Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Article: The Six Why’s (六个为什么) - Is there still room for ideology today?

China Media Project translates a new initiative by the Hu Jintao administration to answer everyone’s nagging questions about China’s political system:

We introduce to you . . . the “Six Why’s.” That’s right, Hu Jintao and his army of CCP theorists have worked out a simple political primer for us all, a kind of FAQ of market-Leninism.

The “Six Why’s,” which could be read as an indirect response to the 20th anniversary of the 1989 student movement, and perhaps the CCP’s answer to Charter 08 and the published journals of former premier Zhao Ziyang, seek to answer basic political questions like, “Why should Marxism be our guiding ideology?”

Launched with great party media fanfare back on June 5, they have gotten precious little attention in the Western media. Why? Most likely because the “Six Why’s” formula, for all of its cozy paternalism, is still mostly an impenetrable mess of dogma.

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