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Let the Flowers Bloom
Nature is a perpetual cycle of beauty and generosity that spreads the fruits of tomorrow…
In the era of global communication, more than ever we need to allow new ideas to flourish, to spring out from the onslaught of fabricated news, sterilised information and sanitised educational and cultural systems.
In today’s world the young generation are far more interested in getting hold of the latest high tech gadget than in pursuing new ideas or questioning old ones. The present climate sees an emptiness of ideals and ideas that evoke change,yet change is the essence of life.
The cyber lifestyle is little more than an atomised reality that offers no more than a quick fix of self gratification. It prevents the creation of new concepts that can foment transformation from the present status quo. What we have is a virtually engineered “occupation” of our hearts and minds, that now controls our most basic natural instincts, all for the sake of spurious profit.
Let the flowers bloom, from the secret prisons in Europe and the US to the streets of Beijing and Baghdad where men, women and children are now restrained, killed and tortured for not conforming to the present Masters. We must set them free and plant the seeds of a better tomorrow.
There are other ways; there are alternatives to this lack of respect for individuals, society and the environment.
Let the Flowers Bloom, let’s seek new directions, let the new generations break away without the fetters from the past, let’s be inspired by the generosity of Nature, that creates and gives so much without claiming ownership of anything.
In 2006, Let the Flowers Bloom.
Artsrepublik
Winter in Beijing
10/12/2005 09:55:04
A motor cycle runs over seventy five years old woman in a small street in
the outskirts of Beijing …
She collapses as her husband looks powerless and angry at the young careless
driver
The elderly man wearing the blue coat from Mao’s era try to seek some
help from the people around…No one helps…
The lady is laying on the freezing road in pain …someone puts an army
coat around her.
There are about four or five taxis 50 meters from the accident no one moves…
There is a Hospital just five hundred meters away …
I ask why can’t they call an ambulance and they say
- They hardly come and if they do one must pay…
Why can’t she be taken to the Hospital and the same answer is repeated.
- Who will pay for … I offered and they refuse
I run for a taxi and with less then a pound or a little more then a dollar
(10 yuan) they agree to come over and take her off the streets … and
hopefully drive her home.
This is the Legacy of Deng Xiaoping, the infamous corrupt Zheng Zemin and the new appointed MOC of the sell out China Co also known as the President of the CPC, Communist Party of China, Mr Hu Jintao. Meanwhile just a few miles away in Dongzhou the police shot dead at least 20 civilians including woman and children on a peaceful protest. In China the daily assault goes on civilians (the poor ones of course) by the repressive Governmental forces with absolute impunity. Beijing has not said a word about the incident, the biggest killing of civilians since Tiananmen.
The freezing weather and the accident is a good snap shot of China today.
If you can pay you survive if you don’t you die.
In this nation presently all comes down to one constant question in everyone’s
mind; who can pay for? A chilling silence …
Silent Witness
Monday, 21 November 2005
After a successful Exhibit at the Affordable Art Fair at Battersea Park …
This is our way to say…
Thank You London
The Mao Zedong People’s Library
This is a very special day for some children in Beijing.
Today we have literally opened our first “Mao Zedong People’s Library” in Beijing and it is already accessible to the local children. The library holds a collection of books on a multitude of issues such as philosophy, history, literature, geography and arts.
It begun as one idea but now it is a reality.
We are fully aware that our endeavour is minor in face of the gigantic problem that illiteracy represents in the world, and most prominently in the New China.
Nevertheless we are confident that our action has meant a great deal for the young boys and girls that took their books home today; some of them for the first time in their lives.
One must have seen the joy in their eyes as they walked away with their books that hopefully will be of some sort of assistance in their future.
It is indeed a very little step in face of the monumental challenge ahead of us. Still if we can brighten the eyes, mind and spirit of a child at a time the road ahead looks slightly brighter.
In the future we hope to open new libraries in China and across the developing world; the Che Guevara in Latin America and the Nelson Mandela in Africa.
Education is the only way out from the inhumane condition that people are often subjected to live as slaves in deplorable surroundings for a third of the population in the world.
“Liberation through Education”
THE REVOLUTION FOR SALE
THE CHINESE CRISIS
THE SHAMEFUL DIVIDE BETWEEN THE CORRUPT ELITE IN GOVERNMENT AND THE HELPLESS
SLAVES.
In China today, reported by CNN (14/10/05) and the Chinese security system,
there are more then 200 cases a day of violent protest, civil unrest and
public demonstrations against the present Government.
Discontent and protest are on the rise across China. Zhou Yongkang, China's
Minister of Public Security, reported recently that in 2004 there were 74,000 "mass
incidents"—demonstrations, riots and other acts of civil disobedience.
