younger son had mental illness)
    3. He brought China into the powerful nuclear club. China will not be the China today without him.

    That being said, I am not big fan of him. My family suffered a little in the Culture Revolution. :mad:
     
  8. Air Langhi

    Air Langhi Contributing Member

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    I would argue the current success of china is due much more to their recent willingness to have a more capitalistic economy.
     
  9. tinman

    tinman Contributing Member
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    I just think that a giant poster of his face is tacky,
    a statue would be fine.

    how stupid would it look if we had a 100 foot poster of George Washington's face?

    what if you went to church and they had a giant Jesus face poster?
     
  10. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    He's saying that wouldn't have been possible unless you had a dictator bring the country together. The whole concept of nations didn't really exist prior to WWI - it's hard for us to understand this as Americans because our entire history from independence onward was as a nation.

    Mao created China as a state - that's what he is saying. Without that foundation, the national level coordination and governing couldn't have happened. Although one could argue that it would have happened anyway had the nationalist one - perhaps sooner.

    In any case, that Mao is so revered is not surprising. After all he is the father of the PRC which is the party in control - so why wouldn't he be revered when all of China is taught to worship him? It's like George Washington for us. He's a symbol to them. A founding father.

    If anything, attacking Mao won't do anything positive. I think people just should stay focused on China's current human rights records and civil liberties. The key is to open China up from an information and human rights perspective. Worrying about Mao would just be counter-productive.
     
  11. Deckard

    Deckard Blade Runner
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    Who cares? I think it's a trip. Nothing could better illustrate the dichotomy of the Chinese and American systems than a Chinese NBA multimillionaire running with an Olympic torch in front of a gigantic poster of a murderous Chinese dictator. Groovy!




    Impeach Bush/Mao... I mean Cheney.
     
  12. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    I thought that was Yao's MOM! :eek:
     
  13. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    A man who may have been responsible for what - a 100 million deaths? Mao makes Japan and Hitler look like saints in that regards - especially since Mao killed his own people.
     
  14. weslinder

    weslinder Contributing Member

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    I've met Yao's mom. She's a sweet lady, and becoming quite the American. I don't think that she has much in common with Chairman Mao.
     
  15. conquistador#11

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    Reaganomics were responsible for tragedies all over the americas. But hey, at least ketchup became an official vegetable.

    Two wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes violence is the only way to bring criminals to justice. I wish everyone could carry themselves like MonseƱor , Martin luther king, or Julio cesar chavez, but sometimes you need someone with the 'by any means necessary' attitude to get the point across.

    As for the mao posters, ehh, i don't like them. They seem a little out of date. They should give them an extreme make over. maybe a david lachapelle style photograph? Lachapelle..... love that guy. =)
     
  16. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    let me put it this way. a lot of us won't be here if it wasn't for the chairman.
     
  17. B-Bob

    B-Bob "94-year-old self-described dreamer"

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    I kid, I kid! I know, not funny. My apologies to Yao and his mom.
     
  18. London'sBurning

    London'sBurning Contributing Member

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    Who is that guy by the way? I've always seen pictures of him on t-shirts and I'm always wondering if the guys wearing them even know who he is. I sure don't.
     
  19. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    a lot family suffered in the culture revolution. i heard that my grandpa was labelled a 'counter-revolutionary'. was beaten and locked up for a while, and separated from the rest of the family. was later let out. he doesn't even hold any grudge against the chairman. because he was realistic about no one is perfect, and chairman's good deeds out weigh the bad deeds.
     
  20. yuantian

    yuantian Contributing Member

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    there is a difference in intention. the chairman never purposedly killed those people. it was the result of failed system that was meant to do good to the people. i don't think japan/germany were trying to helped the people they killed.
     

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