From the Great Leap Forward to the Present
Monthly Review
Dongping Han
There are widespread misconceptions about numerous aspects of the Chinese revolution. These include a misreading of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the “reforms” of the post-Mao era, and the reaction of the overwhelming mass of the peasantry to these movements. Although the revolutionary programs/movements resulted in significant hardships — on the rural population (the Great Leap Forward, 1958-61) or the intellectuals (the Cultural Revolution, 1966-76) — they both produced concrete achievements in the countryside that led to impressive gains in agricultural production and in people’s lives. In contrast, the post-Mao era “reforms” have resulted so far in a huge growth of inequality in China, with the rural population suffering greatly by the dismantling of public support for health and education. In addition, local and regional officials have sold farmland for development purposes, usually lining their own pockets, with inadequate compensation for the farmers. This has resulted in the current massive unrest in rural areas, involving literally hundreds of thousands of incidents with protesting farmers.1
The Great Leap Forward
The Great Leap Forward, the second five-year plan of the Chinese revolution, was an attempt to develop rapidly both industry and agriculture. This was the period during which the communes were formed and some 600,000 “backyard,” small-scale steel furnaces were built to supply local needs all over the country. This was also the era of massive irrigation projects — local, regional, and national in scope — that were to result in impressive gains in crop yields in subsequent years. However, the extra work burden that necessitated increased food consumption by the rural population was not accompanied by sufficient enhanced calorie intake.
The current widespread rural, as well as urban, discontent in China is in sharp contrast to the relative absence of unrest during the Great Leap Forward, when grain shortages led to severe hunger in some parts of rural China as a result of harsh weather conditions and mismanagement by various governmental levels. There is considerable disagreement as to whether or not mass starvation occurred and, if it did, how many people died. Nevertheless, it is clear that significant hardships were created by grain shortages induced, at least partially, by the policies of the Great Leap Forward. However, during my research in rural China over the past twenty-five years — including extensive interviews with farmers in Jimo County in Shandong Province — I have not come across a single farmer who believed that Mao lost popularity because of the Great Leap Forward. Nor have I encountered any farmer who contemplated rising up against the government during the Great Leap Forward, or any literature mentioning that there were serious peasant protests during this period. (However, a significant number of farmers, particularly younger ones, express their willingness to join a rebellion now if there was one against the government.) And, as difficult as conditions may have been during the Great Leap Forward, farmers were apparently not too emaciated or too weak to build a large number of national, provincial, regional, and local irrigation projects.
The Communist Party and the People
The Party compared its relationship with the Chinese people to that of fish and water. The Communists argued that water (people) can live without fish (Communist Party members). But fish cannot live without water, thus stressing the importance of popular support for the success of the revolution. This special relationship between the Chinese Communists and the Chinese people was built through a long process of trial and error, not always without failures. And there were many failures during the Great Leap Forward, leading to attempts at rectification through the Socialist Education Campaign in 1964 and the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
The argument that people might not have other recourse except to engage in individual and everyday types of resistance (or coping) in the social context of the Great Leap Forward seems convincing. Chinese farmers, like all other people, would not lightly rise to the serious undertaking of trying to overthrow the government. But between the choice of starving to death and rebellion, the choice should not be hard to make. If the death toll of millions claimed by the critics of the Great Leap Forward were true, then why would the Chinese farmers submit to death by slow starvation rather than rising up and giving themselves some hope of survival?
While civil society was disarmed throughout most of China’s history, this did not prevent Chinese farmers from rising up time and again with whatever they had in their hands. The Chinese term jiegan erqi (rise up with bamboo sticks) was created to describe the peasant rebellion during the Qin dynasty in particular and other peasant rebellions in general when Chinese farmers, under the duress of social injustice, rose up, using anything they could lay their hands on as weapons. However, during the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese population was more armed than ever. That was the time when Mao called for large-scale organization of militia divisions (daban minbingshi). Young villagers in production teams were organized into militia platoons. In each production brigade there was a militia company. At the commune level, there were militia battalions. The department of military affairs in the county government was in charge of arming and training the militia. Chinese farmers worked in the fields with their rifles stacked nearby during the Great Leap Forward years.2 How difficult would it have been for a farmer to pick up a rifle, shoot his or her leader and start a rebellion if that person so desired?
Past Accomplishments and Future Goals
There are a number of factors discussed below that led to acceptance and wide, active participation of farmers in the projects of the Great Leap Forward. One of the principal ones was that farmers knew that the projects were going to benefit them and their villages in the future. In addition, many farmers had received land and other assets during the land reform and felt a responsibility to the government. The majority of the Chinese farmers benefited from the revolution’s land reform. For example, in Jimo County, the landlords and rich peasants, who accounted for 4 percent of the population, lost over 11,000 hectares (165,732 mu) of land, 33,524 houses, 2,441 horses and other farming animals, 4,377 pieces of farming implements, and 6,891,715 kilos of grain because of land reform. But at the same time, poor peasant households, which accounted for 60 percent of the total population, got land, farming animals, and houses as a result of land reform.
Food Shortages
The Great Leap Forward got its name partly because of the unprecedented scale of its irrigation projects. These projects, which were designed to increase grain yield, contributed, ironically, to the short-term grain shortage of the Great Leap Forward.
Most agrarian societies work closely with the cycle of seasons. In Northern China, the seasonal cycle involves the following: a busy mid-spring planting season, followed by a less intense late spring and early summer season, followed by a busy mid-summer harvesting and planting season, followed again by a less intense late summer and early fall season, followed by a busy late fall harvesting and planting season, and finally by an idle winter and early spring season. In this region, fewer than three months are considered busy seasons, and the rest of the year is considered either a “slow” or “idle” season.
Until recently, rural households in China would budget their grain supplies according to the cycle of their work in the fields. They would eat more and better food when they had to work strenuously in the fields, and would eat much less and lower quality food during the slow and idle seasons. Most farmers in northern China would get up very late in winter and early spring, and go to bed very early at night to save energy. They only ate two meals a day, and the foods they ate were mostly porridge or sweet potatoes during the idle seasons. As a result, the food consumption was kept to a minimum during the winter and early spring seasons. During the busy seasons, when farmers had to engage in intensive manual labor, they would eat as much wheat or corn bread as they could possibly afford. As a result, the food consumption during these busy seasons could be three to four times higher than the idle and slow seasons.
The Great Leap Forward turned the idle and slow seasons of rural China into busy seasons. During the winter and spring of 1958, 1959, and 1960, rural people worked on building reservoirs, digging wells, dredging river bottoms, and building irrigation channels. There were national projects, provincial projects, regional projects, and local projects being built at the same time. Some of the more well-known examples of these projects are: the Shisanling Reservoir (The Ming Tombs Reservoir) in Beijing; the Hai River Project, which connected five major rivers in Northern China; the Yellow River Sanmenxia Project in Henan and Shanxi Province; and the Yellow River Liu Jiaxia Project. The world famous Red Flag Irrigation Channel in Lin County, Henan was started during the Great Leap Forward and was not finished until ten years later.3
In Jimo County, Shandong Province, the farmers put in several million days of labor to build four medium-size reservoirs and several other irrigation projects: Shipeng Reservoir in the southern part of Jimo County; Wangquan Reservoir in the central part; Songhuaquan Reservoir in the midwestern part; Yecheng Reservoir in the west; and the Chahe Irrigation Project in the north.
Apart from these big projects, there were also numerous minor projects launched by communes and villages in Jimo County. Among these were the Xiazhang Reservoir in Wangcun Commune; the Fangjia Reservoir in Woli Commune; and the Yushitou Reservoir in Duncun Commune. In 1959, Jimo County also dug, for the first time, thirty-three big and deep electric-powered irrigation wells.
There were undoubtedly very severe management problems during the Great Leap Forward. People were being asked to participate in physically demanding projects, but were not consistently provided with sufficient extra food rations. Without these gigantic irrigation projects, there would probably not have been any starvation in Jimo; the grain shortage and the aftermath would have been much less severe. It was, at the very least, overzealous to engage in such a gigantic investment of labor in such a short time and without sufficient food rations. Clearly, Jimo County government leaders were guilty of miscalculation and mismanagement of human and financial resources during the Great Leap Forward.
Looking back, the leaders might blame the fervid social environment created by the central government or the pressure they received for more and quicker results from their higher-ups in the provincial or central governments. The slogan of the time was: “duo kuai hao sheng de jianshe shehuizhuyi” (build up socialism in a faster, better, and more economic manner). But, at the grassroots level, leaders were supposed to know their local conditions better than the upper-level government, and they were ultimately responsible for the lives of the local people.
While we can fault the county leaders’ management, we cannot fault their intentions. There was a general consensus among local government leaders, local community leaders, and ordinary farmers that enhanced irrigation was needed in order to improve crop yields. Therefore, most farmers saw the connections between these irrigation projects and a better life for themselves in the near future. Even though they went through a great deal of hardship in constructing these projects at the time, farmers said they could not deny the fact that the purpose was to make their lives better in the future. This contrasts sharply with farmers’ attitudes toward many massive projects from earlier eras, such as when they were drafted to build palaces for the elite.
Farmers’ Means of Coping
We know that many farmers engaged in individual acts of coping during the Great Leap Forward, such as “moyanggong” (pretend to work but actually not working), and chiqing (eating green crops before they matured). As someone who worked on a collective farm for many years, moyanggong and chiqing appearto me to be a necessary part of dealing with daily life during the Great Leap Forward, rather than individual forms of resistance against government policies or officials. What else could people do, when they were exhausted from hard work but did not feel it was right to stop working completely while others worked on? It was appropriate to engage in moyanggong as a way of taking a break, and other farmers understood.
Chiqing was another accepted and widespread practice during the Great Leap Forward, necessitated by the long working hours and short supplies of food. Farmers ate whatever they could lay their hands on to satisfy their hunger, not to demonstrate their anger or resistance to the government’s policies and officials. When I was working on a collective farm after the Great Leap Forward, it was an acceptable practice to eat a limited amount of green wheat, green corn, tender sweet potatoes and tender peanuts, turnips, and cabbages. We sometimes cooked green corn, soybeans, and even sweet potatoes in the fields. Farmers in Shandong called this shao pohuo (build a small fire in the field). Afterwards, we would start a game of chi yao mohui (trying to darken each other’s face with our blackened hands). Boys tried that with girls, and girls tried that with boys. Production team leaders engaged in this game with ordinary villagers, as well. Without understanding the social context of these practices, it is easy to see them as everyday resistance.
Societal Support for Farmers
The social climate of the time also helped farmers make the connection between these irrigation projects and a better future. The government gave great attention to rural areas during the Great Leap Forward — the whole nation and Party members were told they should help agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. It was a common practice for local government, office and factory workers, army units, and high school and college students to come to help farmers during the busy seasons.
An old farmer I interviewed in Henan told me with great fondness how excited he and his fellow farmers were to see the nationally famous artists who came to perform for them on the irrigation sites during Great Leap Forward. He said that their work hours were long, and the food they ate was not particularly good. But the farmers persisted, because Chairman Mao and the government cared about farmers. “These artists,” he said: “were sent to us by Chairman Mao.” He heard these words from the artists at the time. Forty years later, he used these same words as his own. Only in Mao’s China, would nationally famous artists perform for farmers at an irrigation site.
Post-Mao publications branded these initiatives by the government to send artists and intellectuals to work with farmers and workers as part of the Maoist persecution of intellectuals. But these government initiatives served to enhance national solidarity and spirit. Farmers who were at the bottom of Chinese society acquired a sense of importance and empowerment when government officials, professors, and college students were working side by side with them. Mao and other national leaders worked on the Shisanling Reservoir on May 25, 1958, giving rise to waves of government officials participating in this kind of activity.4 On October 11, 1959, 12,000 college and high school students and professors from Qingdao City came to Jimo to help with fall harvesting and planting. In September 1960, 28,000 students and teachers from Qingdao City came to Jimo to help with harvesting and planting.
Another factor that helps explain the Chinese farmers’ behavior and attitude during the Great Leap Forward was the personal behavior of the leaders. From his recently published memoirs, we know that, once Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong realized the difficult situation of rural China during the Great Leap Forward, he gave up eating meat. He also refused to act upon the suggestions of people around him that he should allow his daughters to get a little more food. Some might argue that it was not a major sacrifice for Mao to give up his pork when hundreds of thousands of farmers were suffering because of his questionable policies and mismanagement. But most farmers at the time could not possibly know what Mao did or did not do. What farmers did know at the time was the behavior of county, commune, and village leaders.
