On this date in 757, An Lushan was assassinated by a group of three conspirators including his own son and heir, An Qingxu. An Lushan was a general of Turkic descent who served in the armies of the Tang Emperor, Xuanzong (r. 712-756). Through his connections, including a rather close relationship with Xuanzong’s favorite concubine Yang Guifei, An Lushan received many imperial favors and positions, eventually commanding an army of nearly 180,000 troops. In 755, An Lushan rebelled, driving Xuanzong out of the Tang capital of Chang’an. He was a corpulent fellow, and his obesity seems to have led to health problems, the symptoms of which suggest he may have suffered from diabetes. He grew blind in one eye and became increasingly paranoid and prone to rage, alienating many of his officials and servants. An Lushan doted on his concubine, the lady Duan who had asipirations for their young son, An Qing’en, angering An Lushan’s other son, the crown prince An Qingxu. Fearing for his position, the crown prince conspired with the official Yan Zhuang and An Lushan’s personal servant Li Zhu’er to kill his father. On January 30, 757, while Yan Zhuang and An Qingxu waited outside, Li Zhu’er slipped into An Lushan’s quarters and sliced open his master’s belly while An Lushan slept. An Qingxu would rule for only a short time, before he too was assassinated by one of his generals, Shi Siming, who in turn was later killed by his son, Shi Chaoyi. With confusion and chaos among the leadership of the rebel armies, the Tang forces rallied and the rebellion was eventually suppressed in 763. The Tang Empire however was shaken to its foundation and never fully recovered to the heights of power and culture enjoyed prior to the An Lushan Rebellion.
This date also marks a rather interesting double anniversary in world history. 75 years ago today, on January 30, 1933, Adolph Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, and this date also marks the 60th anniversary of the assassination of Mohandes K. Gandhi, shot and killed by the Hindu nationalist Nathuram Godse in New Delhi in 1948.
While it’s not techinically about China, given the bloody nature of this day in history, I thought it was appropriate to give the pacifist the last word (and he does give China a shout out in the middle). This is a passage from the Hind Sawaj written a century ago in 1908 by Mohandes Gandhi:
I believe that the civilization India evolved is not to be beaten in the world. Nothing can equal the seeds sown by our ancestors, Rome went, Greece shared the same fate; the might of the Pharaohs was broken; Japan has become Westernized; of China nothing can be said; but India is still, somehow or other, sound at the foundation. The people of Europe learn their lessons from the writings of the men of Greece or Rome, which exist no longer in their former glory. In trying to learn from them, the Europeans imagine that they will avoid the mistakes of Greece and Rome. Such is their pitiable condition. In the midst of all this India remains immovable and that is her glory. It is a charge against India that her people are so uncivilized, ignorant and stolid, that it is not possible to induce them to adopt any changes. It is a charge really against our merit. What we have tested and found true on the anvil of experience, we dare not change. Many thrust their advice upon India, and she remains steady. This is her beauty: it is the sheet-anchor of our hope.
Civilization is that mode of conduct which points out to man the path of duty. Performance of duty and observance of morality are convertible terms. To observe morality is to attain mastery over our mind and our passions. So doing, we know ourselves. The Gujarati equivalent for civilization means “good conduct”.
Not much of a “shout out” is it?! “Of China, nothing can be said” – is that tact, disparagement, ignorance, or despair?
Gandhi’s attitude here seems just like the typical Chinese belief in the innate superiority of their culture – along with its rather less wholesome corollary of invoking this ‘superiority’ as a blanket defence against any criticisms of those aspects of the culture which may seem stubborn, perverse, backward, no longer useful, etc.
Whilst there are many aspects of Chinese culture which bug the crap out of me (we were just talking about ‘face’ on your ‘Olympic construction’ post), I admire most of it and would like to see it preserved, resisting as far as possible the relentless tide of Westernization/Hollywoodization. When other nations come along trying to foist their culture on you, I always feel you should be like Monty Python’s French Taunter – “I told him we already got one.”
Froog,
“Of China, nothing can be said.” The man did have a way with a phrase, did he not?
Froog…, and the fans and beacon defenders of “Western Civilization” don’t also have the wink-wink sense of superiority at heart?
Jason,
Touché. Though one might argue that the source of this “wink-wink sense” springs from a different well in American and Europe than the post-colonialist rhetoric found in China and, I would imagine, India.
Jason, yes, I guess all nations think their own culture is the best. I have no gripe with that per se – it only becomes a problem, I think, when, as seems to happen with China, it renders a nation incapable of intelligent self-criticism and reflexively contemptuous of outside criticism.
I’ve always liked the story about Gandhi (though I fear it is probably apocryphal) that, when quizzed once by a journalist as to what he thought of “Western Civilization”, responded simply: “I think it would be a very good idea.”
Froog-
“with China, it renders a nation incapable of intelligent self-criticism and reflexively contemptuous of outside criticism.”
