Some weeks ago, I noted that presumed guilt – and guilt in Communist China is often presumed rather than actual – was hereditary in Mao’s China, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Guilt and punishment were imputed not only to the presumed guilty but also to family members of the same.
That is apparently still the case today in Xi’s China. Li-Meng Yan is a researcher who asserts that COVID-19 is genetically engineered and that the government of China has been covering up its true source. (We at Stand Firm are in no position to know how accurate her claims are although some of us may have our hunches.) She has fled China.
Now it has been revealed that her mother has been arrested by Chinese authorities.
It is easy to write off totalitarianism along with its hereditary guilt as confined to the 20th Century or to backwaters like North Korea. But totalitarianism is still with us and widespread if usually more subtle than Mao or Stalin.
And if one thinks “That’s in China; it can’t happen here,” note that Twitter and other media have done China’s bidding by censoring Yan.
As for hereditary guilt, have you ever heard of Critical Race Theory?
