Shanghai and the holocaust
Jewish communities have existed in China for at least a thousand years, since they arrived as traders along the silk road. The European explorer Marco Polo, visiting Beijing in the […]
Category Archives: Maoism
A visit to the museum of propaganda posters in Shanghai
I have never been very keen on Maoist poster art – not even in the period of my life when I was attracted to Maoism – and I probably would […]
China, class collaboration, and the Indonesian killing fields
Third part of an investigation of the background to the 1965 massacre of up to a million Communist Party supporters in Indonesia, described but not explained in Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary […]
China 1927: precursor to the slaughter in Indonesia
Second part of a commentary on the catastrophic 1965 slaughter of the Indonesian workers and peasants described, but not explained, in Joshua Oppenheimer’s film ‘The Act of Killing.’ The histories […]
The strength and weakness of ‘The Act of Killing’
The recent documentary by Joshua Oppenheimer, ‘The Act of Killing‘, provides a chillingly intimate portrait of some aging thugs who, nearly fifty years ago, took part in one of the […]