That's an average of 200 a day; a worrisome number for China's leaders, who,
at a plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party last week, reaffirmed
their calls to build a "harmonious society." If the leaders put
so much emphasis on social harmony, why does unrest persist?
The short answer, say Chinese officials, is the divide between rich and poor,
and especially the growing unhappiness among farmers and other peasants who
have been left behind by China's rapid economic development. But this is only
a partial explanation. Rather than poverty, it is the farmers' sense of powerlessness
that sows the seeds of discontent. The central government has promised reforms
that would give farmers more control over their lives. Those promises have
been broken by corrupt local officials bent on keeping power and wealth for
themselves.
In my work monitoring elections in China's countryside, I witnessed this situation
firsthand near the city of Jinan, where a farmer who had been elected by villagers
to be their chief was beaten up by people suspected to be cronies of the local
government's defeated candidate. Similar events unfolded this summer, when
farmers in the Pearl River Delta village of Taishi tried to orchestrate a recall
motion to oust a village chief. Although the villagers had the law on their
side and had collected the requisite number of signatures, their efforts failed.
Incidents like this happen because local officials, especially at the county
and township levels, have interests apart from the work of governing.
Since the taxation reforms of 1993, China's central government has taken the
majority of tax revenue for itself and has left many local institutions without
sufficient resources. In small, poor places, cadres want better working conditions,
better incomes and better education. Since they don't get money from Beijing,
they collect it from the farmers, many of whom are too poor to pay fees, taxes
and other levies. This burden has been a classic cause of rural unrest. Faced
with excessive fees, farmers complain to higher authorities, petition Beijing,
sue the local government or, in more radical cases, surround government buildings
and burn offices.
More recently, village officials have found new ways to line their pockets.
China's booming real estate market makes rural land a valuable asset. Local
governments increasingly depend on land sales as their main source of revenue.
But in order to sell village property, they need to control the townships.
This means making sure that their allies are elected as village chiefs. And,
as was the case in Taishi, it can also mean attempts to rig local elections.
In China's countryside, new alliances of ?lites have emerged among township
officials, companies, high-ranking cadres, village leaders and the hired fists
they employ to do their dirty work, and whom farmers call "the black force." These
alliances rule by controlling the ways laws are implemented, and through violence.
Farmers who don't obey can be fined, beaten, jailed, even killed.
Peasants are increasingly trying to protect their rights through the courts
or other institutions. Occasionally they win lawsuits, recall elected officials
or win support from higher authorities. Mostly, they lose, dashing expectations
that the poor can get justice in modern China. This instability puts Beijing
in an awkward position. China's leaders speak of "serving the people" and "building
a harmonious society." But Beijing also sees clearly that the survival
of its regime depends on the local governments maintaining stability and order.
Without that, who is left to protect the Party's kingdom?
The central government tries to balance its support of local officials with
its protection of the legitimate interests of common people. Sometimes Beijing
punishes local governments in order to defuse popular tension, sometimes it
allows local governments to pursue their interests freely. But as unrest continues
to mount, how long will Beijing be able to strike this balance without real
political reform?
—
Li Fan is a research fellow at the World and China Institute, a private think
tank, in Beijing
WHY NOW IN BERLIN?
Join the Cultural Revolution.
1966-2005
It has been said by major scholars from the 20th and 21st Century , that Karl
Marx views are now far more relevant today then they were 150 years ago,
Why is the Cultural Revolution that occurred in 1966/76 so relevant in 2005?
The answer is rather simple and straight forward;
- As Mao predicted in 1966 if the people don’t attain power or worse, if they lose it, they will eventually become slaves of this same power. China is now under a “New Cultural Revolution” disguised under the old Communist led regime, carefully drafted and implemented by the followers of Deng Xiaoping. One of the central figures of the Cultural Revolution, accused by Mao and the people as the main “Capitalist Roader”.
In its core lie the issues that Chairman Mao tried so hard to address during the Cultural Revolution. Fundamental matters that he warned during his life that eventually turned into reality right after his death in 1976:
- Revisionism of the Revolution that was immediately done and officially sanctioned
under Deng Xiaoping with the show trial of the Gang of Four and the Communist
Party edict in 1981 condemning the Revolution as an error.
- The virtual take over the nation and the Party, by the right wing Elite.
The people lost the control of the Nation and the Party.
- The massive corruption that has now been unleashed in China in what the Guardian(London)
has called it “ The Totalitarian Capitalist System” that has destroyed
the welfare system, the public health and educational structure.
- Only last year the Xinghua News agency has publicly confirmed that the Government
has officially admitted that the corruption is now reaching the 43 billion
dollar level a year, more then half of all the foreign capital investment in
China.
