In The Analects of Confucius can find autobiographical reflections following the wise:
"At fifteen, my will apply to the study, thirty years I had said, at forty delivered from doubt, fifty I knew the decree of Heaven, at sixty, my ear is pacified and seventy years, according to the desires of my heart, I did not violate any rules more. "
The master speaks in these words a personal project of intellectual development and especially moral sense to continue throughout the life of a man. The journey of a nation is another. That said, it is not without interest, to mark the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China, to reflect on the history of the regime in light of the foundations laid by Confucius. Can we say that at 60 years, the PRC has "pacified the ear," in other words she is confident about the path she took to the point of no longer having to "listen" elsewhere?
first point to note, China has less than 60 years ago today that two times 30, so the break between the Maoist period and the reforms that followed is large. While China-watchers often evoke Western China Maoist in the portraits they paint of modern China, in reality the history of China under Mao Zedong referred to the tragedies of the 20th century-the rise and decline of imperialism The spectrum of the two great wars, the emergence of "mobilizing the state" (Germany under Hitler, the Soviet Union under Stalin) and "revolutionary nationalism" (China and USSR, among others), and especially pressures from the Cold War. Maoist China comes down heavily:
- the rejection of capitalism and democracy Western liberal, combined with revolutionary projects aimed at both the individual and society;
- a mobilization of Stalinist labor to quickly make China a superpower (and therefore protect the wicked West) ;
- and the personal power of the great helmsman, who was throwing too often the whole of China in utopian projects (the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution), projects that in retrospect, seem to have been the vagaries not only deeply selfish but also disastrous.
If Mao Zedong and his time are sometimes referred China with a certain nostalgia today, there are actually very few Chinese who wish to return to the atmosphere of perpetual crisis and mobilization of endless sacrifice, and uncertainty, even terror, who scored the Mao era. Instead of "s'affermir" in 30 years, the China of Mao Zedong has collapsed, a fact tacitly acknowledged-if-both by the current regime and the Chinese people.
The young adult is China reforms is it more "enhanced" in 30 years that his predecessor? Most Western observers answer "no" highlighting the gap between its economy, which grows fast, and his government, which is lagging when it comes to joining the ranks of democratic regimes. Proud of their success, many Chinese have rejected this overly deterministic, but are not necessarily unanimous as to whether China should take in the future. Healthy sign, Chinese discuss more openly, through the blogosphere on political issues, partisans of democracy confronting the new Confucians and the people of the New Left. Within government, there is consensus "stability and growth", but the researchers attached to thinktanks based in Beijing over the Scandinavian model as that of Chavez's Venezuela.
As a historian, beyond issues of identity and birthdays, I am most struck by certain continuities between contemporary Chinese society (especially urban society) and that before the Maoist era. The triumph of Mao and his revolution was too long monopolized the attention of historians, so that the history of the 20th century in China often comes down to the single drama of the communist movement. However as pointed out by sinologist Swiss Frank Dikötter in his recent volume, The Age of Openness , China Before Mao (Berkeley, 2008), China in the first half of the 20th century was open to the world and changing plans on not having direct link with communism or revolution. Western education was already very popular in China and, as now, parents who could afford sending their children to study abroad. Artists, writers, and Chinese scholars were then fully connected to international movements. Some were of Chinese cities have a cosmopolitan character and internationally. The presence and influence of the missionary community (mainly Protestant) was very marked both the religious and charitable activities. If this presence was challenged by some, she was welcomed with open arms by others, where the roots of the popularity of Protestantism in China today. The rise of qigong and Falun Gong in the 1980s and 1990s remember the craze for new religious movements to neo-traditional character-called "redemptive societies" by researchers, who packed tens of millions of Chinese in the years 1920, 1930 and 1940. The religious revival underway in China for 30 years is more easily understood as a reversal of a trend that began during the Republican period than as a reaction to the excesses of communism.
short, the Chinese company the first half of the 20th century opened the world hoping to find something to replace the Confucian tradition that did not work. Chinese society today opened the world hoping to find something to replace Maoist tradition that did not work. In light of this, the Maoist era is contained rupture, interruption that delayed the maturation of a society that is both modern and Chinese. Hope that the communist regime, which is celebrating its 60 years, and some vestiges of Maoism which continue to be weighed, have the wisdom of his age and allow the Chinese people to grow at its discretion.
David Ownby, Montreal
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