Abp Thomas Menamparampil

Silence Has a Message

When Manipur burnt, Modi kept serene silence and moved away confidently to the States. The world shuddered. The whole of India asked why. Then it was that I read these lines in   referring to Mao Zedong: “He understood that silence and absence had a force on their own” (Branigan 30). If Mao in those days believed that political power grew from the barrel of the gun, Modi believes today that it flows from the size of the purse. Like Mao, what he is asking from his followers is not logic but loyalty: emotion over balanced thinking, blind faith over reality. Trust in the purse’s size, he says; don’t worry who benefits.

Marie Antoinette is said to have suggested to starving French workers to feed themselves on cake if bread was not available. If people in Manipur are asking for essentials, Modiji proposes that they be proud of the ‘luxuries’ India is producing.  She has become a great exporter of toys, fighter engines, and long distance missiles! Be proud of these achievements. One irrationality leads to another!

Memories of Cultural Revolution in China

When Mao’s hasty drive for industrialization and collectivization of farms called ‘The Great Leap Forward’ failed, and 45 million people died in famine, he felt his popularity dive. In a frantic effort to rebuild his image with the masses, he launched the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) that demanded slavish devotion to this person and to his ideas. His call was to wipe out old capitalist mentality still prevailing in society. He asked educated youth to move on to the countryside to spread literacy and better hygiene, while learning to work hard and respect the peasant.

Seventeen million moved to distant villages, burning churches, breaking down Buddhist shrines, and beating people with sticks and metal bars. Historical monuments were pulled down, families and friends torn apart, while schools and universities remained closed.   Call it madness, call it hysteria, call it frenzy, young people suddenly felt empowered. A civilization educated into the Confucian tradition of respect for elders, teachers and parents, turned barbarous towards their seniors. Whipping up rage and hatred in the name of the poor and the weak was a mission by itself. That was the programme that Chairman Mao placed before China’s burgeoning youth.

Thinkers, Writers, Teachers Made to Suffer More

Teens were reported as denouncing their parents, children of thirteen slapping their father or hanging a plaque around their mother’s neck “I am a capitalist-roader…I deserve beatings”. Teacher Bian in Beijing was pulled by hair, trampled by boots, and battered to death by her students; her house ransacked, books burnt, herself declared a ‘fearful pig’. Writers, thinkers and artists were sent to clean toilets, tried in public denouncing sessions, hot water poured over their heads, forced to eat excrements. They were paraded from village to village with accusations around their necks. Many committed suicide, some jumped from windows; children were thrown down from clifftops or buried alive.

Local grudges and personal ambitions got mixed up with ideological loyalties. Today’s hero would be declared a ‘traitor’ tomorrow. Friends betrayed each other. What is right and wrong changed overnight. Perpetrator and victim changed roles unexpectedly. Fate depended on the local decision-maker, until he himself was declared a spy or found corrupt; or his devotion to Mao discovered as ‘motivated’, and eliminated forthwith. Lin Biao, next in command to Mao, fled with his family; his plane crashed in Inner Mongolia. Two million died for their “political sins”, 36 million were hounded for their “thought crimes”.

Silencing Negative Memories Induce Strain

The movement ground down to a halt with Mao’s death in 1976, but nightmares continued to persist. Negative memories remained on and were whispered down to the next generation, but studied exhaustively only abroad. Over a long period of time, ideas of ‘truth and reconciliation’ began to assert themselves. Attempted confessions failed to make a mark. But psychological strain due to silence remained on. A desire to speak it all out clung to individuals. But when Song Binbin’s made a sincere apology 48 years after events, it was badly received. People who did worse things were the loudest in criticism.

“Mao’s ‘the Great Leap Forward’ failed, and 45 million people died in famine, he felt his popularity dive. In a frantic effort …he launched the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) that demanded slavish devotion to this person and to his ideas.”

The Eleventh Party Congress in 1981 had called Cultural Revolution “a historical catastrophe”. Any further criticism was considered unrealistic, immaterial, unimportant. Censors stepped in to control criticism. Xi Jinping discouraged ‘historical nihilism’.

A temperate, rational discussion of torture and murder is not easy, e.g. remembering people being beaten to death on the way to hospital; repetition of waves of revenge and repentance, of fresh violence and bitter cry; finally, suicide in psychological helplessness! And yet, continued silence makes high demands: piercing headache, tears, rage.

Remembering in a Responsible Manner Helps Healing

Children and grandchildren suffer the psychological consequence, and psychoanalysts are unable to help. People who were silenced during the Cultural Revolution continued to keep silence, educated their children to silence: ‘keep distance, don’t trust anyone. Never show your anger, never display your real feeling, never open your full mind to anyone’. People speak of “transgenerational trauma”, having witnessed extreme mercilessness. Mao banned psychology as a bourgeois pseudoscience.

All people are evasive about something or the other. Germans find it difficult to speak of Holocaust, Americans of the elimination of Native Americans, Indians of Partition, Chinese of Cultural Revolution. There are other similar sensitive topics for everyone. However, total silence is not the ultimate solution.  Collective self-criticism is beneficial; it brings a healing touch.

British Universities evaluate their collective mistakes from time to time. American and Australian intellectuals often highlight the nation’s historical misdeeds. Our present leadership in India considers any negative evaluation of our past a betrayal of India. JNU has been silenced. Deng Xiaoping believed that remembering in a responsible manner would bring healing and help people to forget in a healthy way. Society has to recognize the disasters that Communism and Mao brought, as Indians need to look objectively at Hindutva, their originators and their propagators. We need gradually to emerge from our “history of traumas”.