Leadership by Local Officials
Farmers in Jimo believed that the quality of national leaders is defined by the quality of grassroots officials (guojia lingdai ren de pingde cong difang guanyuan de pingde zhong biaoxian chulai). During the Great Leap Forward, Jimo County leaders, including the head leader, County Party Secretary Xu Hua, Head of County government, Li Anshi, and other county government leaders, were busily traveling around the county to work with people at irrigation project sites. Each county and commune leader assumed responsibility for at least one village. Leaders came to visit and work in the “home” village regularly; villagers knew them and they knew the villagers well. More importantly, they ate the same food with ordinary villagers at their homes, and always paid the standard cost for the meals, which was often higher than the real value of the food. Song Wenying, who hosted the commune leaders a few times, said that Wang Shuchun, who was the head of Chengguan Commune Government, came to his village frequently. At lunchtime, he would eat at villagers’ houses randomly. At the time, farmers ate mostly sweet potatoes, and Wang Shuchun would eat the same food with them. After the meal he would leave thirty cents and a three-liang grain coupon for his meal.
Indeed, most village leaders during the Great Leap Forward were actively present in the daily lives of the people. They worked at the construction sites with the villagers most of the time, and ate the same kind of food as the ordinary villagers.
Maqiao Village Party Secretary, Wu Changxing, worked with farmers on the irrigation sites day and night during the Great Leap Forward. He refused to eat more than anybody else, and in the end he died of a combination of exhaustion and malnutrition — the only person to die on the construction site from Maqiao village. Other people driven by hunger began eating green crops, but he felt that, as a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) member and the village party secretary, he could not lower himself to that level. Other people could cheat a little by taking longer bathroom breaks, but he felt that, as a leader, he had to be a role model for others. Wu Changxing left two children behind, and villagers in Maqiao took very good care of his children, out of their respect for their honest and hardworking leader.
In September 1960, with students, professors, and others, 2,100 provincial and city officials also came to work with farmers in Jimo. Most farmers I interviewed in Jimo were pleased to see government officials working side by side with them. “We were so happy to see officials of the people’s government and urban intellectuals eat the same food and do the same job with us. We felt close bonds with them at the time.” This often overlooked aspect of Chinese society and politics is an important factor behind people’s high morale during the Great Leap Forward.
During this period, most people were skinny, and the county and commune leaders were as skinny as everybody else. Based on their body size, it was almost impossible to tell these leaders apart from ordinary farmers. “County Party Secretary Xu,” Zhang Yingfa, a farmer from South River, said, “was as tall as I was, but he was definitely thinner than I was when he came to work with us in the village.” This, again, was sharp contrast with the traditional image of Chinese officials. Farmers said that it was very hard to perceive these Communist officials as oppressors and bad people. They simply did not arouse anger among farmers. This does not mean that there were not many bad and corrupt local officials at the time. But in the eyes of many rural people today, Mao’s officials were drastically different from the “younger and more educated” crop of Chinese government officials of the later “reform” era, who came to the village only in cars, and ate lavish banquets at the expense of the villagers. An important factor in preventing peasant rebellion during a period of severe hardship was the leadership style and personal integrity of the Communist officials.
There were very few differences in wealth or background between local leaders and the people being led. The village leaders of the 1950s understood the poor villagers much better than their preceding and succeeding counterparts in Chinese history. This understanding was a strength for the Communist Party, and it played a significant role in preventing government decay during the aftermath of Great Leap Forward. Farmers are likely to follow village leaders that come from the same socio-economic background as the overwhelming majority of villagers, and demonstrate concern for their needs. Mao became the great leader of Chinese people exactly because he was able to see the revolutionary potential of peasant leaders. It was these peasants and peasant leaders who accomplished the fundamental goals of the Chinese revolution and rejuvenated Chinese society.
During the Socialist Education Campaign of 1964, following the Great Leap Forward, many local village leaders were charged with petty corruption and misdemeanors, such as eating more than their fair share of food, stealing small amounts of money from the collective purse, and dividing a small amount of grain among themselves during the Great Leap Forward. In the eyes of the Communist Party, which demanded that its members suffer hardships first and enjoy benefits last (chi ku zai qian, xiangshou zai hou), this kind of devious behavior could not be allowed. But judging by today’s standards, or the standards of traditional China, the village leaders’ corruption was minor. It is natural that, amid a grain shortage, people who were closer to the food would eat a little more in order to survive.
From the Cultural Revolution to Rural “Reforms”
In light of the widespread minor corruption among village leaders during the Great Leap Forward, one of the important goals of the Cultural Revolution was to empower ordinary villagers to participate in village politics.5 Village leaders’ authority was greatly curbed as a result of the empowerment of ordinary villagers during this period, and local government became more legitimate in the eyes of people than during the Great Leap Forward. The central, provincial, regional, county, and commune governments gave a great amount of attention to agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. Many farmers were selected to participate in all levels of government. Officials were urged to work with farmers, and the urban population was urged to support the rural people. Seventeen million urban, educated youth were sent to live and work in rural areas during the Cultural Revolution years. Consequently, in the eyes of the farmers, the government cared about them.6
Contemporary Rural Unrest
Chinese media was filled with success stories about the rural reform ever since Deng Xiaoping’s government started the “reforms” in the early 1980s. Chinese and western scholars basically echoed the Chinese government’s claims about the successes of the rural reforms. According to the official story, crop yields increased dramatically, and farmers’ income rose significantly. (Crop yields did increase, partially because of the irrigation projects, crop breeding, and fertilizer factories built during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.) People who studied rural China postulated that the increase of grain yields was due to change from collective to private farming. It is also true that China has not experienced any serious natural disasters in the last twenty-five years that have had widespread effects on agricultural production, and farmers have in their possession more grain than ever before. In the villages I visited in Henan and Shandong Provinces, most rural families have around 1 to 1.5 metric tons (two or three thousand jin) of grain stored in their houses, which would usually be sufficient for two years’ consumption.
According to the standard view, the rural revolts occurring in China today are hard to explain. In 2001, Yu Jianrong’s Politics in Yue Village was published, documenting contemporary rural protests in Hunan Province. In 2004, Chen Guili and Chun Tao reported Chinese farmers’ anger at the government policies and CCP official conduct in rural China. (These writings made a big stir in China, because they caused a major lawsuit.) In fall 2004, two huge protests in Sichuan Province involving hundreds of thousands farmers shocked the world. In one incident, over one hundred thousand farmers surrounded local government buildings for three days; over a dozen police cars were set on fire, and the government sent over one hundred thousand armed police to pacify the crowd. In the other incident, the angry crowd held the Provincial Governor hostage for a few days. Since then, nobody has doubted that the Chinese government faces a serious crisis in the rural areas.
There has been a major shift in farmers’ perceptions of the CCP from the time of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. As discussed above, farmers then viewed the CCP and local, regional, and national officials as working in their best interests. But when I first interviewed farmers in Jimo regarding their reaction to rural reorganization in 1982, the most common response was that gongchandang bu guan women la (the Communist Party does not care about us anymore). “Women jiuyao cheng moniangde haozila” (we are going to become orphans) one farmer told me at the time. This simple answer is pregnant with many implications. It means that some farmers considered the government’s collective farming policy as an indicator that the Communist Party cared about their livelihood. But, as a result of the rural “reforms,” the government could not be seen as being on their side — it could, at best, be regarded as neutral. This change in the farmers’ perception of CCP policies and actions, together with a change in leadership styles of Communist officials at various levels of government, have had a huge impact on farmers’ perception of and interactions with the state.
Privatization, Corruption, Inequality, and Crime
In the process of rural reorganization, some collectively owned means of production ended up in the hands of former village leaders. In Jimo County, most collectively owned village industrial enterprises were first contracted to the managers and then sold to them. The village factory I managed before I went to college in 1978 was sold to its subsequent manager, Liu Dunxiao. In less than twenty years, Liu and his family acquired assets of over 200 million yuan (about US$30 million). Liu’s younger brother, with his help, controls the public transportation system in the county, and has assets of hundreds of millions yuan as well. The same process has transferred many state and collectively owned enterprises to private ownership by a system based on cronyism. The Chinese people now refer to this process as the original sin of the Chinese capitalist class that has arisen since the mid-1980s. This acquisition of collectively owned or state-owned assets was unconstitutional and illegal. It also violated the sense of social justice widely held by Chinese farmers. One capitalist told me in an interview that most of the Chinese capitalist class had a criminal beginning, which is like a sword hanging over their heads. Many villagers now call into question the political legitimacy of the government that has encouraged the criminal acquisition of collectively owned property and state-owned means of production.
Since the rural reforms, the different levels of government no longer organize large-scale irrigation projects in China, and the presence of the government in farmers’ lives has become minimal. Township governments now do only two things: collect the grain tax and enforce the family planning policies. Farmers believe that the township government only wants money (tax) and lives (family planning) from them (yao qian he yao ming). They do not believe that the township government does anything positive for them.
The retreat of the national government from rural areas is considered progressive by the liberal free market economic mindset. It appears that the state is giving society in general, and rural people in particular, the power to take control of their own livelihood. Farmers should have welcomed the rural reorganization. But the reality is more complicated.
During the collective era, commune leaders lived in the rural areas where they worked. They would come to the village on bikes. Today, the township government leaders are more educated and do not want to live in rural areas. They have built luxurious, western-style houses in the county government seats. Therefore, the township government has to buy a car for each of the top four government officials: township party secretary, deputy party secretary, township government head, and deputy township government head. They also need drivers to chauffeur them to work every day. Because they do not have much to do, they are often bored. Therefore, they visit restaurants and entertainment facilities. “Rural restaurants in the surrounding areas,” one farmer said, “have begun to provide xiaojie services (prostitutes) because township government leaders want them.”
As expenditures of the township government increase, the ways to extract money from farmers multiply, now that the agricultural tax has been eliminated. Many township governments use family planning as a way to get money from farmers. In order to get a permit to have a child, farmers have to bribe the village and township government officials. Some township and village leaders sell birth permits to farmers who have money. In some places, local officials even encourage rich farmers to have more children so that they can get “fines” from them. In such a social context, farmers question the political legitimacy of the central government, as well as county and village officials. Another way of making money is the confiscation of land by local and regional officials, who then sell the land at a profit for “development,” without adequately compensating the farmers — thus adding greatly to the rural ferment.
The change in farmers’ perception of government legitimacy and official conduct has transformed farmers’ interaction with the state. Interviewees in South River village, Jimo County, told me that farmers refused to storm the unguarded government granaries adjacent to their village during the grain shortage of the Great Leap Forward. But now, they have begun to engage in all kinds illegal and illicit activities. Several villagers have been in prison for stealing at markets and from other villagers. They fight with the tax collectors. In one incident, two brothers beat up a tax collector, and ended up in prison for two years.
Some daring individuals organized a gang of thieves, stealing on a large scale. They have built a network with collaborators in the big cities, who identify targets: mostly homes of corrupt officials and rich business owners. They come to the big city, commit their crimes with precision, and then return to their village to divide the spoils with their urban collaborators. This way, they are able to live a “good life,” and reduce the risk of being caught. Most people, even the local police, know how these people make their living.
Another group of villagers have organized a secret society that engages in smuggling and provides assassins for hire. They will kill or hurt people for the right price. Some of these farmers, who were timid and obedient during the Great Leap Forward, hard working but aggressively demanding during the Cultural Revolution, have become bandits, thieves, and thugs during the reform period.
Chinese society during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution was relatively poor. People barely had enough to eat and wear. But many farmers remember that time with fondness. There was a general equality of condition, very little corruption, very few crimes, no drugs and no prostitution
Today, most people in rural China have become more affluent. In Jimo County, the primary area of my research, some people have a lot of money. A number of households claim to own millions. But, at the same time, people’s lives are filled with crime, corruption, prostitution, drug abuse — and there is a huge gap between the rich and poor.
Government Response to Rural Conditions and Unrest
The Chinese government has begun to admit, for the first time since the rural reform of the 1980s, that it faces a serious, three-fold crisis regarding agriculture, rural areas, and farmers (san nong wenti). Scholars and government officials have started to discuss the crisis openly. Yu Jianrong’s Yucun Politics (Yuecun Zhengzhi) describes an incident in Hunan, in which over ten thousand farmers stormed the township government building. A sixty-two-year-old farmer broke six government signs, quoting Mao Zedong’s words: “rebellion is justified.” Cheng Guili and Chun Tao, in their Zhongguo Nongmin Diaocha (Investigating Chinese Farmers), record numerous cases of official oppression against farmers.
