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Re <<TJ you must differentiate between "true communism" and implied communism - usually called socialism toward the goal of communism.>>
I do, but use different words for shorthand, and the perhaps more acceptable and gentle but unreachable version is Message 34092167
"Just an impression, that for whatever reasons seems either there were quite a bit / disproportionate engagement by the Jewish folks w/ the idealised version of communism, especially from fairly well to do / scholarly families. My father married two of them. What are the chances?"
As far as your point re <<Based on the Jewish Bible scripture the first true communist movement who resisted serfhood to the rich and powerful was the Prophet Amos>> and your cited Amos en.wikipedia.org
He spoke against an increased disparity between the very wealthy and the very poor. His major themes of justice, God's omnipotence, and divine judgment became staples of prophecy.
Amos seems an okay sort. Idealistic but okay.
Am uncertain we can get from 'here' to 'there'. Too many experiments have failed, and failing. Switzerland might come closest, perhaps, with a healthy portion of question marks, and even is true, perhaps only works for a small curation of people. I dunno.
In some sense EU, Japan, Singapore etc etc all tried and trying, but failing.
HK and USA are definitely not trying.
Neither is Taiwan.
Certainly not Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.
Neither India nor Brazil is in a position to try.
China, IMO, might be trying again per common-prosperity greater-good, and if achieved then for the good of the majority, however one must hope that the current try does better than previous several tries starting perhaps with the TaiPing TianGuo movement en.wikipedia.org
Feng Yunshan formed the Society of God Worshippers (Chinese: ????; pinyin: Bài Shàngdì Huì) in Guangxi after a missionary journey there in 1844 to spread Hong's ideas. [10] In 1847, Hong became the leader of the secret society. [11] The Taiping faith, inspired by missionary Christianity, says one historian, "developed into a dynamic new Chinese religion... Taiping Christianity". Hong presented this religion as a revival and a restoration of the ancient classical faith in Shangdi. -16][12] The sect's power grew in the late 1840s, initially suppressing groups of bandits and pirates, but persecution by Qing authorities spurred the movement into a guerrilla rebellion and then into civil war.
In some Marxist historiography, the Taiping Rebellion was viewed as a proto-communist uprising. [13]
Yes, that "Taiping TianGuo" / Kingdom of Heavenly Peace which Eugene's zh.wikipedia.org papa worked for
... and fought during this episode, helped to successfully lay siege against Hankow (present day Wuhan) by exercise of organisation and his carpentry skills for the pontoon bridges which did the necessary, per astute agility view.inews.qq.com
dramatisation
The movement arguably triggered the downward trajectory of the Qing Dynasty and even as the movement failed, Qing authorities lost control of the south China, a necessary / unavoidable get-go of any new era
Post failure, Eugene's dada, head of body guard fore one of the four Kings, and as a persecuted Hakka en.wikipedia.org
With the collapse of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Qing dynasty launched waves of massacres against the Hakkas, killing up to 30,000 each day during the height of the massacres. [36] Similar purges were taken while defeating the Red Turban Rebellion (1854–1856). In Guangdong, Governor Ye Mingchen oversaw the execution of 70,000 people in Guangzhou, eventually one million people would be killed throughout Guangdong. [37][38] Another major impact was the bloody Punti-Hakka Clan Wars (1855 and 1867), which would cause the deaths of a million people. The Cantonese opera was purged clean. [39]
(if the episodes reminds you of persecutions elsewhere, you might be correct) ...
