The Routledge Companion To Literature And Human Rights

Colonialism, Inherited Rights, and Social Movements of Self-Protection

Ban Wang

Do rights exist in cultures that do not identify them with that language? If the conditions for popular revolt, social movements, and revolution stem from a massive deprivation of rights, it follows that violence done to the integrity of the person and community provokes an acute consciousness of injustice and hence begets a countermovement in defense of injured rights. This view perceives the political struggle of the colonized and downtrodden as an inherent struggle for rights. Whether a movement happens in a culture with a system of rights couched in a formal vocabulary has little to do with this naturally intuited sense of rights. In their investigation of peasants’ understanding of rights, Chinese social scientists found that the peasants were unsure how to respond to questionnaires about the legal definitions of rights pertaining to their life, work, villages, and families. But when questioned about what cannot be taken away from them, even by the state, everyone knows for sure what these “rights” are: life, family, person, respect, and certain property. True, many peasants polled were illiterate or unaware that human rights may be imperfect (or a device conceived by and for the powerful), yet what could be more human than their apparently uneducated responses (Xia 2004: 29)?

This naturally intuited sense of right may reflect an unconscious stratum, structured like an unspoken language in Chinese culture. The Confucian tradition does indicate something like the natural right of subsistence, manifest in the Mencian idea of people as the basis of government. The legitimacy of a government is derived from its agenda to look after the general welfare of the population. In contemporary parlance, this can be seen as a recognition of substantive rights. For centuries, when the government failed to care for the welfare of its people – took away resources and the means of their livelihood or oppressed or taxed them excessively – it was the Mandate of the Heaven that granted Chinese peasants the right to revolt against and overthrow the dynastic regime. That peasant revolt undoubtedly stems from an injured sense of rights. In the context of capital expansion into noncapitalist, peripheral areas, this phenomenon has global resonance.

Critics have noted an inherent link between rights consciousness and the Chinese Revolution, tracking the notion of rights in contemporary social, feminist, and union activism. Elizabeth Perry (2008) seeks to gain from the Anyuan workers’ strike a different path of revolution, one driven not by class struggle but by the quest for human dignity and rights of subsistence and well-being. But class formation, struggle, and consciousness-raising are not incompatible with the sense of rights, nor is rights consciousness necessarily nonviolent and civil. The awareness of rights, as I will show later, accounts for the massive mobilization of the peasantry as the most dynamic force of the Chinese Revolution.

Global capitalism, driven by imperialism, expropriates the land, property, and natural resources of historical communities. The Chinese Revolution arose as a movement to combat its dire consequences in the first half of the twentieth century. The ownership of private property took the form of capital accumulation, which amounts to a violation of the inherited rights of indigenous communities and people. The legal notion of rights, Rosa Luxemburg noted, portrays commodity exchange as a purely economic process, “confined to the exchange of equivalents” – a transaction between capitalist and laborer. At least formally, peace, prosperity, and equality may prevail in the metropolitan centers of capitalist states. It is a different story in colonized nations. It takes keen dialectics of scientific analysis to reveal, in capital expansion into other nations, “how the right of ownership changes in the course of accumulation into appropriation of other people’s property, how commodity exchange turns into exploitation and equality becomes class-rule” (Luxemburg 2003: 432). With an eye on neoliberal globalization, David Harvey contends that primitive accumulation is by no means a thing of the past but continues in the form of “accumulation by dispossession” (2003: 145). The deprivation of the rights of colonized communities occurs through the “forceful expulsion of peasant populations.” Property rights also existed in historical agrarian communities, like those in England or China, but they were not in the form of private property. Instead, these rights were often rights of use, not of ownership, and they were seen as common, collective rights. The assault on these rights in capitalist colonialism converted property, land, and nature in the communal setting into exclusive property and abolished the inherited rights of individual producers. The capitalist market also converted a rural producer’s labor power into a “free-floating commodity.” In terms of cultural geography, this expropriation demolished the inherited way of life marked by an organic rhythm of production and consumption, turning territories, land, and natural assets into private assets under a new domestic class and imperial power.

The liberal theory of rights sanctifies property rights as inviolate and inviolable by the group, the collectivity, or the state. But as Schumpeter’s analysis shows, monopoly capitalism has taken the life out of private property. More insidiously, the crony alliance of the state and capital has rendered private property and individual rights meaningless in the age of transnational corporations and monolithic bureaucracy. Ironically, what started as a liberal defense of property rights has turned, in historical practice, into an illiberal, oligarchic fusion of the private rights of big capital and the imperialist state. When liberal critics defend individual rights against the state, they ignore the fact that the state has played a decisive role in defining the legality of private property, simply by promoting colonialist expropriation at the expense of other people’s rights.

