Search Results for 'Mao'

From the cages of Long Kesh in the 1970s, to the lecture halls and classrooms of NUI Galway this century, a love of writing and a passionate belief in the importance of education has been central in the life of Paddy McMenamin.

Imagine if Iran, the Peoples’ Republic of China, and Russia suddenly announced a military pact to counter Boris Johnson which would involve the building of 12 nuclear submarines, with the contract for building said submarines being awarded to the smallest of the three, Iran.

One recent evening Insider watched the 1967 Jean-Luc Godard film La Chinoise in which a small group of French students sit around their apartment, located in what is described as a “workers’ district”, and engage in theatrical discussions about how they must overthrow the bourgeoise and, in particular, the hierarchal French university system which saw students as passive receivers of knowledge handed down by their god-like professors, rather than participants in a dialectical exchange in which both students and teachers learn from each other and grow as a result. No one, with the exception of chairman Mao, is radical enough for most of these students. The French Communist Party which, to draw an Irish parallel, would have been more or less the political equivalent of present day Sinn Féin, is condemned as hopelessly “revisionist”. The Soviet Union, in particular its then president, the now largely forgotten Mr Kosygin, is convicted by the students at their kitchen table discussions of failing to do enough to support the Vietnamese in their war against Lyndon Johnson. And the French working class, with whom said kitchen table debaters absolutely sympathise, are seen as hopelessly passive. In a mix of desperation, madness, and idealism, the students decide to mount a campaign of terrorism, which will involve them doing something they have singularly failed to do for most of the film; getting up from that kitchen table and going outside. They plan to kill the visiting Soviet minister for culture who has been invited by President de Gaulle’s own culture minister, the novelist and decayed Stalinist intellectual Andre Malraux, to open a new wing of the university. After that, they hope to bomb the Sorbonne in the belief that this will spark a revolution. Insider is against blowing up universities. Partly because he knows such actions more often provoke backlash than revolution. But also because Insider happens to teach at a university and coming out in favour of blowing up universities might lead to an awkward email from one’s department head.

Journey from the imperial treasures of Beijing through atmospheric Xian, with its enigmatic legions of terracotta warriors to reach the charming city of Chengdu, where you will meet its most famous residents – the captivating Giant Pandas — in an exclusive tour from Fahy Travel and Asia specialist Wendy Wu to the ancient country of China.

This exclusive tour is brought to you by Fahy Travel and Asia specialists Wendy Wu to the ancient country of China

China has fascinated the western world in a most compelling way since the time of Marco Polo.