At the international airport in Chongqing in southwest China, travelers are greeted with a massive sign inviting them to “sing Red songs” and spread the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) good word.
Thirty-five years after the death of Chinese leader Mao Zedong (毛澤東), the revolutionary spirit is alive and thriving in this teeming province-sized mega-city, despite the more capitalist leanings adopted by the world’s second--largest economy.
The old-school Maoist propaganda campaign includes sending officials to work in the countryside, Red chorales at state-run firms, patriotic television shows and cutting sentences for anybody convicted of a crime if they have been involved in boosting “Red” culture.
Photo: AFP
For Chongqing’s older residents, the movement is tinged with nostalgia. Every afternoon, people gather at the square in front of the city’s Great Hall of the People for impromptu — and somewhat out-of-tune — singing sessions.
“Red culture is not just about singing for the party. It’s also a mindset that encourages Chinese people to defend the revolutionary cause and build the nation,” retiree Li Jianhua says, obviously well-rehearsed in the party line.
At the heart of this movement that will gather pace until Friday next week, when China marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, is Chongqing’s influential party secretary and rising star Bo Xilai (薄熙來).
Observers say Bo, an ambitious former Chinese commerce minister, is keen to win a seat in the party’s nine-member Politburo Standing Committee — the apex of political power in China. Some believe he sees the Maoist revival in Chongqing as a way to advance his personal agenda. Others like Su Wei (蘇偉), a professor at the city’s CCP school, say the movement is simply a step on the road to China’s “material and spiritual development” as envisioned by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
Su said Bo had been disappointed to see that pop love songs from Taiwan and Hong Kong had replaced patriotic anthems in the hearts of many Chinese over the past 30 years of opening up and economic reform.
So, Bo decided to promote 45 official songs by any means possible.
“These are not just old songs. Eighteen of them were written during the period of reform, 20 of them during the revolutionary period and the others between 1949 and 1978,” Su said.
A drive across sprawling Chongqing — home to 33 million people — reveals that while some like 60-something Li and his fellow singers are embracing Bo’s initiative, it is not having a profound influence on the whole.
Luo Yang, 24, says at his university the teachers are more into the “Red” revival than the students. Nevertheless, he can name several Red songs — Five-Star Flag, Me and My Country and Red East.
Among Chongqing’s laborers, the movement is having more success.
At the Qiutian gear factory, workers are encouraged to take part in the weekly Red chorale. Once an employee signs up, missing a session is forbidden.
Dozens of people wearing blue coveralls banded together to belt out a military tune, Follow the Communist Party, at one recent choir meeting, under the watchful eye of Bo himself — staring down from a giant poster.
“You are a beacon of light illuminating the sea before dawn. You are a helmsman guiding the ship,” they sang — perhaps a reference to Mao, the “Great Helmsman.”
He Yonglin, the factory’s party vice secretary and also head of the lone union, hailed the many benefits of the patriotic vocal exercises.
“The young people, once they learned how to sing, have made ideological progress. They are starting to learn some discipline,” He said.
Chongqing recently sent a 1,000-strong chorus aged six to 80 to Beijing to perform in patriotic shows, where revolutionary symbols are everywhere — sickles and hammers, red stars, khaki uniforms and flat caps.
And this month, 60,000 people gathered at the “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing for a massive concert of red songs.
A string of rape and assault allegations against the son of Norway’s future queen have plunged the royal family into its “biggest scandal” ever, wrapping up an annus horribilis for the monarchy. The legal troubles surrounding Marius Borg Hoiby, the 27-year-old son born of a relationship before Norwegian Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon, have dominated the Scandinavian country’s headlines since August. The tall strapping blond with a “bad boy” look — often photographed in tuxedos, slicked back hair, earrings and tattoos — was arrested in Oslo on Aug. 4 suspected of assaulting his girlfriend the previous night. A photograph
The US deployed a reconnaissance aircraft while Japan and the Philippines sent navy ships in a joint patrol in the disputed South China Sea yesterday, two days after the allied forces condemned actions by China Coast Guard vessels against Philippine patrol ships. The US Indo-Pacific Command said the joint patrol was conducted in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone by allies and partners to “uphold the right to freedom of navigation and overflight “ and “other lawful uses of the sea and international airspace.” Those phrases are used by the US, Japan and the Philippines to oppose China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the
‘GOOD POLITICS’: He is a ‘pragmatic radical’ and has moderated his rhetoric since the height of his radicalism in 2014, a lecturer in contemporary Islam said Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is the leader of the Islamist alliance that spearheaded an offensive that rebels say brought down Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and ended five decades of Baath Party rule in Syria. Al-Jolani heads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in Syria’s branch of al-Qaeda. He is a former extremist who adopted a more moderate posture in order to achieve his goals. Yesterday, as the rebels entered Damascus, he ordered all military forces in the capital not to approach public institutions. Last week, he said the objective of his offensive, which saw city after city fall from government control, was to
IVY LEAGUE GRADUATE: Suspect Luigi Nicholas Mangione, whose grandfather was a self-made real-estate developer and philanthropist, had a life of privilege The man charged with murder in the killing of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare made it clear he was not going to make things easy on authorities, shouting unintelligibly and writhing in the grip of sheriff’s deputies as he was led into court and then objecting to being brought to New York to face trial. The displays of resistance on Tuesday were not expected to significantly delay legal proceedings for Luigi Nicholas Mangione, who was charged in last week’s Manhattan killing of Brian Thompson, the leader of the US’ largest medical insurance company. Little new information has come out about motivation,
RSS