Modern political and social movements in China must be seen as acts of self-protection against the aggression of the capitalist state, which is driven by colonialism and imperialism. Manifest in populist, national, and socialist endeavors, China’s transformations in the twentieth century belong to the worldwide struggle against the ravages of capital expansion by what Karl Polanyi calls the “self-regulating market.” The market-driven world order emerged and developed in leaps and bounds at the turn of the twentieth century; it “engulfed space and time.” When it reached its peak around 1914, every part of the globe had been brought into its orbit. This system is not only economic but also cultural: a “new way of life spread over the planet with a claim to universality unparalleled since the age when Christianity started out on its career” (Polanyi 2001: 136).

According to Polanyi, precapitalist economic activity was still partially a function of the organic community that had not succumbed to the rule of global markets. Land, nature, and labor were an articulate whole, the essential building blocks of human life and community. Production of goods solely for sale and profit did not govern the community’s cultural and moral fabric. What was new in the liberalization of the market and expansion of capital was the forceful submission of all aspects of human life to the single, whimsical arbiter of the self-regulating market. It allowed “the market mechanism to be sole director of the fate of human beings” (Polanyi 2001: 76) both in the metropolises and peripheral regions. This new market economy brought land, nature, and labor into a scheme whose sole purpose was to achieve the maximum monetary gains. Jolted out of their customary and communal conditions into the orbit of global capital, neither people nor the natural environment could remain in their natural rhythm, and were unable to be reproduced in the cycle of life. But labor, land, and nature, embedded in what E. P. Thompson (2001: 239) calls “the grid of inheritance,” were not mere commodities. In the market system, “man under the name of labor, nature under the name of land, were made available for sale; the use of labor power could be universally bought and sold at a price called wages, and the use of land could be negotiated for a price called rent.” Yet leaving “the fate of soil and people to the market would be tantamount to annihilating them” (Polanyi 2001: 137). Thus, the commodity definition of land, nature, and labor was entirely fictitious. It violated the very nature of these essential components of life, community, and culture.

Against this destructive tendency, a countermovement began in the seventeenth century in land legislations and socialist movements in emerging European nations. This counteraction aimed at putting the brakes on the runaway market, which was swallowing up resources, labor, and land. Government interventionism, legislation, social movements, land protection, national independence movements, and national sovereignty were manifestations of society’s self-protection.

Rights consciousness in literature, arts, and Mao’s writings

The Chinese Revolution arose in this global movement of self-protection in defense of people’s inherited rights. The Qing dynasty’s demise in the period of expansive western powers went together with the erosion of China’s agrarian economy. The introduction of colonial markets disrupted the Qing empire’s self-sustaining tributary commercial network. Bearing the brunt of these ravages, rural China was severely affected by the global economic system. The distant global forces along with the local gentry, landlords, and warlords taxed and plundered the peasantry. The era from the turn of the century through to 1949 witnessed the widespread depletion of rural land, the destruction of the rural handicraft industry, and the breakdown of traditional communities.

In the face of this situation, radical thinkers shifted from a dogmatic faith in the emancipatory capacity of the urban working class to a sharper diagnosis of how global capitalism had destroyed the countryside. In literary writings concerned with the Chinese village, we see penetrating analyses of the rural crisis. Mao Dun, a writer and thinker with a keen sense of political economy, was earlier noted for his depiction of city life. His political–economic insight and understanding of the modern capitalist system in industrial Shanghai enabled him to portray the conditions of the peasantry and the ravages that had taken place in the countryside.

Mao Dun’s story “Spring Silkworms” (1981) registers the way the world market intrudes into the rural economy and destroys the traditionally integrated whole of land, nature, and labor in an agrarian community. As the story begins, the main character, Dong Bao, is in a state of bewilderment after the recent decline of his family and community. One warm spring day, as he surveys a picturesque landscape of mulberry trees, rice fields, and the river, it becomes apparent to the reader that the bulk of the economy consists in silk production, the pride of the South Yangtze River delta extending back to ancient times. The rural scenes of the agrarian landscape are realistic depictions infused with a deep appreciation for the land found only in those who have worked in it. This aesthetic symbiosis of nature, land, and people converges into an integrated symbol of rural China:

Before him, the water of the canal was green and shiny. Occasional passing boats broke the mirror-smooth surface into ripples and eddies, turning the reflection of the earthen bank and the long line of mulberry trees flanking it into a dancing gray blur. But not for long! Gradually the trees reappeared, twisting and weaving drunkenly. Another few minutes, and they were again standing still, reflected as clearly as before. On the gnarled fists of the mulberry branches, little fingers of tender green buds were already bursting forth. Crowded close together, the trees along the canal seemed to march endlessly into the distance … the mulberry trees reigned supreme here this time of the year! Behind Old Dong Bao’s back was another great stretch of mulberry trees, squat, silent. The little buds seemed to be growing bigger every second in the hot sunlight.

(Mao, D. 1981: 144)

The mulberry trees, humanized and personalized, are not just a resource of silk production but the symbol of a community-based economy. The goods produced are for local use and regional exchange. This picturesque homeland leaves old Dong Bao wondering why the rich resources and productive community could not stop his family’s downward slide into poverty. He considers past misdeeds – including the murder of a Long Hairs at the Taiping Uprising and the theft of his gold – as explanations, but the grievances or wrongs have been appeased by many years of prayer and ritual sacrifices. The decline of fortune cannot be attributed to the past.

The answer is actually right in front of Dong Bao, who intuitively feels the looming threat of outside forces. Noises from a steamboat jolt him out of his puzzled reverie of the past and present:

A small oil-burning river boat came puffing up pompously from beyond the silk filature, tugging three large crafts in its wake. Immediately the peaceful water was agitated with waves rolling towards the banks on both sides of the canal. A peasant, poling a tiny boat, hastened to shore and clutched a clump of reeds growing in the shallows. The waves tossed him and his little craft up and down like a seesaw. The peaceful green countryside was filled with the chugging of the boat engine and the stink of its exhaust.

(Mao, D. 1981: 146)

Like many peasants who remember the imperialist powers’ oppression of the peasant uprising, Dong Bao feels animosity against the foreign intruders who invade this rustic landscape. On the surface some may see it as xenophobia, but with a keen sense of the global market, the author provides a rational explanation for Dong Bao’s bitterness. Foreign businesses have monopolized the silk market: only cocoons spun by the foreign-strain silkworms can be sold at a decent price. This rigged market sets Dong Bao at odds with his daughter-in-law, who wants to keep pace with “free markets.” But the market is not the only corrosive factor. Japanese troops have recently occupied the filature, the trade, and the processing center for cocoons produced by local silk farmers, and the war continues in Shanghai. The government seems to be in conspiracy with foreigners to exploit and oppress the peasants. The gentry and creditors seize market opportunities to take advantage of the rural crisis: “landlords, creditors, taxes, levies, one after another, had cleaned the peasants out long ago” (Mao, D. 1981: 149).

Confronted with these looming but ill-understood threats, the villagers hold their ground and continue to produce silk in the tradition they know well. They fight heroically and stoically, but theirs is a losing battle. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the villagers aim to protect their economic way of life. But there is more to their efforts than simply securing their economic survival. This community of family and kinship relies on inherited habits, beliefs, and rituals, and thus their struggle is also cultural in nature. The villagers do not simply produce cocoons and silk; they also reproduce a culture of rituals and possess a value system that is incompatible with market forces.

Mao Dun’s story gives a glimpse into the vast depletion of the countryside during the global economic crisis of the 1930s. The decline of the rural economy in China led to an influx of landless, displaced peasants into big cities like Shanghai, which led to exacerbated social conflict as a result of increasing inequality and oppression. This situation forced the revolutionaries to address the question of the peasantry. One of the first to take this issue seriously was Mao Zedong. In his report on the Hunan peasant movement, Mao described and analyzed the peasants’ action as a revolt in defense of deprived rights. As millions of peasants in several southern provinces rose up in arms and participated in aggressive campaigns against the gentry landlords, the leaders of both the Communist and Nationalist Parties criticized their violence and excesses. While he acknowledged that extreme acts did happen, Mao took on a more empirical, personal investigation of the peasant movement by traveling through five counties in just over a month in 1927.

Mao’s resulting analysis highlights the question of rights. The peasant movement was not blind rage but a revolution – and a revolution is not a dinner party. The peasant revolution was intended to overthrow the feudal landlords’ rights, privileges, and power, and to establish peasants’ rights and power. But how does one equate this attack on the traditional ruling class with the protection of inherited rights of the rural community? In the beginning of his essay, Mao points to the nature of this peasant revolution: it was against the oppressive and exploitative alliances of imperialism and warlord regimes, whose constituency was the landlord gentry (“the cornerstone” of the imperial and comprador alliance) (Mao, Z. 1969: 15). The peasant revolt was thus a continuation of Sun Yat-sen’s popular national revolution.

This seizure of power was at once economic, social, and political. Economically deprived peasants comprised some 70 percent of the rural population and became the mainstay of the peasant association. Among them were the extremely poor, who were “entirely without occupation, having neither land nor money,” and had lost the means of life (Mao, Z. 1969: 20). They were drafted into the army, went out to work at odd jobs, or became beggars. Oppressed and exploited, the peasants were deprived of economic rights and respect; the rich landlords showed them only contempt: “You have not a single tile above and not a spot big enough to put a needle” (Mao, Z. 1969: 20). It is this complete lack of rights that prompted the poor to join the peasant association. By throwing themselves into campaigns, the peasants turned things around. Socially, they had always been humiliated and shamed by the gentry, with no place and no voice in society. Now they held up their heads and had power: “they held up their rough, blackened hands and lay them on the heads of the gentry” (Mao, Z. 1969: 18). Politically, the peasants knew exactly what was involved in the struggle for their rights. “All rights/power belong to the peasant association,” they announced. They were aware of Sun Yat-sen’s three people’s principles (nation, people’s rights, and people’s livelihoods). In Mao’s view, in fact, their struggle was an enactment of these principles. The enemy was imperialism, warlordism, and the repressive gentry.

Mao’s report also shows how the peasants, with political power in hand, attempted to exercise their newly found political rights to achieve personal and property rights. The most immediate result was the ban on the landlords’ price gouging and hoarding of rice. With the price down, the hungry had access to food. Land was redistributed, and the rent and taxation reduced, altering the structure of land ownership. The peasants instituted a public policy that banned exploitative practices and illegal marketing. Emancipated, peasants were also recognized by the rural community as persons free from traditional and modern forms of oppression. Four traditions had justified oppression: the right of the state, the kinship rule, religion, and the right of husbands over wives. These were all overturned or challenged during the peasant movement. The kinship rule (族权 zuquan), for example, prohibited women and the poor from entering ancestor temples, and the penalty for transgression was severe. Now, women and the poor freely entered the temple, and wined and dined as they pleased. By building new schools, the peasant association also spread new ideas: “Down with imperial powers” (列强 lieqiang), and “freedom, equality, and three people’s principles” from Sun Yat-sen’s writings. They also built the commons, constructed public roads, and dug ponds to facilitate the communal use of land and property (Mao, Z. 1969: 31–34). The peasantry, in short, displayed an acute awareness of what they were entitled to and what they could claim. This is a consciousness of rights. Through his report, Mao highlighted the close link between rights consciousness and political struggle.

Revolutionary art in the socialist era highlighted the peasants’ struggle in taking power, attaining their rightful place in society, and reclaiming the rights of collective ownership. The mainstream of revolutionary history consistently stresses the theme of dispossession and repossession, loss and recovery. One example of the artistic expression of this theme is the ballet White-Haired Girl, created during the Cultural Revolution, which begins with a scene of total dispossession and deprivation for the peasants and, by extension, the makers of a shared world. Under a low-lying, gloomy sky, the struggling laborers moan:

看人间,

往事几千载,

穷苦的人儿啊遭剥削遭迫害.

看人间,

哪一块土地不是我们开?

哪一个山林不是我们栽?

哪一间房屋不是我们盖?

哪一条道路不是我们开?

哪一株庄稼不是我们血汗灌溉?

Looking around the world of humans,

For thousands of years in the past,

The poor have suffered exploitation and oppression.

Looking around the world of humans,

Is there a land that was not opened by us?

Is there a grove that was not planted by us?

Is there a house that was not built by us?

Is there a road that was not opened by us?

Is there a crop that was not grown with our sweat and pains?

(The Shanghai Dance Academy 1992)

The ballet opera proceeds to show the gentry landlords, together with imperial powers, taking possession of the common land and levying heavy rent and taxes on the poor. The fertile land and property are the creation of the collective effort of laborers, but the laborers have no right to this commonly created world. What they have created becomes alien to them, a source of their own misery and oppression.

Another example of this theme can be seen in the opera and dance The East Is Red. Peasants, now newly organized and standing shoulder to shoulder with the urban working class, take power into their own hands. Following the urban workers, who claim to be masters of the commonly created world, the peasants regain their rights. In a folk song style, the chorus sings:

霹雳一声震天地,

打倒土豪和劣绅,

往日穷人矮三寸,

如今是顶天立地的人.

天下农友要翻身,

自己当家做主人.

一切权利归农会,

共产党是我们的领路人.

A thunderbolt shakes heaven and earth,

Down with bad landlords and corrupt gentry,

The poor used to be cowed low before the rich,

Now they stand tall and touch the sky.

The peasant brothers will change their fate,

We are masters of our own house.

All rights and power belong to the peasant association,

The Communists lead our path.

(Anonymous 1995)

The peasant movement was a campaign not just to take back political power but to overturn the situation of rightlessness and dispossession. Socially, the peasants regained their dignity; economically, they became masters of their own house. They were restored to the rightful position of creators.