Gujarat Model of Inducing Blindness to Suffering Unethical

The answer will not consist in turning our attention to the number of billionaires we have given rise to or the volume of export that has increased. We will have to wish goodbye to the DharmYodhs (religious warriors) of Yogi in UP and Arambais of Biren in Manipur, as China did to the cultural warriors of Mao.

As Bo Xilai’s ‘Chongqing Model’ of Maoism went outdated, Modi’s Gujarat model of distracting the public from human suffering with economic success must be considered ethically wrong. Sun Liping, the teacher of Xi Jinping, taught: the greatest threat to humanity is the loss of morals and the weakening of the sense of justice.  This has a message for both India and China, now at loggerheads over the border issues.

Xi Looks Like a Re-incarnation of Mao

Unfortunately China is slow to learn a lesson from experience, India slower still. During Deng Xioping’s period there was a recognition that power must be controlled. Yet Xi, with his non-ostentatious style, has moved up the ladder, marginalized competitors, eliminated rivals, has taken over Military and Party leadership, and abolished presidential term limit. Already called like Mao the Great Helmsman, he has got his ideas enshrined in the Party’s Constitution. Like Modi he is praised for his humility and farsightedness. While he encourages private enterprise, he has chastened tycoons and made the errant confess their failures and promise rectification. He insists on the social responsibility of big business. His vision is esteemed, his assertiveness accepted.

But for all the good will he claims, Xi Jinping seems to be taking after Mao in subtle ways. He accepts the Maoist belief in “sheer determination”. His call is for the “Rejuvenation” of China. He has already created legends about his youthful experience in Liangjiahe village where he was sent during the Cultural Revolution. He would lift loads weighing 100 kg and slide down the hill. The villagers admired his hard work. If Mao stood for turmoil, Xi stands for ‘order’. His book on governance that speaks of austerity and selfless dedication sold 13 million copies.

Vatican Agreement with China Limping

Xi renewed the Holy See’s agreement with the Government in 2019 which said, “The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party…”. The agreement was renewed for another two years on 22.10.22. Though its content remains secret, it is mainly concerned generally about appointment of bishops in China.

Within a month after the agreement, however, Bishop PengWeizhao of Yujiang was installed as auxiliary bishop of Jiangxi diocese without Roman recognition. The Holy See expressed surprise and regret. In 2022 four unregistered bishops were found missing; their whereabouts are still unknown. In the same way, ten unregistered priests of Baoding have been found missing. A 400-year old church was demolished in Taiyuan in the name of city development, and another that belonged to the unregistered Church. Guidelines for the registration of the clergy were part of the Vatican agreement. But some underground communities had refused to register.

Modi and Xi: Skilled in Diverting Public
Attention from Political Failures to Economic Success

As Modi distracts the Indian public from political blunders and social disasters with a display of economic breakthrough, Xi seeks to convince the Party and the nation with performance reports, e.g. four new billionaires every week, market expanding, museums multiplying. The state seems ever more confident and combative, but the people more anxious. More activists disappear into prison, the lawyers of dissidents are targeted, then the lawyers of lawyers themselves are seized. Xi has emerged as the “Core Leader”, though he likes to appear as a Big Daddy to children and maintain a grandfather figure. His supporters agree on the need for a “consistent” leader.

Xi knows how to ‘deploy mass emotion’ and give it a direction and a purpose. Cultural Revolution has returned. Officers urge that Xi’s photos gradually replace Jesus’. Anybody can be toppled or spied upon. Intellectual discussions are suspect, minorities are watched, underground Christian communities scattered, pastors arrested, historians attacked. In Hong Kong: protest is considered sedition, media offices are raided, lawyers and teachers arrested. In Xinjiang a million Muslim Uyghurs are put into ‘vocational training centres’ (brainwashing centres), women sterilized, mosques razed to the ground.

Sinicization of the Catholic Church

The big drive today is for the Sinicization  of the Catholic Church, which goes far beyond Inculturation in the Catholic sense to the imposition of a socialistic ideology, integrating it cleverly with theology. It corresponds in some way to the Saffronisation of India. Bishops and priests are put through seminars, courses, researches, and introduced to books, as they are forced to undergo ‘re-education’ of a sort.

Bishop Li Shan of Beijing has been elected the head of Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) and Bishop Shen Bin of Haimen the president of the Bishops’ Conference (BCCCC). Bishop Ma Yinglin of Kunming retires from office after many years of service. It was Bishop Ma who had invited me to preach a retreat for the Bishops of China some years ago. Though his freedom was limited, I kept in touch with him.

The information we have from the Holy Spirit Centre in Hong Kong, tells us that there are ten million Catholics in China, 147 dioceses, 95 bishops, about 4,000 priests and 5,000 sisters. From 2016 about 289 priests were ordained, 161 sisters professed, and 110,000 baptisms administered. A sad thing is that a third of the dioceses remain without bishop. But an encouraging information is that 550,000 copies of the Bible were printed, 100,000 distributed free to difficult areas. About 400 theological students completing their studies abroad have returned. They will teach in seminaries and religious institutes.

Let Us Pray for China, India

When Tania Branigan was writing her book Red Memory, she thought that there were 100 million Christians in China, belonging to all denominations. How many of them are well instructed and how many of them will remain loyal amidst increasing difficulties remains uncertain.

When helplessness overtakes smaller communities, public forms of protest turn impossible. But consciences begin to speak up. An entire world changes from within. Those who observe such trends from a distance, should try to be helpful to the best of their ability. However, they should make sure that their interference does not make matters worse. But they can pass around a message inviting reflection how evil can be prevented and goodness made to prevail.

• Sources:
• Branigan, Tania, Red Memory, Faber & Faber, London, 2023
• Tripod, Spring 2022, Holy Spirit Centre, Hong Kong