Goa Dialogues Special Lecture on Mao Zedong: The Real Story & his Attitude to India

The husband-wife literature icons, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday now living in Britain, descended on Goa recently for the first time to deliver a lecture on "Mao Zedong: The real story and his attitude to India". The lecture was organized by the International Centre Goa under the flagship of its Goa Dialogues.

Jung Chang is a Chinese-born British writer, famous for her "Wild Swans"- the family autobiography which sold more than 14 million copies around the globe.  Jon Halliday is a Russian historian, who wrote the famous biography of filmmaker Douglas Sirk. They both researched and wrote the highly critical biography of Mao Ze-dong, "Mao: the Unknown Story" which has sold over a million copies.  Wild Swans and Mao continue to be banned in China.  The Goa Dialogues is a new initiative of the International Centre Goa and the Asian Dialogue Society to “promote and strengthen peace, stability, freedom, independence and sustainable development in Asia and the world enhancing interaction and cooperation among civilizations”.

Indeed, this initiative will be a transmitter of ideas and activities that will contribute to building a resurgent Goa a progressive India a better Asia and safer world". The Goa Dialogues was launched by Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh on 28 December 2007 when he visited the Centre.

The lecture was held at a packed standing-room only hall of the Kala Academy in Panjim City. Interestingly, the audience included many tourists and backpackers as well.

The President of the International Centre Goa, Shri Pratapsingh Rane, who is Speaker of the Legislative Assembly and a former Chief Minister, said that the main aim of the lecture series is to make the people of Goa more aware about the situation in the world and how problems can be solved through dialogue.  He Said "the Goa Dialogues stand firmly on the four pillars of culture and cosmopolitanism, development and globalization including Asian Security and the world. I hope the Goa Dialogues will play a vital role in developing a vision for Goa in the 21 century with global, creative and strategic horizons.”

He further said that the people of Goa must be creative, and imbibed with an innovative spirit and imagination. “We must develop and encourage talent and professionalism. The people of Goa must develop their own areas of competence and turn Goa into a model of excellence".

In introducing the speakers the Director and Chief Executive of the International Center Goa, Shri M Rajaretnam said that Mao was one of the most important figures in modern world history and in China he continues to be held in high regard.  He further said, “Mao’s revolutionary ideas to this day continue to influence many political movements in Asia”. What will be interesting, he said, is that Jung Chang and Jon Halliday have rather radically different views on Mao and his place in history.

In her lecture Jung Chang dwelled mainly on how she ended up writing her books on China and Mao and went on to describe the life of Mao, his early days as peasant revolutionary and the life in china after Mao. While describing her early childhood life, Jang Chang, said the people were under intense indoctrination of Mao’s personality cult. She recalled as a young girl how every child in China used to sing a song that rhymed “father is close, mother is close but neither is as close as- Chairmen Mao”.  She said “the teachers were always saying to us that if you work hard you will be able to see Chairmen Mao in Beijing. To see Mao became the goal of my life. At least when I had the opportunity of going to Beijing to see Mao I didn’t see him clearly I only got a glimpse of his back. I was so heartbroken for a fleeting movement I thought I should commit suicide”.

It was only when she was fourteen during the Cultural Revolution that her faith in Mao changed. She describes the Cultural Revolution as Mao’s purge. She maintains that both her parents were communist officials but suffered due to Cultural Revolution.  “When my father decided to speak up and he wrote to Mao and protested against the revolution my father was arrested, torched and beaten up and exiled to a camp and died later very prematurely. My mother was under pressure to denounce my father and when she refused she went through all the torture. She was paraded and children used to spit on her. So obviously my faith in Mao and society began to vain”.

It was in 1998, when Jang Chang’s mother came to London to meet her that she decided to write the book “Wild Swans” after hearing the stories from her mother about her life, stories of grand mother, mother and father. “So when I was listening to my mother- I decide to write the book- which later turned out be “Wild Swans” which reflected the condition of women in twentieth century China”.

After the Wild Swans was finished this world acclaimed author decided to write another book and Mao seemed to be an obvious subject.  According to her Mao dominated her early life and he turned the lives of a quarter of world’s population upside down and yet she felt the world knew very little about Mao, one of the most important figures of the modern Chinese history. So she and Jan decided to embark on this project together.  They said that the great famine in China, 1958-1961, in which fourteen million people died, was an act of deliberate mismanagement.

Jon Halliday adds, “Mao knew his people were dying; it was part of his plan. He was exporting the food- these people were dependent on- to Eastern Europe and Russia to buy nuclear technology for his ambition of turning China into a military super power and to dominate the world”.“It was so disturbing that he was so heartless that he allowed his own people to die”. Mao, according to him, was willing “for his project to take half of China to death”.
Jung adds that Mao was responsible for the death of millions of Chinese in peacetime. And yet today, his portrait still hangs on Tiananmen gate and his body is still in Tiananmen Square for people to worship. His face is on every Chinese currency note. China’s leaders still claim that the are Mao’s heirs.  Jon Halliday, an expert on Russia, had researched into the Russian archives and was able to throw light on Jawaharlal Nehru’s relationship with Mao Ze Tung and Chou Enlai. He found that Mao actually told Russian officials on one occasion that he killed more then thirty thousand members of an armed communist force run by his main rival in order to control the Russian border first and monopolies the connection with Moscow which was critical for his later successes.

According to Halliday, Mao did not invade India to occupy Indian territory but to stop Nehru-then the Prime Minster of India- from making trouble for him on the borders. “After invading India and showing his military muscle he then withdrew from the Indian side and then they stopped doing what they were doing”.  The writers’ lectures, as expected, did provoke much discussion and debate.

A member of the audience, Carmen Bitwan, said it was once in a lifetime experience for her when you gets to listen to famous writers like them especially in Goa which is better known for its beaches than intellectual activities and added that "although we may not agree with everything they say about Mao I think that had Mao not been the leader China would not have been what it is today. Despite the unpleasant sides he is after all the founder of Modern China. It is the only country in Asia which is trying to give a fight to the sole superpower (USA) in every aspect.”

After the talk both these authors autographed their books for the audience.

By
Sameer Yasir
Intern, The International Centre Goa