You can’t be serious. There are A LOT of literature and publications historically as well as contemporary oral traditions in greater China that are dedicated to their culture’s
inadequacy/failures. To start, you mght have heard of the May Fourth Movement and the Chinese Modernity struggle?
On the other hand, when you meant “nations” I assume you meant “governments”. And yeah, the CCP regime is surely not your typical apologetic or modest promoter (and former denouncer) of the Chinese traditions.
Jeremiah-
One can certainly argue that.
Jason,
I think you raise an excellent point about the New Culture Movement, certainly there was a flourishing culture of debate, criticism, and intellectual curiosity. I also agree that we should make the important distinction between the state (CCP/PRC government) and the nation (the Chinese people).
Sadly however, when I see examples of “The May Fourth Spirit” in China today, too often it is in the form of a knee-jerk nationalism which does not admit of the sort of critiques and open inquiry that characterized the best of the New Culture thinkers.
Equally distressing, this does not only manifest itself in terms of state repression, but also an anti-intellectual culture of jingoism that seems to becoming increasingly vocal and aggressive.
How many times have we seen somebody in recent years post a thoughtful critique on a BBS only to be attacked by other netizens as a ‘hanjian’ or in other ways have their sincerity, loyalty, and character impugned?
Good comments, thanks for stopping by and I look forward to Froog’s response.
Jason, I was pretty serious, but a qualifying ‘largely’ got cut from the comment somehow (probably my goof!). I always like to slip in these little modifiers to limit the force of my more trenchant or provocative opinions. There was still a softening ‘seems’ in there, which you chopped from your quotation of me. And I was only venturing China as one possible example, not necessarily asserting that it was unique in displaying this vice.
When I said ‘nations’, I was thinking more of the people than the government. I recognise the importance of the distinction; but in China, people very often don’t! The identification between country, state, government, and people is so thoroughgoing here that any criticism of the government seems to be taken as an outrageous insult to the whole of China’s history and culture and to every individual Chinese person. I imagine this identification goes far back in Chinese history, but the CCP has certainly bolstered it for its own ends.
Of course, I exaggerated out of exasperation in my earlier comment; but I was thinking of the contemporary situation, not the earlier 20th Century. And can you really say that the movements you mention were fairly representative of Chinese culture and the Chinese people overall? There’s always going to be a minority of ‘intellectuals’ who are more forward-thinking, and, in revolutionary times, perhaps a very large and vocal and influential minority. I would imagine, however, that most Chinese people in those days – across the whole spectrum of income and education – tended to be more like “But China has always been ruled by the Imperial family!” or “How can you diss Confucius like that?” or “But vernacular Chinese is too ugly for writing” or “Why do we need a way of writing our language in the Western alphabet?” or “What’s the big deal about democracy anyway?” and so on and so on.
In my earlier comment, I was particularly lamenting the extremely limited capacity for debate or self-analysis in today’s educated Chinese (as a result, I believe, of the propaganda stranglehold of the CCP, and also probably of the poor state of the education system here, and the rather limited contact with the outside world that is available to most people even now). I was particularly sore about this at the time because I had just suffered the experience of spending most of last weekend interviewing employees of Xinhua News for their annual English level test, and only 2 or 3 out of the 60 I spoke to were capable of saying anything that didn’t make them sound like a robot (and I’m talking content here, not fluency or pronunciation). One girl said, with a completely straight face, “In China, we ALL agree with our government.”
Other comment threads I’ve read in recent years (perhaps here in the Studio, although I can’t quite recall now) have made the probably valid point that this problem may seem worse to foreigners because the Chinese are hyper-sensitive to our notoriously critical attitudes and tend to become almost paralysed by their defensiveness when they speak with us; in conversing with each other in private, they may perhaps address a greater plurality of views…… but with us laowai, 9 times out of 10, they’ll just parrot the party line.
Froog-
So you do see that in China, things tend to get hyper-politicized and the Chinese tend to want to resolve problems thru political means (and therefore, at times, it is really not the best outcome). This gives their government an invisible and shall we say, an almost larger than life power over the people themselves.
On the other hand, the “elite minority” who wanted newness and change actually appeared in Chinese history fairly often. And just like other cultures, nations, such movements are conspired by the few with visions and they tend to be set back and or crushed by the political machines. However, they do endure over the ages. The modernisation of China was not only marked by the May Fourth youths, but even people ahead of them and after. The New Culture Movement along with Wu-Si (Five- Fout) initiated a tremendous cultural legacy and educational change in larger China. For example, vernacular speech and literature or the higher learning ethos at PKU, Tsinghua or even National Taiwan University. These are not small changes. Certainly, there are still room for improvement.
I understand the concerned lao-wai’s sentiment of this Chinese self censorship and the Chinese commoner’s insularity at heart. However, what can you do? Much the same with, say an American majority who have no interest nor concerns for the world affairs and geography. Can’t really demand more from those that freely parrot the Party line, but they do get influenced by the few with the vision and the heart. BTW, a laowai with keen understanding of China and its people can be the most influential. Just don’t let those douchebags frustrate you too far and too easily.