August 30, 2016
On behalf of
the Embracing Australian Values Alliance (EAVA), we would like to express our
grave concern and anger about a concert to be held in both the Sydney and
Melbourne Town Hall that celebrates and praises Mao Zedong. The Sydney concert
will be held on 6 September and the Melbourne concert on 9 September.
This concert
will deeply hurt many Australians of Chinese background as to them; Mao is like
Adolf Hitler to the Jewish people or Pol Pot to the Cambodian people. Mao concert has triggered the trauma of many
whose family members, relatives or friends were victims of the various
notorious social revolutions, including the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution.
Many Australian
Chinese came to Australia as immigrants or refugees in order to escape from a
regime that imposed brutal suppression of its citizens; the in-coming of the
Mao’s concert is like a ghost haunting them and would not let them off the
ordeal.
We have grave
concern that the Mao concert is allowed to be held in the landmark local
government premises. We think it is most insensitive to the feeling of many
Australian Chinese and hurt them strongly, as celebrating Mao publicly is
against the Australian fundamental values of democracy, human rights and
harmony.
It is also
damaging Australia’s reputation as news of this concert and the community
objections have already been spread around the world, that Australia has become
an easy target of the China’s soft power foreign policies and that we
Australians have twisted our own high standards to accommodate the Chinese top
fearful tyranny in contemporary history.
What would it look like if Australia allows a concert to celebrate Adolf
Hitler?
Currently we
have collected more than 2700 signatures in Sydney that raised a concern and
demanded an immediate termination of hosting the fascist concert at our Town
Hall in both Sydney and Melbourne.
We understand,
at present, the Mao concert is presented by some pro-China Chinese businessmen
in the form of fascist aesthetics; it has the power of infiltrating Australian
community by gradually ignoring the on-going human right abuses and
authoritarian rule of the Communist party in China, or accepting these as
normal.
As Australian
Chinese, we see this trend is happening as the Chinese language media in
Australia is largely controlled by the Chinese Consulates with all sorts of
commercial linkages; pro-China groups emerged in the Chinese communities in
Sydney and Melbourne; the incoming of the Confucius Institutes in our
universities and have spread to high and junior schools in the name of teaching
Chinese, yet funding are sourced from Hanban, which is an official Chinese
government body based in Beijing.
We have concern
that Mao concert is part of the Chinese strategies to gradually desensitize the
Australian public as well as our Federal, State and local politicians.
We have scheduled a rally at 6pm on 6th September outside the Town Hall to Say NO to this concert that undermines Australian Values and our democracy. Please join us on the night and SAY NO together!
We have scheduled a rally at 6pm on 6th September outside the Town Hall to Say NO to this concert that undermines Australian Values and our democracy. Please join us on the night and SAY NO together!
John Hugh
On Behalf of
the Embracing Australian Values Alliance
Email:
jhugh@tpg.com.au
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