The number one Central Government directive in 2004 was aimed at increasing the rural population’s income. To this end, the Chinese government, by the summer of 2006, had completely eliminated agricultural taxes for the rural population.
However, the crisis that the Chinese government faces in rural China is not simply an issue of increasing farmers’ income. It is a very complex issue, involving government legitimacy, official conduct, and many other issues. While many people applaud the Chinese government’s elimination of agricultural taxes, this action is more sensational than effective, and may even be dangerous. The elimination of the agriculture taxes further weakens government presence in rural areas. But rural China today needs a stronger, not weaker, government presence. The rural areas need the government to provide free education and medical care. Farmers need the government to protect them from greedy developers — backed by local officials — who grab farmers’ land. Rural China needs progressive taxing — taxing the rich to protect the weak and poor. Simply eliminating all taxes leads to more corruption, as local officials devise other ways to gain income.
The Chinese central government has blamed local officials for the problems in rural China. Similarly, the Chinese media has made the township government officials the scapegoats for the rising problems in rural China. Chinese scholars in the West also tend to blame the local officials for the rising tension between government and farmers in China. One of the township government officials I interviewed told me he felt that it was both easy and dangerous to use township government officials as scapegoats: they are the symptom, not the cause of the problem, which is systemic, and much deeper than the central government realizes. Scapegoating township government officials will only conceal the real problem and lead to more social disturbances. And, once the rural people rise up, they will not think carefully about whom to rise up against. That is the nature of popular riots.
Looking Back at Mao
After the Third Plenary Meeting of the CCP Eleventh Central Committee (December 1978) passed the resolution to criticize Mao’s mistakes during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese media, controlled by anti-Mao elites, have not hesitated to publish books and articles denouncing the Great Leap Forward as well as the Cultural Revolution. For the last thirty years, anti-Mao, anti-Great Leap Forward, and anti-Cultural Revolution sentiments have dominated Chinese intellectual discourse. However, many people have written their own memoirs under the auspices of the Chinese Political Consultation Committee, in an effort to gather cultural and historical memoirs of the Great Leap Forward. In essence, these authors — whose essays directly contradict the official denunciations — have protested the “rewriting of the history” by Mao’s opponents.
In December 2006, Deng Pufang responded to a Reuters reporter, saying that the Cultural Revolution brought disaster not only to himself and his family but also to the Chinese nation. However, this almost routine characterization of the era triggered an avalanche of comments from the Chinese people, eliciting, in little more than a month, over 35,000 Internet objections. The overwhelming majority of these comments praised Mao’s contribution to the Chinese people and criticized the serious consequences caused by the reform measures Deng Xiaoping introduced. Some people commented that the new elite should “stop lying about Chairman Mao. People are waking up, and it is no longer possible to deceive people with lies about Chairman Mao.” Many said that “history is written by the people, not by the elites.” For many Chinese, “Chairman Mao worked for Chinese people all his life, and he continues to live in the people’s heart.” It seems that the efforts of government and elite to discredit Mao’s legacies have backfired, with significant implications for Chinese politics in the future.
How is it possible to explain the high esteem in which Mao — long after his death — is held among many Chinese people, despite the official and semi-official onslaught on his legacy and image?7 Chinese elites and Mao’s enemies have produced numerous publications to discredit Mao. But if the sufferings and brutalities allegedly imposed on the Chinese farmers by Mao’s government were true, the farmers would have known them, first hand. Why do so many farmers still hang Mao’s picture in their houses, and hold his memories dear, and, in some places, build temples to worship him?
These farmers remind me of my U.S. colleagues and students, who came to China with me for my college’s worldwide experience courses. The long lines outside Mao’s Mausoleum on Tiananmen Square always surprised them. The workers and farmers who lost the benefits they received under Mao’s socialist policies came to show respect to their leader, often with tears in their eyes. This is another indicator of Mao’s continuing popularity among the Chinese working class.
Conclusion
How does one explain the change in state and society interaction from the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution to the reform era? Mencius once said: Yi shi dao shi min, sui ku er bu yuan, yi sheng dao sha ren, sui si er bu yuan (the people will not complain if the ruler employs the people with good intention, and people will not complain if the ruler causes the people to die with the intention to ensure their survival). That means that, when a government is considered legitimate, and official conduct resonates with that legitimacy, people will follow government policies and endure hardship. Thus, the government will survive tough challenges and difficulties. However, when government legitimacy is in question, or official conduct is repugnant, people will be less likely to follow government policies, and, when crises arise, will be more likely to rebel. The large amount of peasant unrest in China today is the result of a loss of government legitimacy. To reverse this trend, the government needs to do more than simply increase farmers’ income.
The Chinese Government can curb official corruption in the rural areas in two ways. It can resurrect the Communist Party’s self-criticism and disciplinary mechanism of the old days, in which party leaders and ordinary party members hold regular meetings to examine their own behavior, according to Party policies and regulations. At the same time, the government can empower ordinary farmers by encouraging them to criticize government officials and policies by different means, including big character posters, which were widely used during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, and have proven effective in curbing official corruption. More importantly, the government needs to select more farmers to government positions, and encourage local officials to live and work with farmers whenever possible.
The gap between rich and poor has become a huge problem in China, particularly in the rural areas, and has caused many serious social problems, such as the increase of crime. Too big a gap between the rich and poor will tear the society apart and threaten China’s stability. More egalitarian practices will enhance China’s internal coherence and enable the country to deal more effectively with its challenges.
Notes
1.The extent of rural protests in China is rarely reported in a coherent fashion in the Western media. But, according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua story published in People’s Daily (“China grapples with thorny issue of rural land rights,” there were “87,000 protests, riots and other ‘mass incidents’” related to land loss in 2005, up 6 percent from 2004, and 50 percent from 2003. Thus, in these three years alone, there were well over 100,000 such actions! The article points out, “Once the backbone of the Communist Party of China, which won widespread support in the countryside six decades ago on protecting the rights of farmers who joined its fight to overthrow the landlord class, many Chinese farmers now feel alienated from their own land, formerly the fruits of the revolution.” In the seven years before the January 2006 story was written, some 6.7 million hectares of farmland (5 percent of all of China’s farmland) had been converted into other uses — roads, factories, etc. People are also protesting industrial pollution of air, water, and soil. In 2007, the last year that the Chinese government released data on “mass incidents,” protests involving over one hundred people, there were 80,000 such incidents.
2.New China News Agency: “National Militia Work Conference was held in Beijing on February 8, to Discuss and Study the Experiences and Accomplishments of Large Scale Organization of Militia Divisions since 1958.” Zhonghua renmin gongheguo dashiji, The Chronology of People’s Republic of China, (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 1982), 282.
3.The Chronology of People’s Republic of China, 209, vol. one (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 1982), 210-14.
4.The Chronology of People’s Republic of China, 209, vol. one, 208.
5.For a detailed discussion of change and progress in rural areas during the Cultural Revolution, see Dongping Han, The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008).
6.See Dongping Han, “Hukou System and China’s Rural Development,” Journal of Developing Areas, Spring 1999, and “Impact of the Cultural Revolution on Rural Education and Economic Development,” Modern China 27, no. 1, January 2001.
7.Jacob Heibrunn, “Mao More than Ever,” New Republic, April 21, 1997, 20; and Orville Schell, “Once Again, Long Live Chairman Mao,” Atlantic, December 1992, 32.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Kerala's So Called Dalit Terror: How A Dalit Minister Turns Against His Own Community
Counter Currents
By B.R.P Bhaskar
17 December, 2009
Gulf Today
The fate of a set of proposals sent to the Kerala government by the State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission illustrates how the political establishment scuttles efforts to address the problems of the weaker sections.
The commission, headed by PK Sivanandan, a former IAS officer, received on Oct.6 a complaint from VV Selvaraj, chairman of Dalit Human Rights Movement, alleging police atrocities against the organisation's supporters in Varkala. It also received a petition signed by 536 Dalit women containing the same allegation.
The commission forwarded the complaints to the Chief Secretary, the Director General of Police and the Secretaries to the Home and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare departments. It received no response from any of them.
Varkala was the scene of a dastardly murder on Sept.23. The victim was a person named Sivaprasad with no known affiliation. Within hours of the murder, the police said DHRM members had killed him to proclaim the organisation's strength.
Police swooped on Dalit colonies and arrested many DHRM workers. However, it has still not filed a charge-sheet in the murder case.
On Oct.21, the commission visited Varkala and gathered evidence directly from all concerned. It went to the Dalit colonies and spoke to both supporters and opponents of DHRM. It found the police version of events suspect and the testimony of DHRM supporters credible.
In the report, approved on Oct.29, the commission specially drew attention to the evidence of two women. One of them was a pregnant woman, who said police had taken her in a jeep and abandoned her on the roadside. The other was the mother of Das, DHRM organising secretary. She said the deputy superintended of police (DySP), Attingal, had taken her son to the police station and tortured him after a magistrate had remanded him to judicial custody.
The commission referred to the high-handed action of the circle inspector in locking the house of an arrested person and walking away with the key, denying his mother and sister access to their dwelling.
The key was returned to the family a day before the commission's visit after the chairman took up the case with the superintendent of police.
During the visit to the Thoduve colony, noting the prevailing tension, the commission's chairman directed the police superintendent to set up a picket there to prevent anti-social elements from taking advantage of the situation.
The report pointed out that if the police had taken adequate security measures, the clash on Oct.27 in which several women were injured could have been averted.
To put an end to the continuing strife, the commission suggested a visit to the colony by a high-powered government team, preferably under the leadership of the Chief Minister. It also proposed the formation of a committee comprising officials and elected representatives at the local level to maintain constant vigil.
The commission asked the government to order an impartial inquiry into the charges against the police, keeping the DySP and the Circle Inspector and Sub-Inspector of Varkala away.
The commission noted that many residents of Thoduve were living in tenements put up on government land. It proposed that they be given preferential treatment under the EMS housing scheme and rehabilitated.
Seven weeks have passed since the report was sent to AK Balan, Minister for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare, with copies to the Chief Minister, the Home Minister and a host of officials. So far there has been no action on the basis of its recommendations.
Inquiries have revealed that Balan, who is himself a Dalit, turned down the proposal for a visit to Thoduve by a team headed by the chief minister, saying it was impractical. He termed the proposal for rehabilitation of the colony residents also as impractical. He effectively killed the proposal for an impartial inquiry into the police conduct by referred it to the DGP.
The government's inaction reflects the ruling establishment's callous attitude towards the problems of the Dalits, who have been victims of discrimination for centuries. Since DHRM has been propagating the view that all established parties have betrayed the Dalits, it has invited the enmity of the entire political spectrum.
A campaign waged by DHRM has weaned away a large number of Dalits away from liquor and drugs. It has endeared the organisation to Dalit women but earned it the wrath of the drug mafia and those in its pay.-
Monday, December 21, 2009
Copenhagen Climate Summit Accord: A Crime Against the Planet
Revcom.us
by Orpheus
The Copenhagen UN Summit talks on climate change are over and their message to the earth and humanity are clear: Drop Dead.
The accord that came out of this meeting was first called “an important (though modest) step” by U.S. and European Union leaders—despite the fact that no commitments of any kind were made to cut greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. A day later this farce of an agreement was being hailed by spokespeople as a “great step” and an “unprecedented accomplishment.” This is a complete cover-up and sham.
Barack Obama, who was in Copenhagen for all of 4 hours, and other U.S. officials rammed this agreement through at the last minute when the summit was facing breakdown. This summit was contentious. Poor nations had walked out of the meeting at one point due to the lack of any commitment to cut emissions by the main producers of greenhouse gases and other issues. Repeated mass protests outside of where the talks were held punctuated the atmosphere and broke into the international spotlight.
The U.S. Godfather Calls the Shots
Like the world-class gangsters they are, Obama and Hillary Clinton burst into a meeting held by China and other countries, according to the New York Times, announced that negotiations would not go on in secret, without the United States. This is blatant godfather thuggery and hypocrisy from a system known for conducting secret wars, criminal invasions and imperialist arm-twisting throughout history.
In fact, this agreement itself was pulled together by the U.S. in a closed door meeting of representatives from only 25 or so of the 190 countries represented and then imposed on the rest. And from now on, it appears the rich capitalist countries will solve the problem of the “contentiousness” of these summits by just totally barring the poor nations entirely. The New York Times wrote that according to a representative from the Council on Foreign Relations, that the world’s leading greenhouse polluters will instead meet only amongst themselves to, “tackle a narrower agenda of issues, such as technology sharing or the merging of carbon-trading markets, without the chaos and posturing of the U.N. process.”
