Re-education for monks.
Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu led the first high-level central government visit to Tibet since the riots broke out this month. In the face of international criticism of China’s crackdown, he stressed that the government would “fight an active publicity battle” and solicit the help of Communist Party cadres.
His call for broader “patriotic education” indicated the party would also move to exert greater control over religion in Tibet, requiring more Tibetans to accept the region as an inalienable part of China, denounce the Dalai Lama as a separatist and recognize the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama.
Force-fed propaganda will no doubt prove very effective in quelling unrest and putting Tibet back on the path of harmonious development. These re-education struggle sessions will likely include the singing of this really stupid propaganda song about how Han Chinese and Tibetans are daughters of the same mother, China.
Propaganda songs were, of course, an important tool for the CCP in winning the hearts and minds of the masses. In my CD collection are a couple of discs with patriotic classics like The East Is Red (which I’m embarrassed to admit that I can sing by heart), Socialism Is Good, My Fatherland, Without the Chinese Communist Party, There Would Be No New China, Chairman Mao’s Brilliancy, and a song to warm the hearts of Joseonjok, Yanbian Folks Love Chairman Mao.
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14 Comments
bad link
Does the “unity” theme sound familiar?
The mother of us all is earth.
We air-breathers are the evil separatists
destroying the mother’s unity.
Gonna have to carbon tax, ya!
Fixed. Thanks, Jonnyh.
In the interest of accuracy…
Chinese propagandization is quite a bit subtler these days than it was in the past. I would interpret that remark to mean things like greater emphasis on distorted history, more patriotic rabble rousing and so on.
Nobody, not even CCP cadres, go through “ideological struggle sessions” and “self-critisicms” anymore. And if they do, they don’t take them seriously. People in today’s China (even in Tibet) are far too connected with the outside world and far to aware of “reality” than to fall for that kind of stuff.
Sonagi,
You’ve got me drooling over your CD collection. I’d love to hear “Yanbian Folks Love Chairman Mao”. Any way to post an MP3 file somewhere so I can here it?
You must have been a serious student of Chinese at some point, and I think maybe I can guess the era…
Additionally, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has attempted to put control all information regarding their failed policies and actions by keeping out all non-Chinese press and naturally they control all Chinese press so there is no impartial record of the current events in the south of China or Tibet. John Kennedy of Globalvoices has also made note of the virulent trolling of Chinese netizens who claim that Western media is anti-Chinese and unfair.
Economist’s correspondent is in Tibet at the moment. By an incredible luck, the correspondent got the permission to be in Lhasa (and was in Lhana) the day before riot broke out.
http://www.economist.com/world.....d=10875823
correction… and was in *Lhasa
@#5
Yes, I’m sure there’s a way to upload sound files. I’ll look into it this weekend.
As for my generation, gosh, no, I’m not that old. I bought the CDs because I was inspired by the song titles.
Gee, thanks, Nkmonitor, for the accuracy corrections. I only lived in China four years, *sarcasm on* so I didn’t know that violent struggle sessions didn’t exist anymore, and I’m sure most Marmot readers didn’t either.*sarcasm off* And BTW, those silly propaganda songs are still sung. During National Day celebrations on October 1, an ethnic Tibetan woman living in my city was trussed up in traditional costume and trotted out in front of the TV camera to sing that “Daughters of the Same Mother” song.
For Chairman Mao’s Greatest Hits, click here.
http://www.emusic.com/album/Va.....25697.html
The song you are looking for is track 9.
I don’t think I like Jing as a human being.
Do you enjoy some old hag singing about Hitler?
Stalin?
Mao is the same.
Close to a billion people in east Asia has been fucked over by this fucking ugly asshole’s ideals.
I hate Mao zedong. This asshole is the reason why Kim Il Sung survived and North Korea still exists as a buffer state for China.
You Chinese people will see blood one day.
Sending crap aid in exchange for mortgaging North Korea’s resources? With 99% of the PRC population thinking it’s free aid?
Keeping Kim Jong Il alive and on a dog leash?
It’s comparably as evil as Hitler, Stalin, etc.
All of the above are fuck heads.
@9
Of course they’re still sung. But these days the kitsch factor outweighs any ideological value the songs have. Most of the younger generations sing them in the same nudge-nudge-wink-wink manner in which we’d sing the Brady Bunch theme song. For proof of the de-ideologicalization of patriotic songs, look no further than immense popularity of internet sensation Hong Laowai. Here he is singing “Yonghu Gongchan Dang:”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idVcaIZCSAc
The music sounds like someone fucking a cat.
Oh, sure, there is a nostaglic kitsch to those songs, especially among young people, but there was nothing kitsch about the Tibetan woman’s performance, and likewise, there will be nothing kitsch about the planned re-education of Tibetan monks, the topic of this thread.