Stony-faced Mao (statue) to loom over Tibet

[JI7]

<Beijing March 29 - Late Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong is set to cast a huge shadow over Tibet once again with a giant stone statue of the Great Helmsman on its way to the Himalayan region, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

China's biggest statue of Mao -- rising 7.1 metres from a 5.16-metre pedestal -- is due to arrive by truck in Gongga county under police escort in just over a week, the Beijing News said.

Changsha, capital of the southern province of Hunan, Mao's birthplace, donated the statue to Gongga as part of aid for Tibet, the newspaper said. The statue will be a landmark in the county's Changsha Square, which will be completed in July.

Mao is still revered by many in China as a demigod even though during the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, thousands of Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist monks and nuns were forced to return to secular life, temples were destroyed and statues and sutras were burned.>

http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?article=Stony-faced+Mao+to+loom+over+Tibet&id=12216

[file83]

1. That is sick. What's next? A big statue of Bush in New Orleans?

[ckramer]

14. Man, you cracked me up! n/t

[Bhaisahab]

2. Chairman Mao is irrelevant

in his own country. That's why the statue. In India, Gandhi is irrelevant, that is why there are so many statues of him.

I'm not comparing Mao to Gandhiji. I'm just making the point that when the ideology of nation builders is sought to be forgotten, statues are built to calm their spirits, if at all they demand answers through nightmares as the nation in question sleeps in the Giant Globalized Bed.

[happyslug]

13. No, Very Relevant for TODAY'S Politicians

Remember Statutes of the Dead are NOT put up for the glorification of the Dead but to glorified the people in power today. Thus after Caesar was dead, Augustus declared him a god, thus making Augustus the heir of a god. Stalin did the same with Lenin (while also putting his own statutes up to further his god-like status among the people). As to Gandhi's statute being all over India, again a lot of Indian politicians wanted to share the Indian's people value of Gandhi.

Thus the questions is why is China putting the largest statute of Mao in Tibet? The answer is simple to further make the point that Tibet is part of China. Mao is the clear symbol of Communist China, no one will mistake a Statute of Mao as being from the US, the EU, India or what ever country you want to name. This is the same reason there have been a constant effort by the GOP to name things after Ronald Reagan, to connect in people's mind, good things with Reagan and thus the GOP. All countries do this to some degree (and it varies over time).

[David__77]

3. Many Tibetans would approve.

Particularly those from serf origins. I'm sure the clergy and those of landlord origin strongly disapprove.

The Tibet question is interesting. The Chinese have not given proper play to the national aspirations of the Tibetan people; on the other hand, it seems clear that if power were in the hands of the old order feudalists and lamas, life would be much worse for the majority.

[Tanuki]

4. Out of curiosity

and with all due respect, are you Tibetan, or are you acquainted with a large number of Tibetan serfs? Just wondering where you get the information to form this conclusion.

[BuddhaGirl]

5. I don't think he's Tibetan

if I remember correctly, he's not a fan of the Dalai Lama and bashes him whenever his name or the subject of Tibet comes up in a thread. :eyes:

[LostinVA]

6. I think you're right, BG

[David__77]

7. They're not serfs any more.

That was my point. They're not serfs because the Chinese took over again. My point is that the situation is complicated.

[sweetheart]

11. Your points are asinine

I've spent several months in rural areas of the high himalayas
and seen the agrarian tibetan culture that remains in kashmir and
ladakh, this feudal agrarian leftover, and i can't corroborate your
great enslavement. Its a rough life being poor at 11,000 feet, with
hard winters and all. The feudal monastaries, however effite,
did preserve some knoweldge and decenceny as well, as in europe,
they served as universities as well, much like there are catholic
universities in your country.

THe dalai lama is not for me, but i do find tibetan buddhism to
be very authentic sophistocated system of education still preserved
in meditation and states of consciousness, things that are un-recorded
in western knowldge.. and so looked down upon by ignorant ethnocentricity.

[ckramer]

15. I don't think Tibetans would want to go back to the old days

and old politcial system either...the world has changed...so have they.

Dalai Lama will never be able to go back in his life time. He will die outside Tibet.

[sweetheart]

16. of course not

Were tibet left alone, it would very likely have modernized
on its own schedule, much as bhutan is doing today. To say
that the chinese did them a favour by killing one out of 5
tibetans... those dead bodies have surely moved on.

The invasion of tibet gifted the world tibetan buddhism,
on top of that, it opened those sealed doors to women. Both
are unintended side consequences... long moved on past tibet,
buddhism has adapted to its vessel.

[0007]

8. cough cough, gasp!.......Another KIA speaks.

[hedgehog]

9. I hope I'm not being too offensive by saying this, but,

I wonder how many of Mao's victims will come back as pigeons just for the opportunity to properly decorate his statue?

[sweetheart]

12. I wonder how many...

of his victems are alive right now,
to call him a fucking ass*hole.

His murders were decades ago,
reincarnation's delay a few years or so,
and the victems are back reincarnate, yo,
like i said, "Mao's a Fucking ass*hole."

But its ok Mao, Stalin been damned,
They went down to kala-time in the end,
like pagaal kutta suggests statues, tin cans,
red book reduced to garbage, to hell send.
But nazis reincarnate as well,
new bad guys can fight over hell.

[Bridget Burke]

10. A new job for the Taliban Demolition Co.

I wonder what they charge per explosion?