Anti-cultists call for boycotting Shen Yun performances—exactly what the Chinese Communist Party wants.
February 18, 2025
The term “useful idiots” is apocryphally attributed to Lenin but it was probably first used by Giuseppe Saragat, a future President of Italy and the leader of the Italian Social Democrat Party. He coined it in 1948 to designate the non-Communist Socialists who (unlike him and his faction) had entered into an alliance with the pro-Soviet Italian Communist Party. Considering its origins, it is not an insult but a technical term, long used as such in a variety of contexts. It designates those who are not Communists, but favor Communism and its projects naively believing they can outsmart the Communists and come out of this game with clean hands.
We at “Bitter Winter” do not read media from New Zealand often but we do read Chinese media daily. They have started promoting a German anti-cult journalist based in New Zealand called Anke Richter (whose organization Decult came to our attention before by peddling the standard anti-cult propaganda “Bitter Winter” debunks daily about Jehovah’s Witnesses, MISA, and others). Among the crew of “apostates” working with Richter is one Jaya Gibson, an apostate ex-member of Falun Gong. As our readers know, “apostate” is not a synonym of “ex-member” but a term used by sociologists to designate the minority of former members who turn into militant critics of the groups they have left.
We learn from Chinese media that Richter and Gibson wrote to venues in New Zealand where Shen Yun, the theatrical group associated with Falun Gong was scheduled to perform, asking to cancel the performances as connected with a “cult” and “mixing politics” with art. The latter accusation is bizarre, as many theatrical performances have a political content. I have watched myself Shen Yun shows (note to Richter: by paying my own tickets). Apart from being aesthetically beautiful, obviously they do have a political agenda. They try to persuade the audience that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commits crimes against the humanity.
This agenda should be applauded and shared by all human rights defenders throughout the world. That the CCP commit crimes against humanity is not an opinion of Falun Gong or “Bitter Winter.” “Crimes against humanity” are words included in the controversial United Nation High Commissioner for Human Rights report on China of 2022, focusing on the Uyghurs—controversial, that is, for being too soft on the CCP if not subtly pro-Chinese. The situation does not concern the Uyghurs only, and that China commits crimes against humanity is part of the obvious.
Unless you are a useful idiot. Why am I using Saragat’s old political category for the New Zealand anti-cultists? Although things about bulls in reality are more complicated, some bulls do charge if they see something red. Anti-cultists react in the same way. Call a group a “cult” and they will react like the proverbial bull. They would not pause to ask who is calling the group a “cult” and whose propaganda their action may benefit—or if they are becoming “useful idiots” favoring a bloody Communist Party officially recognized as guilty of “crimes against humanity.”
Richter and co. have already answered that they also rely on an “investigation” by “The New York Times” accusing Shen Yun of labor exploitation and other abuses. Apart from the fact that “The New York Times” is also known for bull-like reactions when it hears the word “cult,” including by publishing demonstrably false information, reading the answer by Falun Gong to the anti-Shen-Yun campaign of the American daily certainly offers food for thought and at least raises the doubt that some information came from persons and agencies connected with China.
One has all rights to disagree with Falun Gong politics or its positions on conspiracy theories or vaccines. If there are labor or other problems in the U.S., they will be investigated by the proper authorities but among civilized people nobody is guilty of a crime until courts of law have rendered a final verdict on the matter.
Invoking censorship and trying to persuade venues to prevent artistic performances from taking place that have been applauded by millions throughout the world with various arguments, one of which is that they have an anti-CCP “political content,” is another matter entirely. A matter for totalitarian censors and useful idiots.
Source: bitterwinter.org
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