Cultural Revolution Retrospectives

[onebir]

Since it's the 50th anniversary, there's a lot going round; perhaps we'll end up with a few more here.

While there's probably some political motivation behind bringing all this up (esp in the case of Foreign Policy) it's a good reminder of just one of the huge traumas that afflicted China in C20th, with such a devastating impact on IMA/Qigong/TCM etc practitioners.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/16/my- ... snt-sorry/

[onebir]

Jun Chang (Wild Swans author) Newsnight:

[Michael]

Could China's President Get Purged? Happy 50th Anniversary, Cultural Revolution!



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsezqjacR_U

[yeniseri]

Mr Palmer goes through the Cultural Revolution's re-invention and re-engineering of what we know as qigong today along with the appeasement of Party Leaders and the juxtaposition of revolutionary aArxist ideology onto qigong and other systems deemed to be part of the ancien regime (old system i.e.pre Communiest)

Qigong Fever; Body Science and Utopia by David Palmer

http://muse.jhu.edu/article/269472

[onebir]

If anyone wants to read the full text of that review just PM me.

[chud]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/08/chinas-memory-manipulators

[onebir]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/08/chinas-memory-manipulators

Very interesting article!

[yeniseri]

As a somewhat of a traveller, I have gone to place where the cultural presence of a people or group seem out of place in the present landscape. I realize that history can and will be manipulated, based on who is writing the story. It is when you destroy the physical landscape (buildings, icons, landmarks, etc) past heritage, etc you can attempt to control its present space occupiers but it will only last so long because the strategies of the past will come back to haunt the creators of that illusion.

[Michael]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/08/chinas-memory-manipulators

It is when you destroy the physical landscape (buildings, icons, landmarks, etc) past heritage, etc you can attempt to control its present space occupiers but it will only last so long because the strategies of the past will come back to haunt the creators of that illusion.

There are very few, if any places I've been in Guangdong or Fujian that don't feel this way, and because of that I haven't traveled elsewhere. It all feels like there was a war that destroyed something and it was recently plastered over with varying levels of more or less expensive facades. At the moment, I can't think of anywhere I've been here that felt authentic, and for me that includes Hong Kong. Taiwan had a totally different feel.

[grzegorz]

Could China's President Get Purged? Happy 50th Anniversary, Cultural Revolution!

The stuff he says about the personality cult reminds me of this video released by the government of the PRC.




https://youtu.be/m91zBt94Ll0

[onebir]

For an (irreconcilably?) different angle:

P1

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, an interview with Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party: The Cultural Revolution in China...Art and Culture...Dissent and Ferment...and Carrying Forward the Revolution Toward Communism. This interview was first aired in 2005.

(Needless to say he thinks the CR - 'high point of class struggle' as I think he describes it at one point - has been portrayed in an overly negative light, with too much emphasis on the people persecuted):

http://radio4all.net/index.php/program/86822

P2

On the 50th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, one of the most important – and vilified - events in history. Raymond Lotta, one of the foremost experts on the Cultural Revolution. He's an advocate for Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism, a political economist, author of America in Decline, and writer for revcom.us. Also, Bai Di, co-author of “Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era,” on her personal experience in the Cultural Revolution.

http://radio4all.net/index.php/program/86917

[johnbecker]

Look up 'Mao's Bloody Revolution Revealed' on YouTube.

Good history is the study of primary evidence, not the opinion of 'intellectuals'. The misery and death of others seems to be an easy burden for them to bear.

[onebir]

My reaction was similar... but let a hundred flowers bloom

[Michael]

The stuff he says about the personality cult reminds me of this video released by the government of the PRC.

Gheyest PRC video evah, with truly tremendous Mandarin pronunciation of basic counting numbers. Just mind bogglingly silly stuff, the purpose of which is still unclear to me.

The shee sang woo, woo!

[grzegorz]

I think the video was meant to show us that President Xi is a swell guy.