At the summit, Obama used the promise of billions of dollars in aid to poor countries to supposedly deal with devastation from global warming as a bribe. Then he threatened that without an agreement there wouldn’t be any aid.
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat who has been representing the Group of 77 developing countries, denounced the accord: “The developed countries have decided that damage to developing countries is acceptable,” he told reporters, saying that the 2-degree target would “result in massive devastation to Africa and small island states.” He and many other representatives of the most vulnerable countries wanted a target of 1.5 degrees.
“Today’s events, which really are a continuation of the history of the negotiations for the last two years, represent the worst development in climate change negotiations in history,” Mr. Di-Aping said. (New York Times, December 12, 2009)
Business As Usual in the Face of Ecological Crisis
The “Copenhagen Accord” that emerged contains absolutely no binding commitments to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases or deforestation that are warming the planet. The accord even dropped goals for cuts in previous agreements. And these agreements were already a sham because they contained no method of making or enforcing these cuts. The accord claims great concern about global warming and says world temperatures need to be kept from rising above 2 degrees, but says nothing about how this will actually take place. In other words—this agreement is just a continuation of business as usual—which is a death sentence for the environment and humanity.
A group of climate scientists (www.climateinteractive.org) came together to analyze the proposals on the table during the summit. Up until the day of the accord, they had been reporting that even if all the promises for greenhouse gas emission cuts were actually carried out by all these governments—the temperature of the planet would still rise 3.9 degrees Celsius (C) (7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. (The scientific consensus says that temperatures must be kept below, 1.5-2 degees C or disaster will ensue.) After the accord was released, climate interactive stated the accord had too few quantifiable results to even analyze.
People around the globe desperately wanted something to come out of this summit. Many felt, with the eyes of the world on Copenhagen, with a new U.S. president… maybe something significant would finally be done to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. They told themselves that doing anything would be better than doing nothing. But what the world’s powers did was actually worse than doing nothing. This is because what came out of this summit does absolutely nothing to stop the planet from burning—while a BIG lie is being promoted that this summit has opened up the way to actually doing something about the environmental crisis.
The summit in Copenhagen never was an urgent gathering of scientists and people of good will from around the world to solve a global emergency. It was a gathering of government leaders, dominated by the capitalist-imperialist powers with the U.S. as the head godfather. It was about the leaders of different powerful countries advancing their own interests at the expense of each other—and to the detriment and destruction of humanity and the earth’s ecosystems. It was all about these powers trying to gain advantage over their rivals. It was about creating new markets—such as the carbon trading market—as a new way to use rights to pollute to generate more profit. It was about powerful imperialist countries enforcing their interests over poor countries and the world’s people, all while trying to “rebrand” themselves as eco friendly savers of the planet.
Author George Monbiot who writes on globalization and the environment compared the Copenhagen summit to meetings in 1884 in Berlin where the world was carved up between the colonial powers. This time, however, he said, it is the atmosphere that’s being carved up. The head of the G-77+China delegation (a grouping of poor nations and China), said for Africa, already facing massive drought fueled by global warming, the Copenhagen accord is akin to the Holocaust.
Global Warming and the Global Marketplace
Humanity is confronted with something humans have never confronted before—the possibility that life, or at least much of life, on earth, could be snuffed out by environmental destruction with global warming the leading threat. Disastrous things are already occurring due to this warming (see online article, “Global Warming in the Himalayas”). For 17 years, world powers and other governments have been talking about stopping climate change. World governments have held conferences, summits, even passed treaties among some—such as the Kyoto treaty of 1997. But with all this, and now with Copenhagen, the only thing that has actually happened is that greenhouse emissions have skyrocketed and the rate of growth of them is getting worse. From 2000-2008, greenhouse emissions increased 29 percent worldwide. This system and it’s approach to nature, means a death sentence for life on the planet. We need a revolution, and soon.
*******************
The capitalist system’s approach to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions is by bringing these issues “into the marketplace.” They plan to base emissions cuts on a global “carbon trading” system where greenhouse limits are supposedly set, and rights to pollute can be traded, generating tremendous profit. This is the logic and rules of operating-market profitability in command. This does not and can not really address the problem of rising carbon emissions—which to begin with come from putting profit in command. In fact, where this market system approach to the problem has been tried, it has totally failed to cut emissions.
The capitalists want to incorporate some new energy technologies into their profit making framework and are competing over who will benefit most from this, while their overall process of production remains completely locked in the framework of burning oil, coal and gas. In fact, as capitalist production is heating up the earth, the system seeks even more destructive and irrational means of grabbing up new reserves of oil and gas. In Alberta, Canada, huge reserves of dirty oil are being flushed out of tar sands—leaving massive pools of contaminated water in large open pits and threatening massive environmental destruction. As the arctic melts because of burning fossil fuels, the U.S., Norway, Canada, Russia and Denmark are vying to take advantage of the ice melting so they can do what? Drill for more oil in the regions of the northern seas that are becoming ice free.
Copenhagen showed once more that these summits are about different world powers vying to gain competitive advantage. U.S. negotiators, for example, tried to say that Obama’s pledge to cut U.S. emissions and a decision by the EPA to declare greenhouse gases a pollutant (cleverly timed to coincide with Copenhagen), were examples of the U.S. moving to the forefront of the “global fight against climate change.” In reality, the U.S. came with a pathetic proposal to cut emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. This would mean only a 3-4 percent cut below 1990 levels. The accepted science says that industrialized countries must cut emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Emissions in the world as a whole must be cut 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. This is what must happen if there is to be any chance of saving the planet.
Obama came to Copenhagen fresh off escalating the war in Afghanistan and picking up a Nobel peace prize while advocating more war. This was a double hypocrisy, because the dirty secret is that the U.S. military is the largest single user of petroleum and the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Can anyone imagine U.S. tanks, bombers and drones warring on the planet powered by solar panels? Obama and U.S. officials came to Copenhagen representing the country that is by far the largest contributor in historical terms to the climate crisis. And yet had the audacity to demand concessions from China and other countries and then ram through a disastrous deal.
And the European countries meanwhile-posed as the “green capitalists,” while Danish police spied on, beat, pepper sprayed and preemptively arrested at least 1,500 people out to fight for a planet that is livable. These “green capitalists” floated out that they might agree to cut greenhouse emissions 20 percent or maybe more by 2020—if their rivals in the U.S. would also cut much more, and as they also sought to enforce stringent cuts on oppressed countries. All the time European Union countries tried to portray themselves as the real champions of the earth. The world press talked about how the Kyoto treaty has been the only treaty that set binding limits on developed nations to cut emissions. But the blinding and hardly mentioned reality is that over the time of Kyoto—from 1997 until today—emissions in the European countries as a whole, have actually risen 5 percent (UK Guardian)!
Meanwhile, China and India—countries still under the domination of imperialist powers but seeking to develop into modern capitalist powers—also refused to make any binding emissions cuts, precisely because of this need to expand and “grow their economies.” While China has surpassed the U.S. in global emissions, a central point is that this is largely because China is now the workshop and sweatshop of the world—integrated into a global network of capitalist production. Fully one-third of China’s emissions have been linked to production for export, overwhelmingly goods produced by cheap exploited masses of proletarians for consumption in the rich imperialist countries. What this means is that all the investments in China by the imperialist countries, taking advantage of the low wages and lack of safety and environmental standards amounts to just offloading pollution from the rich countries onto China.
And this production fueled by international capital has led to a situation where 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in China. 80 percent of China’s major rivers are so degraded they don’t support aquatic life and 90 percent of all groundwater systems under the major cities are contaminated. Even with the surge of emissions in China, still 75 percent of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere is the result of emissions from the advanced capitalist countries. The U.S. with 5 percent of the world’s people, still produces 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide. This amount is 30 percent when the emissions from the U.S. military, which aren’t included in any of the account books, are added on. And the U.S. produces 4 times more greenhouse pollution per person than China.
The Cause... and the Barrier to Solving Global Warming
Copenhagen didn’t “fail” due to a “lack of will” on the part of the participants, or simply because there are just “too many divisions” that could be overcome by these leaders putting the planet first. Yes, the dominant forces in power are facing some very extreme environmental problems too—but they are, and showed themselves to be, only capable of addressing them within the confines of their systems of production which is the problem in the first place.
Capitalism is both the cause, and the barrier to solving, global warming.
Copenhagen’s decisions are the result of power being in the hands of a system that is driven to maximize profit, to continually grow and expand—and ruthlessly out-compete others seeking to do the same. And it is impossible for this system to rupture out of this without tremendous dislocation and an overturning of all its structures of accumulation of capital and unending growth. This was supposed to be the summit where—after science has made dramatically clear that global warming threatens life on the planet—that drastic and mandatory cuts to greenhouse emissions were finally made. Instead, this summit was, and could only be, about the dominant players seeking to force concessions on competitors while preserving their own economic advantage, letting the planet and its people go die.
Life on this planet faces a crossroads. We don’t have much time—the planet cannot be left in the hands of this system of capitalism-imperialism. This summit should go down in history as a meeting of historic criminality and shame further showing this system is simply incapable of doing anything but destroying the environment. But there is a way out. We have principles of socialist sustainable development that are capable of totally reorganizing society along different lines. And we have the more scientific and vibrant communism of Bob Avakian—a way to unleash the tremendous creativity and enthusiasm of masses on a scientific basis to tackle what would be extremely challenging environmental problems. These approaches offer real hope of preserving the ecosystems of the planet and humanity, and creating a world people could live and flourish in. We must confront the stakes of the global environmental emergency and have this fuel our determination and imagination. And we must work urgently to spread this revolution and to develop resistance to the crimes of this system on the environment and many other fronts as part of developing a revolutionary movement that can bury this system before it’s too late
by Orpheus
The Copenhagen UN Summit talks on climate change are over and their message to the earth and humanity are clear: Drop Dead.
The accord that came out of this meeting was first called “an important (though modest) step” by U.S. and European Union leaders—despite the fact that no commitments of any kind were made to cut greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. A day later this farce of an agreement was being hailed by spokespeople as a “great step” and an “unprecedented accomplishment.” This is a complete cover-up and sham.
Barack Obama, who was in Copenhagen for all of 4 hours, and other U.S. officials rammed this agreement through at the last minute when the summit was facing breakdown. This summit was contentious. Poor nations had walked out of the meeting at one point due to the lack of any commitment to cut emissions by the main producers of greenhouse gases and other issues. Repeated mass protests outside of where the talks were held punctuated the atmosphere and broke into the international spotlight.
The U.S. Godfather Calls the Shots
Like the world-class gangsters they are, Obama and Hillary Clinton burst into a meeting held by China and other countries, according to the New York Times, announced that negotiations would not go on in secret, without the United States. This is blatant godfather thuggery and hypocrisy from a system known for conducting secret wars, criminal invasions and imperialist arm-twisting throughout history.
In fact, this agreement itself was pulled together by the U.S. in a closed door meeting of representatives from only 25 or so of the 190 countries represented and then imposed on the rest. And from now on, it appears the rich capitalist countries will solve the problem of the “contentiousness” of these summits by just totally barring the poor nations entirely. The New York Times wrote that according to a representative from the Council on Foreign Relations, that the world’s leading greenhouse polluters will instead meet only amongst themselves to, “tackle a narrower agenda of issues, such as technology sharing or the merging of carbon-trading markets, without the chaos and posturing of the U.N. process.”
At the summit, Obama used the promise of billions of dollars in aid to poor countries to supposedly deal with devastation from global warming as a bribe. Then he threatened that without an agreement there wouldn’t be any aid.
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat who has been representing the Group of 77 developing countries, denounced the accord: “The developed countries have decided that damage to developing countries is acceptable,” he told reporters, saying that the 2-degree target would “result in massive devastation to Africa and small island states.” He and many other representatives of the most vulnerable countries wanted a target of 1.5 degrees.
“Today’s events, which really are a continuation of the history of the negotiations for the last two years, represent the worst development in climate change negotiations in history,” Mr. Di-Aping said. (New York Times, December 12, 2009)
Business As Usual in the Face of Ecological Crisis
The “Copenhagen Accord” that emerged contains absolutely no binding commitments to cut the emissions of greenhouse gases or deforestation that are warming the planet. The accord even dropped goals for cuts in previous agreements. And these agreements were already a sham because they contained no method of making or enforcing these cuts. The accord claims great concern about global warming and says world temperatures need to be kept from rising above 2 degrees, but says nothing about how this will actually take place. In other words—this agreement is just a continuation of business as usual—which is a death sentence for the environment and humanity.
