Everyone had to attend weekly political meetings. If a member of the group saw another getting too close to a foreigner they would call them out during these meetings to embarrass them and force them back in line. During the height of the Cultural Revolution they would often do more than harass those who failed to display an adequate enthusiasm for Mao and the party; they would publicly beat and often kill them.
In '78 no one knew the rules. They had been told for 30 years that Westerners and especially Americans were the root cause of all of their suffering. Americans we're frequently called pigs and running dogs even when I first went there. Mao died in '76 and the Gang of Four (Mao's wife and three other politicos) tried to take over but were exposed and imprisoned. Deng Xiaoping, who had been imprisoned by Mao, took over and came up with a new plan that opened the country to the west commercially while maintaining tight control of the country politically through the Communist party and the PLA (Peoples Liberation Army).
The average guy had heard it all before and had learned through painful experience to read the tea leaves carefully. For example, Mao had a plan called Let a Thousand Flowers Bloom. It opened China to the intellectuals he had vilified for so long. He let them out of prison and encouraged those who had fled overseas to return and they did... in droves. Mao encouraged them to speak out about the problems in the country. Of course, the problem was Mao and his gang and as soon as they came under attack he organized the peasant youth into Red Guards, encouraging them to "purify" the thoughts of the intellectuals. They vigorously attacked anyone who had an education or intellectual standing, especially if they had been overseas.
Dr. Tu Yi Fu, who became a dear friend, was the head of surgery at a leading dental school during the fall of Mao's Thousand Flowers movement. He was not political at all. The Red Guards tied his arms behind his back with ropes, put a red dunce cap on his head, and beat him with sticks trying to make him confess that he had been in contact with his family who had fled to Taiwan in '49. For four years he was confined to the basement as a janitor of the department he once ran. Frequently he would be brought to campus-wide purification meetings. Blindfolded, he would stand on a stage while hundreds of students screamed at him calling him a Kuomintang spy and yellow dog. Imagine what it was like for a cultured, educated man to be so humiliated. How terrified he must have been in the darkness behind the blindfold.
Every dental school I visited in China always had a few "dentists" who hung around the tea room and never seemed to actually do any dentistry. I asked Dr. Tu who these people were. He told me they were peasants who had been appointed as dentists during the Cultural Revolution. The Red Guards harbored such hatred for those with education that when they removed the real dentists as running dog capitalists, they simple 'appointed' replacement dentists. He told me stories of how the impostors would drag him up from the basement to save the life of some patient who was bleeding to death because of their malpractice. Because they had once held the title of dentist and were paid as such within the bureaucracy, they could never be demoted. Theywould continue to be paid on that level until they retired even though they had no training or ability and now simply sat and drank tea and smoked cigarettes. These were the same people who had abused him for four years. I asked him how he felt when he saw these people who had treated him so badly. I told him I would want to strangle them. He smiled and said he harbored no ill will toward them because... "they thought they were doing the right thing".
Since '78 the communists have embarked on a huge global PR campaign to change the world view of their country and government. Leopards, as the cliche goes, cannot change their spots. Don't be fooled by the fantastic images coming from China like those from the Olympics. Sure, they are amazing but remember... last week the Chicoms imprisoned a dissident for 15 years for publicly questioning the legal system in the country.
All of this leads me to the point of this post. Fewer than 10% of those serving in the current administration in Washington have ever worked in the private sector. Is it any wonder that the other 90% believe government is the solution to every problem. To expect them to do otherwise is asking the leopard to change its spots. Hopefully we can be as generous in our thinking as Dr. Tu ... sadly, they believe they are doing the right thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment