Monday, April 17, 2017

Four Merits and Four Loves in full swing?

Swearing on the Four Merits and Four Loves
Communist China always loved slogans with numbers.
Remember ‘The Four Olds’ during the Cultural Revolution.
The term was coined by Chief Propagandist Chen Boda in an editorial of The People's Daily in June 1966.
In the article titled ‘Sweep Away All Monsters and Demons’, Chen asked the masses to reject the Old Customs, Old Culture, Old Habits, and Old Ideas which were anti-proletarian and had been in the past, "fostering the exploiting classes and poisoning the minds of the people for thousands of years.”
Today, the prolific Communist propaganda speaks about Four Merits and Four Loves. A campaign is said to be 'in full swing' in Dagzê Township of Nyingtri prefecture.
Dagzê, not far from Lhasa, is the seat of the Ganden monastery.
A website bVTIBET.com published a picture taken on April 13 showing “propagandists designated from various departments at all levels units of Dagzê County of Lhasa City, taking notes carefully.”
Dancing on the Four Merits and Four Loves
It says that the Propaganda Department of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) has gone to the seven TAR prefectures/townships “to propagandize educational activity on the theme of Four Merits and Four Loves.
The Four Merits refers to being “Civilized, Polite, Moral and Dedicated” while the Four Loves are Love for the Motherland (China) and Hometown, Love for the parents, Love and Respect for the teachers and elders and finally Love for learning and working.
The website adds that the trained propagandists visited the different counties and towns of the TAR to propagate ‘in full swing’ the Four Merits and Four Loves.
Nyingtri is apparently the first area where the new scheme has been implemented.
All schools in Nyingtri had to attend a series of events such as speech contest, artistic performance, drama competition promoting the Four Merits and Four Loves: “students will study hard and contribute to the efforts to building a strong and prosperous motherland in the future,” says the website.

Another self-immolation
This sounds good, but in another corner of the plateau, self-immolations continue.
Radio Free Asia
(RFA) reported that a Tibetan committed self immolation in Kardze (Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture.
A video circulating on the Internet, showed a man in police uniform spraying a fire extinguisher on a smoky body lying on the ground while other policemen are running towards the scene and blocking shouting onlookers from approaching the body.
According to RFA sources: “the incident took place on Saturday at about 7.00 am local time at the main square in Kardze town, where large crowds are known to gather. Chinese police swiftly took the self-immolator away.”
There is a serious discrepancy between the Communist propaganda and the ground reality in Tibet today.
Is China ready to look into the root cause of the problem?

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