A group of climate scientists (www.climateinteractive.org) came together to analyze the proposals on the table during the summit. Up until the day of the accord, they had been reporting that even if all the promises for greenhouse gas emission cuts were actually carried out by all these governments—the temperature of the planet would still rise 3.9 degrees Celsius (C) (7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. (The scientific consensus says that temperatures must be kept below, 1.5-2 degees C or disaster will ensue.) After the accord was released, climate interactive stated the accord had too few quantifiable results to even analyze.
People around the globe desperately wanted something to come out of this summit. Many felt, with the eyes of the world on Copenhagen, with a new U.S. president… maybe something significant would finally be done to substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. They told themselves that doing anything would be better than doing nothing. But what the world’s powers did was actually worse than doing nothing. This is because what came out of this summit does absolutely nothing to stop the planet from burning—while a BIG lie is being promoted that this summit has opened up the way to actually doing something about the environmental crisis.
The summit in Copenhagen never was an urgent gathering of scientists and people of good will from around the world to solve a global emergency. It was a gathering of government leaders, dominated by the capitalist-imperialist powers with the U.S. as the head godfather. It was about the leaders of different powerful countries advancing their own interests at the expense of each other—and to the detriment and destruction of humanity and the earth’s ecosystems. It was all about these powers trying to gain advantage over their rivals. It was about creating new markets—such as the carbon trading market—as a new way to use rights to pollute to generate more profit. It was about powerful imperialist countries enforcing their interests over poor countries and the world’s people, all while trying to “rebrand” themselves as eco friendly savers of the planet.
Author George Monbiot who writes on globalization and the environment compared the Copenhagen summit to meetings in 1884 in Berlin where the world was carved up between the colonial powers. This time, however, he said, it is the atmosphere that’s being carved up. The head of the G-77+China delegation (a grouping of poor nations and China), said for Africa, already facing massive drought fueled by global warming, the Copenhagen accord is akin to the Holocaust.
Global Warming and the Global Marketplace
Humanity is confronted with something humans have never confronted before—the possibility that life, or at least much of life, on earth, could be snuffed out by environmental destruction with global warming the leading threat. Disastrous things are already occurring due to this warming (see online article, “Global Warming in the Himalayas”). For 17 years, world powers and other governments have been talking about stopping climate change. World governments have held conferences, summits, even passed treaties among some—such as the Kyoto treaty of 1997. But with all this, and now with Copenhagen, the only thing that has actually happened is that greenhouse emissions have skyrocketed and the rate of growth of them is getting worse. From 2000-2008, greenhouse emissions increased 29 percent worldwide. This system and it’s approach to nature, means a death sentence for life on the planet. We need a revolution, and soon.
*******************
The capitalist system’s approach to dealing with greenhouse gas emissions is by bringing these issues “into the marketplace.” They plan to base emissions cuts on a global “carbon trading” system where greenhouse limits are supposedly set, and rights to pollute can be traded, generating tremendous profit. This is the logic and rules of operating-market profitability in command. This does not and can not really address the problem of rising carbon emissions—which to begin with come from putting profit in command. In fact, where this market system approach to the problem has been tried, it has totally failed to cut emissions.
The capitalists want to incorporate some new energy technologies into their profit making framework and are competing over who will benefit most from this, while their overall process of production remains completely locked in the framework of burning oil, coal and gas. In fact, as capitalist production is heating up the earth, the system seeks even more destructive and irrational means of grabbing up new reserves of oil and gas. In Alberta, Canada, huge reserves of dirty oil are being flushed out of tar sands—leaving massive pools of contaminated water in large open pits and threatening massive environmental destruction. As the arctic melts because of burning fossil fuels, the U.S., Norway, Canada, Russia and Denmark are vying to take advantage of the ice melting so they can do what? Drill for more oil in the regions of the northern seas that are becoming ice free.
Copenhagen showed once more that these summits are about different world powers vying to gain competitive advantage. U.S. negotiators, for example, tried to say that Obama’s pledge to cut U.S. emissions and a decision by the EPA to declare greenhouse gases a pollutant (cleverly timed to coincide with Copenhagen), were examples of the U.S. moving to the forefront of the “global fight against climate change.” In reality, the U.S. came with a pathetic proposal to cut emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. This would mean only a 3-4 percent cut below 1990 levels. The accepted science says that industrialized countries must cut emissions 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Emissions in the world as a whole must be cut 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. This is what must happen if there is to be any chance of saving the planet.
Obama came to Copenhagen fresh off escalating the war in Afghanistan and picking up a Nobel peace prize while advocating more war. This was a double hypocrisy, because the dirty secret is that the U.S. military is the largest single user of petroleum and the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions. Can anyone imagine U.S. tanks, bombers and drones warring on the planet powered by solar panels? Obama and U.S. officials came to Copenhagen representing the country that is by far the largest contributor in historical terms to the climate crisis. And yet had the audacity to demand concessions from China and other countries and then ram through a disastrous deal.
And the European countries meanwhile-posed as the “green capitalists,” while Danish police spied on, beat, pepper sprayed and preemptively arrested at least 1,500 people out to fight for a planet that is livable. These “green capitalists” floated out that they might agree to cut greenhouse emissions 20 percent or maybe more by 2020—if their rivals in the U.S. would also cut much more, and as they also sought to enforce stringent cuts on oppressed countries. All the time European Union countries tried to portray themselves as the real champions of the earth. The world press talked about how the Kyoto treaty has been the only treaty that set binding limits on developed nations to cut emissions. But the blinding and hardly mentioned reality is that over the time of Kyoto—from 1997 until today—emissions in the European countries as a whole, have actually risen 5 percent (UK Guardian)!
Meanwhile, China and India—countries still under the domination of imperialist powers but seeking to develop into modern capitalist powers—also refused to make any binding emissions cuts, precisely because of this need to expand and “grow their economies.” While China has surpassed the U.S. in global emissions, a central point is that this is largely because China is now the workshop and sweatshop of the world—integrated into a global network of capitalist production. Fully one-third of China’s emissions have been linked to production for export, overwhelmingly goods produced by cheap exploited masses of proletarians for consumption in the rich imperialist countries. What this means is that all the investments in China by the imperialist countries, taking advantage of the low wages and lack of safety and environmental standards amounts to just offloading pollution from the rich countries onto China.
And this production fueled by international capital has led to a situation where 7 of the world’s 10 most polluted cities are in China. 80 percent of China’s major rivers are so degraded they don’t support aquatic life and 90 percent of all groundwater systems under the major cities are contaminated. Even with the surge of emissions in China, still 75 percent of the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere is the result of emissions from the advanced capitalist countries. The U.S. with 5 percent of the world’s people, still produces 25 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide. This amount is 30 percent when the emissions from the U.S. military, which aren’t included in any of the account books, are added on. And the U.S. produces 4 times more greenhouse pollution per person than China.
The Cause... and the Barrier to Solving Global Warming
Copenhagen didn’t “fail” due to a “lack of will” on the part of the participants, or simply because there are just “too many divisions” that could be overcome by these leaders putting the planet first. Yes, the dominant forces in power are facing some very extreme environmental problems too—but they are, and showed themselves to be, only capable of addressing them within the confines of their systems of production which is the problem in the first place.
Capitalism is both the cause, and the barrier to solving, global warming.
Copenhagen’s decisions are the result of power being in the hands of a system that is driven to maximize profit, to continually grow and expand—and ruthlessly out-compete others seeking to do the same. And it is impossible for this system to rupture out of this without tremendous dislocation and an overturning of all its structures of accumulation of capital and unending growth. This was supposed to be the summit where—after science has made dramatically clear that global warming threatens life on the planet—that drastic and mandatory cuts to greenhouse emissions were finally made. Instead, this summit was, and could only be, about the dominant players seeking to force concessions on competitors while preserving their own economic advantage, letting the planet and its people go die.
Life on this planet faces a crossroads. We don’t have much time—the planet cannot be left in the hands of this system of capitalism-imperialism. This summit should go down in history as a meeting of historic criminality and shame further showing this system is simply incapable of doing anything but destroying the environment. But there is a way out. We have principles of socialist sustainable development that are capable of totally reorganizing society along different lines. And we have the more scientific and vibrant communism of Bob Avakian—a way to unleash the tremendous creativity and enthusiasm of masses on a scientific basis to tackle what would be extremely challenging environmental problems. These approaches offer real hope of preserving the ecosystems of the planet and humanity, and creating a world people could live and flourish in. We must confront the stakes of the global environmental emergency and have this fuel our determination and imagination. And we must work urgently to spread this revolution and to develop resistance to the crimes of this system on the environment and many other fronts as part of developing a revolutionary movement that can bury this system before it’s too late
Bengali People’s March Editor, Publisher Still Held in Jail
Express India, December 16 2009
Kolkata : The ban on the People’s March — a mouthpiece of the Maoists — was lifted by the Press & Registration Appellate Board (PRAB) over three months ago. But two persons arrested in Kolkata have been in jail since owing to their association with the publication. The state police officers plead ignorance about the lifting of the ban.
Swapan Dasgupta, editor of Bengali version of People’s March and Sadananda Singha, its publisher, were picked up from their homes in Garia by the Special Branch of Kolkata Police on October 7. The press in Maniktala Industrial Area was raided and all documents and equipment were seized. They were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for publishing a banned periodical that allegedly contained “seditious matter”, even though the ban had been lifted. And they were remanded in judicial custody.
A senior officer of Kerala Police said: “The People’s March was proscribed in February 2008 after the Ernakulam District Collector banned it on January 15 on the ground that it indulged in publishing seditious matters, exhorting the public to take up arms for violent struggle and promoting divisive tendencies in the country.” But a ruling of the PRAB on August 7 this year set aside the Collector’s order and held that “the magazine regains its force and becomes operative with immediate effect.” The Board, comprising Chairman Justice K N Ray and member Ramesh Gupta, said as per Section 8(b) of the Press and Registration of Books Act, no publication could be banned on these grounds. The ruling stated: “Seditious offences may be taken cognizance of under the IPC or other relevant laws.”
Jacob Punnoose, Director General of Police, Kerala, said: “In December 2007, we arrested P Govindan Kutty, the editor, publisher and printer of the periodical.” Later, the state government decided to ban the publication after issuing an order. However, the PRAB has quashed the order. “But I cannot comment on why the ban was lifted by the PRAB,” he added.
Kutty, the 63-year-old editor, had appealed to the Board against the ban, and in August, after nine months, it allowed the publication to restart. “The PRAB has allowed me to come out with the magazine once again, the first issue has been published in November,” Kutty said on phone from Ernakulam, Kerala. The issue has an interview of Central Committee member of the CPI(Maoists), Ganapathi as its lead article.
“The West Bengal Government has taken a step worse than the Kerala government,” he said. “I was arrested by the Kerala Police and subsequently my magazine was banned.” But Swapan Dasgupta was arrested for publishing a banned magazine at a time when the ban had already been lifted, Kutty said. Dasgupta was slapped with a case under UAPA. “But where does the case stand if the ban does not exist? I have decided to appeal to the court for the release of two innocent persons.”
The DGP, Bhupindar Singh, said: “Dasgupta and Singha were arrested for publishing a banned magazine which is the mouthpiece of the Maoists. We are yet to receive any written order saying the ban has been lifted.” Ashok Bakshi, a senior Public Prosecutor of the state, however, said: “If the ban on the magazine does not exist then legally they should be released. But the case is pending in Sealdah court.”
Kolkata : The ban on the People’s March — a mouthpiece of the Maoists — was lifted by the Press & Registration Appellate Board (PRAB) over three months ago. But two persons arrested in Kolkata have been in jail since owing to their association with the publication. The state police officers plead ignorance about the lifting of the ban.
Swapan Dasgupta, editor of Bengali version of People’s March and Sadananda Singha, its publisher, were picked up from their homes in Garia by the Special Branch of Kolkata Police on October 7. The press in Maniktala Industrial Area was raided and all documents and equipment were seized. They were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for publishing a banned periodical that allegedly contained “seditious matter”, even though the ban had been lifted. And they were remanded in judicial custody.