... in any case Chen senior made for Trinidad and Tobago, and fortunate to eventually marry to Marie of the LeeLum's, a locally prominent Chinese family view.inews.qq.com
... which was responsible for a chain of shops (and therefore banks, and thus mandate from British crown to literally mint money, and drill for oil Message 32714095 )
here is a pic of the money, a square coin with a round hole, the 'different' from China's traditional money, museum.centralbankarts.org.tt
The traditional Chinese money was a round coin with a square hole. Yes, antecedents had a good sense of humour
Here is a photo of Marie, Eugene's mother, my great grandmother amazon.com
In any case, Eugene, one of six kids, went on to become the first ethnic Chinese lawyer of the island, was popular w/ the local Chinese community, and and and and
Eugene Chen, Chinese Trinidadian, and his wife, Agatha "Aisy" Alphonsin Ganteaume, French Creole, were married in 1899 in Trinidad. Eugene was a London trained lawyer, the legal advisor and foreign minister for Sun Yat-sen (the 1st president of the Republic of China), a newspaper owner, and revolutionary who lived in Trinidad, England, China, Russia, and Hong Kong at different times in his life. "Time" magazine called Eugene the "brains of the Chinese Revolution". Eugene and Aisy had 4 kids together before Aisy passed in 1926, and all of their children were very accomplished writers and professionals. Indeed, Eugune and Aisy's daughter, Sylvia Chen and Langston Hughes, the renowned African American poet and social activist, considered getting married at one time. See less
and Eugene married Agatha jacksonadvocateonline.com (the article is wrong in that Eugene was the Foreign Minister, and never the President, and so Aisy was not the black First Lady of China, albeit would have been neat-er if she was :0)
“The marriage might have been a love match, but it would not have been too far from the truth to say it was initiated to some extent by Monsieur Ganteaume himself. Anxious to find a suitable husband for his high-spirited natural daughter, he might have requested the aid of the good sisters of St. Joseph and the good fathers of St. Mary’s. The good fathers of St. Mary’s recommended Eugene to the good sisters of St. Joseph, and both presented the candidate to Monsieur Ganteaume for inspection. Eugene, as human as any young enterprising lover, was more than ready to marry a wife with a dowry, considerable by the standard of the Chinese community, and an influential father.
“Aisy passed away in 1926, and Chen would go on to marry Georgette Chen, a Chinese painter. But it’s nevertheless fascinating to know that Eugene Chen and Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume wedded at a time when interracial marriages were rare and even illegal in many countries.”
and eventually down to the root that must face cancellation Message 32808135
here be pic of great great grandpa of the coconut and the Jack Message 32714095
etc etc etc
after Agatha's passing Eugene was introduced to Georgette by Soong Ching-lin en.wikipedia.org (the same that Two Gun Cohen was employed by Eugene and loyally protected) the true first-First founding Lady of Republic of China.
Here be a photo
T.V. Soong was brother of Soong Chinglin, and Zhang Yunying was sister of Georgette Zhang, and so the future Georgette Chen must also logically be in the frame hpcbristol.net
Here be a painting by Georgette that went under the hammer by Sotherbys for ~US$ 1M sothebys.com
I think Georgette was 26 years junior, and Georgette's story is encapsulated in this award documentary-drama
Georgette's father en.wikipedia.org was one of the founders of the KMT, financed Sun Yatsen with no-limit, but was against the marriage
Georgette's (Eugene featured in the episodes) story is encapsulated in this award documentary-drama
... I do not know if Georgette was a Hakka, but one of her more famous paintings, and her pride, was of a Hakka family
OT, but re the difference between racism and ethnic pride, here is a good writeup, and Jack and the Coconut lives it, but no, the Hakkas are no longer persecuted anywhere of Greater China theindependent.sg
Racial pride vs. racism in Singapore - Singapore News
July 30, 2021
The Singapore government and Singaporeans face tension in opposing racism yet maintains pride in the heritage of their respective races.
This tricky balancing act is more pertinent given recent racist acts in this country, including an incident on Jun 5 when a Chinese man had made racist rebukes against a part-Indian man and part-Chinese woman for dating each other, as captured on video and reported in local media. To combat racism, Singapore commemorates Racial Harmony Day every year on Jul 21, which recently passed by.
The distinction among races is strengthened by the official racial classification of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others (CMIO). The decades-old policy of the Singapore government, led by Singapore’s First Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, is bilingual education where Singapore students learn English and their mother tongue. Lee’s motivation for Singaporeans to know their mother tongue is to ensure they keep the culture of their ethnic group.
It is possible for Singaporeans of every ethnic background to maintain their culture and also harmony with other races. Examples from the history of China and Trinidad demonstrate this.
Chiang Kai-shek, the late Nationalist leader of China, insisted on the use of the Chinese language in his communications. When confronted with a complex technical term in English, he would ask why it was not expressed in Chinese, according to a book, “Thunder out of China”, by two Americans, Annalee Jacoby and Theodore White. Chiang had a racial pride, not a racist pride, said the book.