- The same news agency has confirmed that on the rush to build the “modern
Beijing”, some migrant workers were not paid for as long as 10 years
by the private contractors (Government linked) with the outstanding debt in
the order of 50 billion dollars. As one can put in the context the colossal
extent of this “crisis” in China where a worker makes less then
50 dollars a month.
- The now invasion of western values across the landscape with the thousands
of McDonalds, KFC, Microsoft , Bank of America , AIG and Coca Cola signs and
outlets …. Including inside the Forbidden City, sanctuary of the Chinese
Cultural legacy, violated with hundreds of adverts of Amex and Starbucks. The
assignment of a private TV Channel to Rupert Murdoch funded with a one billion
dollars grant a year from the Government… or the People’s money.
- Inhumane working conditions with a seven day week, 12/14 hours shifts for
the common worker.
- No workers right or benefits.
- No pension for the elderly
- No public health
- No free education
- Appalling public transportation
- Reduced access to clean water and electricity for the general population.
At the present moment Mao’s ideals are probably even more relevant then they were 30 years ago. At the time all the Chinese people, had no doubt in simple and often precarious way, access to the basic necessities of life. Namely; housing, health and education free to all the Chinese people. This is no longer the case. Now in the “free-market” the elderly has no social or pension to live from in their old age. They must scatter like hungry animals in the dust bins of China to find food or a plastic bottle that they can sell in order to survive.
As the West now has so much focused on this “new market” one wonders …. What will happen to the billions of people that are now left alone to fend for themselves in the New China? or the “New Wild East”. They have no one, no Party or entity to look after them. They cannot vote, they cannot complaint or have a say in their destinies. Even the value of the Yuan, as just published by the FT on July 30th, was negotiated with the US Treasury Secretary secretly in the last two years. The Chinese already worked as slaves in the “Wild West”. Ironically they seem to be doing the same for the same masters now in their own nation.
Conveniently the Government, still proclaims to represent the people through “The Chinese Communist Party” where by the regime was based in the principle “The People’s Dictatorship”. This is now probably the biggest propaganda endeavour ever undertaken by a single Government , where they must tread the thin line to; first please the Foreign Clients that is their only “real political and economical basis” and second to keep the Chinese people at bay under the illusion that they are in control. Of course all this supported by the small minority that we all see flourishing in downtown Beijing, Shanghai buying at Louis Vuiton, driving Porsches and playing golf, while 80% of the population earns less the 50 dollars a month.
The Cultural Revolution was indeed a controversial time in Chinese history; a time of undesired violence and turbulence among the people. This was eventually admitted by Chairman Mao. Nevertheless a time when the people, were in control of their destiny, the people knew what they were struggling for, a time when they knew some had to bear the sacrifice so the others could go on. Unlike the New Cultural Revolution where the people are passive slaves and victims from a brutal corrupt regime that has now divided China between the “have and have nots”. It’s a 1.3 billion population national state, with very little grasp on the present social demise and unwilling creeping inhuman divide. The West can not again just assist one more disaster on the making while the corporate world leaps into this fresh opportunity to profit from the created “slave labour” now so abundant in China. Companies like Nike with 150 factories in China, the textile industry, electronics all only possible by the use of slave labour working on inhumane conditions to increase the profits of the corporate world and the corrupt Chinese officials.
As Karl Marx said, “the modern industry produces its own grave diggers”. China is now mourning daily its millions of victims on the mines, industries, polluted and poisoned air, water system, the homeless, the hungry and unprotected massive population under the New Cultural Revolution and totalitarian regime.
We hope that by “Joining the Revolution”, people and society will take a serious look in what is going on in China and reflect upon the present dire situation. In spite of whatever political orientation one may choose to follow, no one can witness this massive “21st Century, human slavery” in silence.
Our Exhibit now in Berlin, is a remembrance of Mao’s ideals and an opportunity on behalf of the millions that are now enslaved without an opportunity to be heard ; an artistic expression of the Cultural Revolution 30 years after.
Join The Revolution.
Artworks will be continuously on display between 2nd – 28th September (Pre-view evening Sept. 1st) and are available to purchase at the yourART located near Hackescher Markt, Berlin.
YourART
Oranienburger Str. 87
10178 Berlin
Tuesday - Friday 11.30 – 19:30
Saturday 11:00 – 18:00
www.artrepublik.com - www.your-art.de
Click here to view the livewire archive 1, archive 2 (art in Chinese Politics), archive 3 (Cultural revolution and art), archive 4
See you again, soon ...
"ARTISTS OF THE WORLD UNITE"