A senior officer of Kerala Police said: “The People’s March was proscribed in February 2008 after the Ernakulam District Collector banned it on January 15 on the ground that it indulged in publishing seditious matters, exhorting the public to take up arms for violent struggle and promoting divisive tendencies in the country.” But a ruling of the PRAB on August 7 this year set aside the Collector’s order and held that “the magazine regains its force and becomes operative with immediate effect.” The Board, comprising Chairman Justice K N Ray and member Ramesh Gupta, said as per Section 8(b) of the Press and Registration of Books Act, no publication could be banned on these grounds. The ruling stated: “Seditious offences may be taken cognizance of under the IPC or other relevant laws.”
Jacob Punnoose, Director General of Police, Kerala, said: “In December 2007, we arrested P Govindan Kutty, the editor, publisher and printer of the periodical.” Later, the state government decided to ban the publication after issuing an order. However, the PRAB has quashed the order. “But I cannot comment on why the ban was lifted by the PRAB,” he added.
Kutty, the 63-year-old editor, had appealed to the Board against the ban, and in August, after nine months, it allowed the publication to restart. “The PRAB has allowed me to come out with the magazine once again, the first issue has been published in November,” Kutty said on phone from Ernakulam, Kerala. The issue has an interview of Central Committee member of the CPI(Maoists), Ganapathi as its lead article.
“The West Bengal Government has taken a step worse than the Kerala government,” he said. “I was arrested by the Kerala Police and subsequently my magazine was banned.” But Swapan Dasgupta was arrested for publishing a banned magazine at a time when the ban had already been lifted, Kutty said. Dasgupta was slapped with a case under UAPA. “But where does the case stand if the ban does not exist? I have decided to appeal to the court for the release of two innocent persons.”
The DGP, Bhupindar Singh, said: “Dasgupta and Singha were arrested for publishing a banned magazine which is the mouthpiece of the Maoists. We are yet to receive any written order saying the ban has been lifted.” Ashok Bakshi, a senior Public Prosecutor of the state, however, said: “If the ban on the magazine does not exist then legally they should be released. But the case is pending in Sealdah court.”
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Maoists trying to cash in on potato farming crisis
Times of India, December 18, 2009
KOLKATA: With security forces zeroing in on the Maoist core area in Jangalmahal comprising parts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, the ultras are busy spreading their network in neighbouring Hoogly and other parts of West Midnapore.
The target is to organise wage labourers and marginal farmers working in potato fields, whose lot did not improve despite spiralling potato prices. At a time when everyone is blaming the market or the futures trading, Maoists are reaching out to the deprived with an immediate solution, the people’s court. Maoist activists are promising that they will drag the middlemen to the people’s court, impose huge fines on the offenders and help the marginal farmers.
Small farmers could not get the best of a good harvest last year. They sold their produce at a much lower price to the middlemen as the crop was badly hit by wart disease.
“We have contacted the farmers in the potato producing areas of South Bengal and told them that CPI (Maoist) will extend their support to them,” said Maoist leader Kishanji, who has been controlling the Maoist insurgency in Lalgarh.
The Maoist leader has also announced drawn up a charter of demands for rehabilitation of the poor farmers. “The government has to waive all agricultural loans that farmers took last year. At the same time the state has to arrange for interest-free loans,” said Kishanji, who also supports other demands of the farmers subsidized rate of fertiliser and potato seeds.
Kishenji: Farmers in Lalgarh Region Don’t Have to Repay Crop Loans
Hindustan Times, December 17, 2009
Farmers in West Midnapore district of West Bengal may not have to repay their crop loans. The Maoists have announced a waiver. This is the first time the rebel group has announced such a decision.
“Several peasants who took crop loans over the last two years have suffered losses. So, we have decided that they don’t have to pay back their loans,” said Koteshwar Rao, alias Kishenji, member of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist). “Moreover, no agricultural cooperative, bank or private money lender will be allowed to charge more than two per cent interest on loans they advance to peasants this year,” he added.
Cooperative and public sector banks usually charge 7 per cent interest on agri loans. Private moneylenders charge much more – between 3 per cent and 5 per cent a month. “If anybody, be it from public sector banks or private moneylender tries to squeeze money out of the farmers, he will be branded a people’s enemy and tried in a people’s court,” Kishenji threatened. These “courts” usually hand out the death penalty to those who defy their writ.
“We will look into the matter and take action if anybody lodges a complaint,” said Manoj Verma, superintendent of police, West Midnapore.
State Bank of India, United Bank, Allahabad Bank, UCO Bank and a few co-operative banks have branches in this district. No bank executive was willing to speak on the issue. They were also unwilling to share data of total loans or farmers who may be impacted. “More than 50 per cent of all loans in the district are advanced by private moneylenders,” several of them said on condition of anonymity.
Maoists wield considerable influence in 180 of India’s 626 districts, where they have killed more than 300 security personnel this year.
Kishenji claimed that farmers have suffered losses and that “no one is in a position to repay the loans. Since the government did nothing, it was left to us to give relief”.
Lalgarh Traders Boycott Police After They Ransack Shops
Lalgarh residents wait to collect rice. Due to “Operation Lalgarh,” shops have been closed.Telegraph India December 14, 2009
Salboni: Traders of a Salboni bazaar have decided to start a “social boycott” of the joint forces after some of the personnel allegedly ransacked shops following a blast in which a jawan was injured. The boycott means shops in Pirakata, about 20km from Lalgarh, will not sell provisions to the personnel.
Such a move had forced police to the brink of starvation and pull out a camp from Kalaimuri in April, when the Lalgarh agitation was at its peak. Aided by Maoists, the villagers demolished the camp after the police left. They also blocked the supply of essentials to the camp in Ramgarh in May. Food may not be a problem now because the roads, dug up during the Maoist-backed agitation, have been repaired. But, at a time the police are desperate to win back villagers’ confidence, the alleged ransacking of shops spells a public relations disaster.
West Midnapore police chief Manoj Verma denied any ransacking. But stationery shop owner Debashis Ghosh had a differ- ent story to tell. “The police were brought here to maintain law and order but they are doing just the opposite. We won’t sell any item to them,” he said.The security forces were engaged in a gun battle with Maoists in Pirakata this evening. It continued intermittently from 5pm to 9pm. Around 8.30pm, supporters of the People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities ransacked the local CPM office.
Tea stall owner Pintu Manna said the jawans accused the villagers of being in cahoots with the rebels while ransacking the shops yesterday. Ghosh alleged that 20 shops were targeted because they had refused to shut down after the jawan was injured. Verma said the police had asked them to down shutters fearing an encounter with the Maoists. “That led to a verbal spat. But it’s not true that shops were ransacked.”
Friday, December 18, 2009
Delhi Protesters March Against Operation Green Hunt
December 17, 2009
The Forum Against War on People organised the “Rally Against War on People” to protest against the brutal military offensive of the Indian state on the tribal people of central and eastern India through Operation Green Hunt, wherein lakhs [1 lakh = 100,000] of the paramilitary-military as well as various vigilante gangs such as the Salwa Judum, Nagrik Suraksha Samiti, Sendra, Tritiya Prastuti Samiti, Harmad Vahini etc. has let loose on the people. …
The rally commenced from ram Lila Maidan at 11 am and reached Parliament Street where in various social activists, intellectuals, representatives of people’s organisations and civil rights activists addressed the gathering. People from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamilnadu and Kerala attended the rally.
Later a delegation comprising of BD Sharma (Former Commissioner SC/ST), GN Saibaba (Assistant Professor, DU), Prashant Bhushan (Advocate, Supreme Court), Karen Gabriel (Associate Professor, DU), Gautam Navalakha (Consultant Editor, EPW), Mrigank (Navjawan Bharat Sabha) gave a memorandum to the Prime Minister. In the absence of the Prime Minister, Mr. Prithviraj Chauhan, MoS, PMO accepted the memorandum.
In Solidarity,
Campaign Against War on People, Committee Against Violence On Women (CAVOW), Naga Students Union Delhi (NSUD), Navjawan Bharat Sabha (NBS), Correspondence, KRALOS, KLAS, Krantikari Yuva Sanghathan (KYS), PFD, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), MKP, Campaign for Peace & Democracy Manipur (CPDM), Democratic Students Union (DSU), Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPP), DGMF, People’s Front (PF), Mazdoor Ekta Manch (MEM), Left Democratic Teacher’s Front (LDTF), Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), People’s Democratic Front of India (PDFI), CPI (ML) (New Democracy), CPI (ML) (Liberation), CPI (ML) (New Proletarian), JNU Forum Against War on People, BD Sharma, Arundhati Roy, Tripta Wahi, Vijay Singh, Neshat Quaiser, and others.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Kobad Ghandy Denounces Fraudulent Confession
Hindustan Times
Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) leader Kobad Ghandy on Friday moved in a court here an application to withdraw his confession to police following his arrest on Sep 20, alleging that it was fraudulent. “I wanted to retract from the forcible confession recorded by the police during my custody,” said Ghandy, who was brought to the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja by the Andhra Pradesh police after their investigations.
Ghandy also alleged he was not aware of the contents of any such confessions as he was forced to sign on blank sheets.
The court remanded Ghandy in judicial custody till Dec 25. The Andhra Pradesh police had earlier taken Ghandy with them as he was wanted in a case registered with the Karimnagar (rural) police station in 2008. Ghandy, arrested in the capital Sep 20, has been booked under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
Meanwhile, the court sought the response of the Delhi Police and All India Institute of Medical Science, by Dec 16, to Ghandy’s plea for his medical treatment at the premier institute. He is said to be suffering from prostate cancer.
Chhattisgarh Groups Plan Opposition to Operation Green Hunt
Campaign for Peace and Justice in Chhattisgarh
For the People’s Right to Say No to Displacement and Tribal Genocide and to Demand the Right to Live with Justice and Peace
Raipur/Dantewada, December 1, 2009
Dear Friends,
You are aware that the tribals of Dantewada district in Chhattisgarh State are continuously facing large-scale displacement from their homes, fields and forests as well as a genocide in the last five years. The first aggressive onslaught was by the state sponsored vigilante group called the Salwa Judum. In the last five months, the people of this region are victims of a war called Operation Green Hunt. Paramilitary troops along with the state armed police deployed in very large numbers by the Central and the state governments are carrying out operations against the tribals in the name of curbing Maoists and reclaiming territories from them.
In order to build public opinion and to support the tribal people in their demand to stop this displacement and genocide and to reclaim their right to live with justice and peace, several community based and people’s organisations, union and human rights groups from Chhattisgarh and outside are planning a series of activities in Dantewada in Chhattisgarh.
This letter is being sent to you so that you can block the dates between 14 December 2009 and 7 January 2010 and come to Dantewada in support of tribal people. The list of events and dates are as follows:
1. Padyatra: 14 December to 26 December 2009
A padyatra [journey on foot] from Nendra village to Dantewada town via Lingagiri is being organised that will pass through more than 17 villages. This padyatra will be led by Himanshu Kumar of the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram and this group of approximately 40 persons will mainly consist of students, journalists and activists from all over the country. The main objective is to restore a sense of confidence amongst the tribals who are living in acute fear due to the onslaught of the security forces. The padyatris will also document the atrocities that the tribals have been subjected to including the situation of hunger, food insecurity, lack of health and educational facilities and other forms of deprivation faced due to the ongoing displacement and war in the region.
2. Dantewada Satyagrah: 25 December 2009 to 5 January 2010
Tribal people from all over Dantewada and other regions of Chhattisgarh will launch a Satyagrah [active non-violent resistance] on 25 December 2009 which will have the support of tribals from Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, among other states. We are hoping that large groups of people from these states and from all National Networks, unions and organisations working on diverse people’s issues will respond to this call and join in the Satyagrah for some of these days. The objective of the Satyagrah is to bring together concerned people from all over the country to demand in one voice an end to displacement of people and to the war that is underway in this region.
A Raipur assistance group set up for the Satyagrah will be headed by Shri Rajendra Sail of the PUCL to help people coming to join the Satyagrah from the North, East and West India as well as from other parts of Chhattigarh. Raipur is situated on the Mumbai-Kolkata route and is well connected by train from most parts of the country. Dantewada is situated 400 kms. from Raipur and direct buses are available between the two towns through the day and night that take about 12 hours each way
People coming from the South can take train or bus from Vishakhapatnam or bus from Hyderabad. The distance is 500 kms. from Hyderabad via Bhadrachalam and takes about 16 hours.
