The simple fact of the matter is that nothing of any real relevance happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989. The Western media was present at a minor demonstration that was eventually dispersed by the Chinese authorities. Contrary to Western misrepresentation, people are allowed to protest in China, and exercise this right all the time. There have been many such protests both before and after Tiananmen in China, many of which could be construed as far more significant for various reasons as that which occurred in Tiananmen in 1989, but which the Western press have completely ignored.
Tag: china
Chris Pattern, the BBC and its Dangerous Lurch to the Right
It is remarkable to note in passing that following New Labour’s landslide electoral victory in 1997, the toryite leader of the Labour Party – Tony Blair – actually chose to leave Chris Patten in place, presumably as his naturally rightwing political leanings, or so Blair thought, represented the New Labour ethos exactly. Of course, not to remain insular and Eurocentric about this serious matter, the British rightwing made use of Chris Patten to eulogise a dying idea of the despicable institution of ‘empire’, and inflicted Patten’s ignorance upon the Chinese people of Hong Kong, who had to continue to kowtow to the continuous injustices inflicted physically and psychologically upon them by the presence of foreign invaders, and their proselytising Judeo-Christian church. The measure of Chris Patten’s Eurocentric ignorance, racism, prejudice, and discriminative attitude, can be found with just a superficial reading of his memoirs of his time lording it over the Chinese people. He is unrepentant and fully committed to a ‘Little England’ mentality that simultaneously reduces the rest of the world to an uncivilised and as of yet unChristianised mess that is just waiting for people like him to save it from its own innate, inferior barbarism. It is true that by the time of his tenure, Hong Kong had been preparing for reversion back to Chinese rule for some time, and the British military and police forces were keeping a low profile so as not to antagonise the local Chinese population, or trigger the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) from prematurely coming over the border and freeing the area by force.
Eric Hobsbawm: Bourgeois Intellectual
Hobsbawm’s work is popular throughout the bourgeois system because it undermines the very Marxism it claims to represent, through the careful and clever presentation of many small, but important misrepresentations of Marxist philosophy and its application. The over-all effect of this policy is a movement away from a correct Marxist analysis and toward a thoroughly (and for Hobsbawm a comfortable) bourgeois interpretation. His deliberate and illogical separation of the Russian Communist Revolution from that of the Chinese Revolution is bizarre in its certainty, and smirks of Eurocentric bias bordering on the racist. Whatever Hobsbawm motivation for this flawed analysis, it is obvious that he does not adhere to the Marxist principle of ‘internationalism’.
On Seeing Behind the Eyelids – A Marxist Critique of Buddhism in the West
The Christian monastic tradition, as manifest through Western Christianity, has generally combined a stringent discipline with voluntary poverty and celibacy. The idealised image of the Buddhist monk, as it has entered the Western psyche, is one of a man who has abandoned what is here (real material life), for what is over there (imagined religious realms). Of course, as what is over there, by definition, is never here and now, its presence can never be empirically confirmed. The Buddhist rules followed by monastics and the laity take the place of Christian piety in the West, but are adhered to by most Westerners with a similar fanatic attitude that completely misses the point the rule is assumed to be designed to achieve. The physical practice of Buddhist meditation is of course the act of Christian prayer wrapped in saffron robes. Western converts meditate as if they are praying to a divine being, but with the added titillation that the divine being in question is their own imagined self-essence – or god removed from his heaven and relocated into their own head. Chanting mantras – the holy syllables of the East – replaces the singing of hymns and the chanting of monks, and sutra reading is bible study by other means. Just as god in heaven can never be logically verified, enlightenment in the head can not be seen in the environment or known to exist.
China Follows Marx
The USA pays billions of dollars to China in an attempt to destroy Communism, whilst China uses the same money to ‘strengthen’ the infrastructure of its country to pave the way toward the achievement of Socialism and Communism.
China as Developmental Archetype for Humanity
Life continues in the obvious (everyday) manner relating to Chinese culture, and there is no real understanding of the deeper psycho-spiritual energy that is in operation. This is as it should be, as the entire transformation process avoids the trap of ego-awareness and the psychological structures that operate through materialist paradigms, seeking personal aggrandisement and power.
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 