May 18, 2004

The death of communism (was it ever alive?)

Suzhou, China

There can be no doubt that communism, as a socialist ideology, has been abandoned in China. It probably never really existed in the Marxist-Leninist sense. It was more just a rallying cry for the peasant farmers against the Kuomintang.

Unfortunately, in moving away from the communist ideal the Chinese government is discarding the good aspects: equality of the people, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need", in the words of Marx; and retaining the bad: centralised government, a totalitarian state, and social conditioning.

The idea of equality probably never existed in the minds of the regime. Official announcements can, with a straight face, make the reference "from the highest state official to the lowest peasant".

Attempts at social conditioning range from the famous one child policy to the work of the Children's Song Committee, a group of elderly song-writers charged with writing songs for children so they don't have to listen to the adult themes of Cantopop. Their most famous work is 'Take Lei Feng as a Fine Model', mythologising a young soldier who was always ready to help others. The sixty-five year old committee chair acknowledges that they may be out of touch with the current young generation.

And today it was announced that henceforth, foreign (ie Hollywood) films would be banned from release during school holidays so that children could watch more wholesome fare. The threat of Harry Potter was too great. In the wake of China's entrance to the WTO it seems likely that such actions, they also limit overseas films to just ten per year, will fall foul of powerful US lobby groups.

Of course, all this pales beside the information access offered by the internet. The government is terrified of this medium and rightly so. Even behind "the Great Firewall of China" typing "Tiananmen Square" into Google brings up several websites about the massacre before any official tourist sites. Even those, such as Amnesty International's, which are blocked, are easily accessed via Google's cache feature.

Still, maybe the government has nothing to fear from the internet. In all the cafes I've visited the locals do nothing but play games, read emails, or chat online.

Posted by David at May 18, 2004 09:49 PM