3. Jan Sunwai: 6-7 January 2010 (the date may be advanced or postponed by a day)
The Satyagrah will culminate with a Jan Sunwai [public meeting with a panel of experts] where tribal residents of this region will share their experiences of the Salwa Judum, Operation Green Hunt and their struggle for justice. This Jan Sunwai will be witnessed by a panel of ex-justices, senior activists from various people’s movements, ex-bureaucrats and policemen, journalists and intellectuals including those from among the tribals.
This letter is a request to you and your group/organisation to begin preparation for your participation in the series of events given above.
Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, People’s Union for Civil Liberties (Chhattisgarh), Chhattisgarh Visthapan Virodhi Manch, Chhattigarh Mukti Morcha, Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha – Mazdoor Karyakarta Samiti, Nadi Ghati Morcha, Human Rights Law Network (Chhattisgarh), National Alliance of People’s Movements, Chhattisgarh Mahila Jagriti Sangathan, Chhattisgarh Bal Shramik Sangathan, Gram Sabha Parishad, Tribal Welfare Society, and others (endorsments by other organisations are awaited)
Kishenji Supports Demands for Telangana, Gorkhaland states
Indian Express
Maoist leader Kishenji has said Hyderabad is an integral part of the Telangana region and the city should be made the capital of the new state when it comes into being.
“Hyderabad is a part of Telangana and will stay so. There is no question of disassociating Hyderabad from Telangana,” Kishenji, who hails from the region, which has a substantial Naxal presence, said over phone from an undisclosed location on Saturday evening.
Asked why there was so much controversy over Hyderabad, Kishenji said: “It is because of some retired and serving bureaucrats who own huge chunks of land in the Greater Hyderabad region.”
“Nearly 40,000 acres of land, a large portion of which have vineyards, are in the hands of some retired and present bureaucrats,” Kishenji said.
The Maoist leader expressed support for the creation of Telangana and accused the Congress of “depriving” people of the region of their legitimate rights by “backtracking” from its move to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.
Yahoo India
Kolkata: A demand for autonomy for three tribal-dominated districts of West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia in West Bengal was today made by a top Maoist leader, who also justified the Gorkhaland statehood issue. “We demand autonomy for the three districts on the lines of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council,” Maoist leader Kishenji told PTI from an undisclosed location.
He alleged that the West Bengal government had denied the legitimate rights of the people of the districts. “We demand autonomy to protect the language, culture and religious beliefs of tribals.”
Asked if he meant statehood, he replied, “the people of the three districts are not yet prepared for statehood.” Queried if it was part of the demand for a ”greater Jharkhand”, Kishenji said, “That demand is no longer relevant.”
The scenario has changed. “Moreover the formation of Jharkhand has not solved any problem. Going forward with the ”greater Jharkhand” demand will not solve the problem of tribals,” he said.
Kisenji, however, supported the demand for Gorkhaland in Darjeeling stating that it was “legitimate”. “It is the oldest demand for a separate state. They should be allowed a separate state to focus on their development as the state government has neglected the tea and tourism industry there,” Kishenji claimed.
Stand by the Struggle for a Separate Telangana!
Revolutionary balladeer Gaddar at a 2008 mass rally demanding a separate Telangana. This appeared in the blog dsujnu.blogspot.com
Once again the people of Telangana have come to the streets with their age-old demand for separate statehood. Like any other democratic movement is dealt with by the Indian ruling classes, the AP government is resorting to massive repression of the struggling people. Students are brutally assaulted and illegally detained; several false cases are registered against them. Educational institutions such as the Osmania University, Kakatiya University and Hyderabad Central University, which have been the epicenters of the struggle, are being forcibly vacated and virtually turned into police barracks. "A holiday has been declared in all the colleges in the region till Dec 18 and there is no reason why any student should stay on campus," the AP Inspector General of Police said (Economic Times, 9th Dec). Prohibitory orders have been imposed by the state government over the entire Telangana region under the draconian and colonial Section 144 to prevent any mass mobilisation demanding separate statehood. Hundreds have been arrested and even journalists are being brutally lathi-charged in an attempt to silence any voice which stands for a separate Telangana. DSU condemns the brutal repression of a people’s movement by the state, and reiterates its solidarity with the aspirations of Telangana people for separate statehood.
Separate Telangana Movement: Geographically, the state of Andhra Pradesh consists of three regions: Rayalaseema, Coastal Andhra and Telangana. Telangana remains the most under-developed among the three after being systematically exploited by the dominant classes of the other two regions. Telangana is a land of poor people with rich natural resources. The people here have been historically denied their rights over resources, deprived of opportunities for political, economic, and cultural autonomy. The demand for a separate Telangana state is a long standing one, with the majority of the people from the region firmly supporting its creation. However, this democratic aspiration of the people of Telangana has been trampled underfoot by the various ruling class political parties in power, be it in Delhi or Hyderabad. Given the popular support for the demand, parliamentary political parties have been making promises for creating Telangana, especially before elections. However, this promise has been routinely broken by all the political parties after coming to power. There is also the hostility of the ruling classes from Coastal Andhra against carving out of Telangana from present Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, none of them has taken any concrete step to materialize it. In this respect, the present Congress government too is no exception. But despite the denial of separate statehood after a prolonged struggle, it refuses to die down. The Separate Telangana movement continues to live on, now with renewed vigor, and will continue until the Indian government is made to fulfill the demand.
Historical Background: The present Telangana region was under the rule of Nizam’s Hyderabad state before 1947. Hyderabad state consisted of three regions of the present AP state, along with five districts of Marathwada region and three districts of Karnataka region. Nizam surrendered both coastal and Rayalaseema districts to the British as part of settling debts with colonial rulers in 1788 and 1800 respectively. The districts that constitute present Telangana remained under Nizam State. Telangana was not under direct colonial rule, whereas the other two regions were exposed to British colonialism, reform movements and English education, among other things. Several irrigation projects were constructed during colonial rule in Andhra region whereas till the date Telangana does not have any major irrigation project. People were exploited and suppressed by the feudal regime of the Nizam. The appropriation of surplus that created through the sweat and blood of people of Telangana made Nizam’s state among the wealthiest of princely states in India. While there were social reform movements in Andhra and Rayalaseema to free the people from its societal shackles, the Nizam state reinforced class and caste hierarchies in Telangana. The seeds of uneven development and regional difference were implanted much before transfer of power in 1947.
People of Telangana waged relentless mass struggles against feudal oppression, at times with arms. The Telangana Armed Struggle is a glorious chapter in the history of revolutionary peasant movements in the subcontinent, which fought the feudal Nizam, the Indian Army as well as the opportunist CPI leadership at the same time. When the Nizam understood the impossibility of continuing as monarchial ruler given the massive opposition from people, he made an agreement with the new Indian ruling class and agreed to join the Indian Union in 1948. When Indian government put forward the proposal of Telangana joining the Andhra Pradesh state, there was widespread opposition from the people. But this was completely ignored by the rulers by once again violating the political aspirations of Telangana people. Andhra Pradesh state was constituted, and this was the first state to be established on linguistic basis. Whether it is feudal oppression or it is in the name of democracy, the nature and response of the ruling classes has been one and the same. The people of the land, both in feudal and the so-called democratic rule have remained targets of state repression. People were in no way party to the decisions ruling classes had taken before and after 1947. Voices have often been raised in favor of separate Telangana by parliamentary political parties. They were silenced by ruling class strategy of offering them some positions and they had also betrayed the cause repeatedly. Several opportunistic leaders tried to take advantage of the genuine aspirations of people without taking the movement for statehood forward. Such leaders varied from right wing parties to parliamentary left parties. All these parties used the aspirations of the people and gained out of it.
Underdevelopment of Development: For the present economic system it is necessity to keep certain regions underdeveloped which gradually becomes peripheries, in order to develop some other regions which emerge as centers. The material and natural resources of Telangana region has been diverted for the development of Andhra, while Telangana region has been pushed to a position of continuous dependency due to lack of development. From the time of united Andhra Pradesh Telangana people has been kept socially, culturally, politically oppressed and economically looted by a combination of feudal and comprador-capitalist forces of Andhra ruling clique. All the major cities in Andhra region have been developed by concentrating the wealth of Telangana there. Even the city of Hyderabad was taken over by the powerful families of Andhra whereas Telangana till the date does not have a single city or major town except Hyderabad. In view of the crucial interest of Andhra ruling class in the city of Hyderabad and the big landlords of Andhra in major water resources of Telangana, they are hell-bent on crushing the democratic movement of Telangana by using force.
Historic injustice towards Telangana: Telangana waters have been diverted to irrigation projects in Andhra. Successive governments have blatantly violated the water-sharing agreements between the two regions. In the name of homogenization of state culture, Andhra rulers have tried to impose its culture particularly in terms of language and food habits. The government public distribution system in Andhra supplies only rice whereas the rain-fed areas of Telangana cultivates bajra, jowar, raagi and such other food grains. This has resulted in extra pressure on Telangana peasantry to grow only rice at the expense of their indigenous crops. Telangana youths have also been deprived of opportunities in government services. At the level of culture, even the cinematic representation of Telangana is extremely biased and prejudiced, whereby the Telangana language and names are mostly projected negatively in Telugu cinema. Print and electronic media considers only the heartland Andhra language as the official language. Telangana water resources are diverted to Andhra even if the proposed Polavaram project which is intended to supply irrigation water to Andhra is going to engulf 13 mandals of Telangana with adivasi inhabitants. There have been attempts to divert waters from Telangana to Rayalaseema through the Pothireddypadu project by holding water more than dam’s capacity in Sree Sailam through ‘Jala Yagnam’, resulting in unprecedented floods in Rayalaseema and Telangana districts in the recent past. The huge revenue extraction from Telangana was invested in Andhra region for its development, while Telangana was deprived of basic infrastructural facilities needed for industrial growth.
Parliamentary opportunism and the betrayal of Telangana: The CPI and CPM has taken a stand against separate statehood for Telangana in spite their cadres taking active part in movement, violating the leadership’s decision. These parties cherish the utopia of united Andhra Pradesh even when there is a widespread mass movement for separation. The Telugu Desam party has been keeping silent on the whole issue since the formation of state is going to harm the interests of its supporters from Andhra. Telangana Rastra Samithi, yet another regional party, opportunistically raises the slogan of Telangana whenever they are politically cornered. The misery of Telangana and the exploitation it faces was conveniently forgotten by it when it was enjoying power in center government. Now once again the TRS chief has sat for a ‘fast unto death’ for Telangana. In the ruling Congress party, some of the Telangana elected representatives wants a separate state where as Andhra representatives are vehemently opposing the demand. Andhra representatives are lobbying with the Congress central leadership not to allow Telangana state in order to safeguard their huge capital investments, and SEZs in and around Telangana. This is supported by some of Tealnganas MP’s too, since they hold land in and around Hyderabad for SEZs.
What is happening in Telangana at present: While there is a democratic demand from various sections of society for separate statehood, the state is responding in the only way it knows to deal with popular movements: by unleashing fascist force. Andhra Pradesh government has deployed huge forces in the state to curtail the movement. Paramilitary forces, Grey Hound squads, Rapid Action Force etc are deployed in the university premises without the knowledge of Vice Chancellors of Osmania University, Agriculatural University, Kakatiya University, University of Hyderabad etc. University students were beaten and two students lost their lives in police crackdown. More than 28 students have committed suicide. Even media personal were attacked. The elected representatives who went to express solidarity with the movement were also brutally beaten up. The Chief Minister has given orders to the police officials to take action on the spot without waiting for any order. In the girl’s hostel premises of Osmania University, women students were chased by the police for giving slogans in favor of separate state. Students were chased out of the campus and dragged to the neighborhood areas where huge force was deployed. These forces are attacking not only students but also the residents. At present more forces are being brought from different states and deployed in Hyderabad. In the view of the call for “Chalo Assembly” on 10th December by the Joint Action Committee, the government had ordered close down and mass evacuation of students from universities. The state government has blocked different roads to Hyderabad to prevent protesting students form reaching the city.
Fight for an autonomous and democratic Telangana! We know that the mere formation of a separate state does not lead anywhere until and unless there are revolutionary changes in the society. It is not just about achieving a terroritarially separate Telangana. It is about creating of a democratic Telangana free from social, economic and cultural oppression by demolishing relations of caste and class, which can only be achieved by combining this struggle with that of the other oppressed masses of the subcontinent for a revolutionary social transformation. DSU stands by the people of Telangana who fought the historic armed struggle against feudal oppression and continue to struggle for a separate state
Monday, December 14, 2009
Maoists Scare Off Investors from Chhattisgarh
Indo-Asian News Service, December 6, 2009
Raipur (IANS) The increasing dominance of Maoists in Chhatisgarh’s iron ore-rich pockets have led to the halt of several key industrial projects in the region and scared off potential investors, say businessmen and officials.