If Chiang was racist, he would have insisted all his grandchildren were pure Chinese. Instead, he gladly welcomed his Eurasian grandchildren, as well as the Russian wife of his son Chiang Ching-kuo and the Eurasian wife, born of a Chinese father and German mother, of his other son Chiang Wei-kuo.
Like Chiang Kai-shek, Lee Kuan Yew was proud of his Chinese heritage. At one time, he touted Confucian values, then extended that to Asian values to take into account the other Asian ethnic groups of Singapore.
Hakkas Just as Chiang Kai-shek and Lee Kuan Yew were proud of their Chinese culture, I am proud of being partly Hakka. My father’s ancestors were Hakkas from Meizhou city in Guangdong province, China.
An illustrious Hakka from Meizhou was Marshal Ye Jianying, who helped arrest the Gang of Four in Oct 1976. The Gang of Four’s downfall paved the way for another Hakka, Deng Xiaoping, when he was China’s leader, to liberalize the Chinese economy, which resulted in China being the world’s second-largest economy today.
In the current and former Singapore governments, Hakkas include Lee Kuan Yew and his son, the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, two former Finance Ministers – Hon Sui Sen and Richard Hu, former Chief Justice Yong Pung How, former Supreme Court Judge Lai Kew Chai and Minister of Communications and Information Josephine Teo. But there is no Hakka privilege in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew did not recruit ministers exclusively among Hakkas.
Other Hakkas in Chinese history include Yuan Chonghuan (a general who defeated the Manchu invaders several times during the early 17th century before he was unjustly executed by the Chinese emperor in 1630) and Xue Yue (a Nationalist general who repelled the Japanese invaders three times in the Chinese city of Changsha from 1939 to 1942).
Another Hakka who shared the same ancestral city of Meizhou with me was Eugene Chen, a foreign policy advisor during the 1920s to Sun Yat Sen, a Hakka who founded Republican China.
In 1931, Chiang Kai-shek appointed Chen as China’s foreign minister for about one year. Chen was born in Trinidad, so he and Lee Kuan Yew were both Hakkas who were born in hot tropical islands, Trinidad and Singapore respectively, and became senior government officials.
Eugene Chen married a Trinidad woman of mixed European and African blood, Agatha Alphosin Ganteaume. After she died, he married Zhang Li Ying, also known as Georgette Chen, a painter who was born in China and settled in Singapore. One of his sons by his Trinidad wife was Percy Chen, a lawyer, journalist and supporter of the Chinese Communist Party.
Loving the motherland Percy Chen studied law and qualified as a barrister in London. Like Lee Kuan Yew, he acquired the tastes of an English gentleman and learnt Mandarin only in adult life. Percy Chen moved to Hong Kong in 1947 and founded the Hong Kong Bar Association in 1948.
In Hong Kong, he acted as a middleman between the Chinese Communist government and Western businessmen, journalists and diplomats. He was a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body under the Chinese Communist government, and was invited by the Chinese government to witness in Dec 1984 the signing of Sino-British Joint Declaration on Britain’s handover of Hong Kong to China.
In 1979, he published his autobiography, “China called me: My Life Inside the Chinese Revolution”.
With Caucasian, African and Chinese Hakka blood, this racially mixed man felt a strong affinity for China. Percy Chen was not pure Chinese, yet proud of his Chinese roots. Like Chiang Kai-shek, Percy Chen had racial pride but was not racist. These two men are counter-examples to the abovementioned case of a Chinese man’s racist rant against interracial relationships.
It is the notable Hakkas of China, Singapore and other countries who contributed to my pride in my Hakka ancestry. But that does not make me a Hakka supremacist, any more than pride in Chinese civilization rendered Chiang Kai-shek and Percy Chen racist.
It is possible for a Singaporean to glory in being Hakka, or Teochew, Hokkien, Arab, Tamil, Sikh or Malay, yet respect other ethnic groups.
Toh Han Shih is chief analyst of Headland Intelligence, a Hong Kong risk consultancy. He is a Singaporean who lives in Hong Kong. The opinions expressed in this article are his own.
