MCLC: stirring essay by Murong Xuecun (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Costas Kouremenos <enaskitis at gmail.com>
Subject: stirring essay by Murong Xuecun (1)
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With all due respect, I think this is an impassioned, rather depressed
cry, but one which is exaggerated, therefore I didn't find it really
"stirring" or "striking" but rather, in its own way, over-rhetorical; many
negative elements that he discusses are to be found anywhere in the world,
not just in China, not just in a totalitarian country (which China isn't
anymore, anyway; a police state, but not a totalitarian one). So this
becomes another kind of "China bashing": a "China self-bashing", a
"self-hating Chinese" kind of feeling. I know because I tend to be a
"self-hating Greek" myself sometimes, until I cool down and see that
people are not that bad after all, or not really worse than other people,
that people are equally bad (or good) all over the world, that apathy,
cynicism, corruption, lies, contempt by government and the rich versus the
poor and the weak and so on exist everywhere, only the dosage differs,
that the slave and other mentalities exist everywhere. I've read quite a
few stories of solidarity among the Chinese (from post-earthquake to help
to Chen Guangcheng in his escape) and I've met quite a few Chinese people
who are not as he describes them, i.e. selfish etc.

I'm sure an American could easily sit down and write such a negative
article about the US in the aftermath of the Denver massacre combined with
attacks against Wall Street, Washington, the police etc., and that would
be an exaggeration too. And so could do any other citizen of any other
country.

Then, on the one hand he decries the apathy etc., but on the other hand he
predicts that mass protests will go on. That's a bit contradictory, so it
should mitigate his all-out pessimism.

Finally, I would have liked him to answer those "laughable doubts" about
the Great Hunger one by one, rather than just dismiss them. At least
that's what was done in Europe to counter the revisionist thesis that
denied the genocide by Nazi Germany. Of course that was not the topic of
his piece, but then to mention the issue, quote the "laughable doubts" and
leave them unanswered seems counterproductive to me.

Costas