The state’s Bastar region, spread out in about 40,000 square km, has some 20 percent of India’s finest quality iron ore reserves. But industrialists are apprehensive of investing in the restive region, a stronghold of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist).
‘The investors who have signed deals for setting up steel projects in the region are not getting their projects moved because of Maoists’ meddling,’ said Ashok Surana, head of an industrial body, Mini Steel Plant Association, told IANS. The association is a forum of 175 steel units based in central India.
‘The Maoist dominance is growing in the iron ore-rich pockets of Chhattisgarh. No businessmen want to put money in this region. Even mega projects of Tata Steel and Essar Steel are being held up,’ Surana said.Both Tata Steel and Essar Steel had signed separate deals in June 2005 with the state government for setting up integrated steel units in Chhattisgarh. Tata proposed to set up a 5.5-million-tonne plant, while Essar has plans to build a 3.2-million-tonne plant.
However, the projects have got stuck as Maoists offered direct support for the families, whose land would be taken over for the plants.
The worst-hit is the state-run National Mineral Development Corp (NMDC), the country’s largest iron ore producer and exporter, whose mining took a huge hit due to the insurgency. NMDC produces roughly 80 percent of its 27-million-tonne annual iron ore output from Bailadila reserves in the Moist-infested Dantewada of Chhattisgarh.
‘Maoists have been expanding their influence every day,’ a senior NMDC official, who did not want to identified, told IANS. ‘I think after five-six years, the iron ore mining in Chhattisgarh would be left for the mercy of Maoists. Now on an average, at least seven days every month, we fail to transport iron ore because of insurgents’ strikes,’ the official said.
State’s Director General of Police Vishwa Ranjan said Maoists forced businessmen from the mineral rich area to pay extortion money. ‘The cash books and other papers we seized recenty show that the rebels’ all India annual extortion earning is up to Rs.2,000 crore and a major portion of this comes from iron ore and coal businessmen,’ Ranjan said.
Vani Rao, a senior Congress party leader in the state, also said Maoists’ influence was growing. ‘Maoists are dictating terms in the mineral-rich areas in Chhattisgarh. If urgent steps are not taken by the government, India will lose control over its vast mineral rich areas in five years,’ Rao told IANS.
Police say over 1,500 people were killed in the Bastar region alone in Maoist related violence since 2004. The Maoist insurgency began in 1967 as a peasant rebellion, but has now spread to large parts of central and eastern states. They have strong presence in the states of Jharkhand, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said in October this year that Maoism was the ‘greatest internal security threat’.
Maoist Party in Bangladesh Reorganizes
Maoist Revolution
Editorial of the international journal Anubad Sahityo Potro, issue no. 10 of the Maoist Unity Group (MUG) of the Proletarian Party of East Bengal (PBSP)/Bangladesh. December 2009
The 10th issue of the Anubad Sahitya Potro is the last issue of the journal. We have published such unpublished documents through this journal that are principally important to give theoretical assistance to the reconstruction of our domestic communist movement. Then starts our new departure. We have been able to initiate a line struggle in this country.
Our party is the main Maoist party of this country. The other party CPEB [Communist party of East Bengal (ML)] despite claiming themselves as Maoist have almost been collapsed because of the process of their practice of Guevarist trend since long. Chairman Siraj Sikder established proletarian Maoist party, the PBSP. He made socio economic analysis of the society of East Bengal, broke the chain of the old and new revisionism by carrying a hard ideological struggle against those, initiated people’s war, for the first time in East Bengal established armed force led by the class proletariat and established Base Area twice: once in Payarabagan in 71 and then in Chittagong Hill tract during 72-75. [This area is located in southeast Bangladesh near Burma.]
The line and thought of Chairman is closely intermingled with chairman himself and PBSP. After the death of Chairman, despite party was able to resurrect again in the 80s under the leadership of Anwar Kabir, could not enter the stage of Base Area. Anwar Kabir led that struggle by cutting short the guiding thought of Siraj Sikder, that is why that couldn’t take the shape of comprehensive people’s war. He, during the last of 80s to first of 90s forged a right opportunist line (ROL) by exploiting party’s military set back what’s main essence was to totally abandon Guiding Thought of Siraj Sikder. What Ziauddin did after the death of Siraj Sikder, he (AK) did the same with totality. In the Third Congress of party in 92, he passed the right opportunist line with the help of his central comrade-in-arms.
The main component part of the line was: 1) to pretend adoption of Maoism by changing the term Mao Thought what was Maoism without essence, later what has been seen is that they pretended of adopting Maoism by opposing Mao Thought as the base of Maoism 2) to brand Siraj Sikder line as nationalist viz., to abandon guiding thought of Siraj Sikder, adopt so called classist line and oppose national liberation war 3) by abandoning the evaluation semi-feudalism and colony (or semi-colony) , adoption of baseless evaluation of so called distorted capitalism and abandon agrarian revolution 4) by abandoning people’s war, adoption of so called war line (what has been exposed later). In synthesis, they abandoned Maoism and guiding thought of Siraj Sikder Thought that is the a valuable teaching achieved by application of Maoism in East Bengal society. Therefore, this Right Opportunist Line of AK was a comprehensive line.
While taking it to practice, there arose contradiction among three leaders and they divided party into three on their behalf. AK invented a stage theory of armed struggle below war and got degenerated by carrying very limited roving armed activities by a few mercenary squads. Motin, by false proclaiming as big war proponent did some armed seizure action and could be able to confuse genuine revolutionaries. At last he got degenerated by carrying very limited armed activities with a few mercenary squads. Sultan, by disguising himself as a big theoretician, with dogmatic preaching confused genuine revolutionaries for a certain period and at last liquidated organization. Sultan died recently.
As a result, at the beginning years of 21st century, the PBSP in reality went ahead towards liquidation. In such a tough moment, the lower rank cadres realized the necessity to defend party, the party that was developed by Siraj Sikder. So, absolutely with new generation cadres, they formed MUG. The aim of MUG was to define Siraj Sikder Thought, define people’s war and reestablish PBSP through making preparation for People’s war. From the beginning MUG was militarized, so it had to confront state force on the one hand and revisionist attack on the other. Number of comrades of MUG had to sacrifice their life.
In the midst of that, the work of Anubad Sahityo Potro was accomplished. Through that, preparation for theoretical construction was carried and the line construction is going on bit by bit. Now we are going to enter in the main phase of line construction, reestablish party in a higher center, going to enter in defining people’s war too, from where we will go on to the preparation of people’s war.
We don’t believe in any empty theory. We have published such documents that are tested by the touchstone of people’s war. In this number of issue, Chairman Mao’s Talk on Philosophy of August, 1964 has been published where he had made the most developed formulation of dialectics. He showed that the main law of contradiction is the law of unity of opposites. He explained transformation of quantity into quality by the law of unity of opposites. And he said that negation of negation does not exist as a law. What exists is that the unity of the opposite of affirmation and negation. He established monism by discarding the triplist doctrine of development what presented three law side by side with equal importance. So, this is comrade Mao who established dialectics on a comprehensive basis. He by correcting Engel’s formulation regarding freedom showed that freedom is not only understanding necessity but its transformation too. This is a precious philosophical talk. Here he enriched dialectics in multi dimension.
In this number of issue we have published two very important document of the basis of party unity of the Communist party of Peru: 1) Line of construction of three instrument of revolution 2) Mass line. The two documents were adopted in PCP congress in 1988. In the first one, line of construction of three instrument of revolution: party, army and front of President Gonzalo has been established. President Gonzallo also forged conception of militarization of party. In the Mass Line document, the concrete thesis of President Gonzalo has been established that shows how party develops various created organizations for the sake of people’s war.
Content: 1) Talk on Philosophy by Mao Tse Tung 2) Line of Construction of the Three Instrument of Revolution by Communist Party of Peru 3) Mass Line by Communist Party of Peru
Friday, December 11, 2009
Final Speech of "The Great Dictator" (also known as "Look Up, Hannah" ) by Charlie Chaplin / ഹന്നാ, മുകളിലേക്ക് നോക്കൂ!
Schulz: Speak - it is our only hope.
The Jewish Barber (Charlie Chaplin's character): Hope... I'm sorry but I don't want to be an Emperor - that's not my business - I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible, Jew, gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another, human beings are like that.
We all want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.
But we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men's souls - has barricaded the world with hate; has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in: machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little: More than machinery we need humanity; More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die [now] liberty will never perish...
Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.
Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty.
In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written " the kingdom of God is within man " - not one man, nor a group of men - but in all men - in you, the people.
You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness. You the people have the power to make life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy let's use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give you the future and old age and security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfil their promise, they never will. Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfil that promise. Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness.
Soldiers - in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Look up! Look up! The clouds are lifting - the sun is breaking through. We are coming out of the darkness into the light. We are coming into a new world. A kind new world where men will rise above their hate and brutality.
The soul of man has been given wings - and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow - into the light of hope - into the future, that glorious future that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up. Look up."
ഹന്നാ, മുകളിലേക്ക് നോക്കൂ!
ചക്രവർത്തി ആകാൻ ഞാൻ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നില്ല.
ഖേദപൂർവം പറയട്ടെ, അത് എന്റെ തൊഴിലല്ല. ഭരിക്കാനോ
കീഴടക്കാനോ എനിക്ക് ആഗ്രഹമില്ല. പറ്റുമെങ്കിൽ
എല്ലാവരെയും സഹായിക്കാനാണ് ആഗ്രഹം - ജൂതരെ,
കറുത്തവരെ, വെള്ളക്കാരെ.
നാമെല്ലാം ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നത് പരസ്പരം
സഹായിക്കാനാണ്. മനുഷ്യർ അങ്ങനെയാണ്. മറ്റുള്ളവരുടെ
സന്തോഷത്തിൽ ജീവിക്കാനാണ് നമ്മൾ ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നത്.
അപരന്റെ ദുഖത്തിലല്ല. പരസ്പരം വെറുക്കാനും
പകവെച്ചുപുലർത്താനും നാം ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നില്ല. ഈ
ലോകത്തെല്ലാവർക്കും ഇടമുണ്ട്. ഈ നല്ല ഭൂമി സമ്പുഷ്ടമാണ്.
എല്ലാവർക്കും ദാതാവാകാൻ അതിന് കഴിയും.
ജീവിതത്തിന്റെ വഴി സ്വതന്ത്രവും സുന്ദരവുമാകാൻ
കഴിയും. പക്ഷേ നമുക്ക് വഴി നഷ്ടപ്പെട്ടിരിക്കുന്നു. ആർത്തി
മനുഷ്യരുടെ ആത്മാക്കളെ വിഷലിപ്തമാക്കിയിരിക്കുന്നു.
ലോകത്ത് വെറുപ്പിന്റെ വേലികൾ കെട്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു.
ദുരിതത്തിലേക്കും രക്തചൊരിച്ചിലിലേക്കും അത് നമ്മെ
നയിക്കുന്നു. നാം വേഗത വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുത്തു.പക്ഷേ സ്വയം
നമ്മൾ അടച്ചുപൂട്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു. നമുക്ക് ധാരാളം നൽകുന്ന
യന്ത്രങ്ങൾ നമ്മെ ദാരിദ്ര്യത്തിൽ ആഴ്ത്തിരിയിക്കുന്നു. നമ്മുടെ
അറിവ് നമ്മെ എല്ലാറ്റിനെയും പരിഹസിക്കുന്നവരാക്കി.
നമ്മുടെ സാമർത്ഥ്യം കഠിനവും ദയാശൂന്യവുമായി. നമ്മൾ
വളരെ ആലോചിക്കുന്നു, നമുക്ക് അനുഭവവേദ്യമാകുന്നതോ
വളരെ തുച്ഛവും. യന്ത്രങ്ങളേക്കാൾ നമുക്ക് വേണ്ടത്
മനുഷ്യത്വമാണ്. സാമർത്ഥ്യത്തേക്കാൾ വേണ്ടത് ദയയും
ലോലതയുമാണ്. ഈ ഗുണങ്ങളില്ലാത്ത ജീവിതം
അക്രമപൂർണമായിരിക്കും, എല്ലാം നമുക്ക് നഷ്ടപ്പെടും
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