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Never underestimate propaganda

‘The power of a dictatorship to brainwash its populace is much stronger than the power of facts to open minds. This has been seen time and again.’

Tuesday marked the 87th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Its bloody revolution resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the destruction of countless families. But the Chinese public remains largely numb to the brutal reality thanks to propaganda and brainwashing.

A Taiwanese student in Japan sent me a letter several days ago, saying that her 18-year-old Chinese classmate learned the facts behind the 1989 student movement in Beijing and the Tiananmen Massacre on the Internet while studying abroad. But his conclusion was that the authorities had no choice but to crack down on the demonstrators, lest chaos ensue.

Another of this Taiwanese student’s Chinese classmates is a middle-aged woman whose father, a former CCP cadre, was denounced during the Cultural Revolution, causing great suffering for her family. Yet she still admires Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and believes Mao was one of the greatest men to ever live.

The Taiwanese student wrote that it upset her to see that these Chinese students seem incapable of changing their opinions even after living in the free world and accessing information freely.

“Is this a form of Stockholm syndrome or the result of the CCP’s ideological education?” she asked.

The power of a dictatorship to brainwash its populace is much stronger than the power of facts to open minds. This has been seen time and again, under such dictators as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao and Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).

Long-term brainwashing and propaganda divests the public of its ability to judge facts.

In his classic novel 1984, George Orwell painted a dark picture of this phenomenon. Winston Smith, the main character, is shown four fingers but told he sees five. Eventually he is convinced that he sees five fingers. When he answers “five,” he does not do so out of fear, but because he is so numbed by all the lies that he actually believes what he says.

In a recent example of a massive propaganda effort, Chinese media eulogized the rescue work in the wake of the massive earthquake in Sichuan Province, praising the leadership of Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶).

Chinese activists and intellectuals and even President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were touched by the efforts and lauded the Chinese government.

A US-based poet and self-proclaimed Chinese dissident wrote an article praising the regime for lowering the flag to half-mast to honor the dead and saying Hu and Wen had lowered themselves to the level of the public for the first time.

Meanwhile, a Beijing dissident called on the regime to show the same respect for the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre by lowering the flag in their memory.

China’s five-star flag is in reality no more than a symbol of state violence, stained red by the blood of more than 80 million people who lost their lives to the CCP’s cruelty. Lowering the Chinese flag is hardly a worthy form of commemoration for any of the CCP’s victims.

But the Chinese people, still oppressed by dictatorship, are not the only ones living in the shadow of propaganda. Twenty years after the lifting of martial law, the mark of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) brainwashing is still evident.

Ma, who holds a doctoral degree in law from Harvard University, still kneels before the grave of Chiang. The only explanation for such behavior is that Ma truly believes Chiang was a great man. Nobody forces Ma to venerate Chiang today — he does so sincerely and of his own free will.

Neither Chinese living abroad nor those Taiwanese who whole-heartedly support the KMT are forced to do so. They do so of their own free will.

I cannot help but think of Smith in 1984. As the book ends, he leaves his traumatic brainwashing with a smile on his face. He is completely brainwashed and incapable of critical thought. Not only is he unaware of this, but he is also content.



Cao Changqing is a writer based in the US.

TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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