In a recent article on ORWELL TODAY I explained that the vast majority of Canadians, Americans, Brits and Australians know almost nothing about Stalin and Mao, communism's revered leaders, nor about the hundreds of millions of Russian and Chinese citizens they denounced, arrested, imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, tried, convicted and then transported to slave labour camps in the Gulag and Laogai where they were worked to death. See LONG WALK FROM STALIN'S GULAG & GULAG'S HAUNTING LEGACY & LAOGAI IS CHINESE GULAG.

In other articles on the website, over the years, I've written extensively about the phenomenon of Canadians being passive to the point of unconsciousness about our government handing the country over to the Communist Chinese and Russians - ie allowing them to own our natural resources with money they made ramming our industries into the ground through unfair competition with their slave labour. See CHINADA'S SOVIETIZATION & CHINESE TAKE-OVER & SELLING LENIN ROPE TO HANG US & LENIN BEHIND ENVIRONMENTALISM & SOLZHENITSYN WARNS AMERICA ABOUT USSR.

But nothing could prove the point better - ie that they're setting up China-like and Russia-like systems here in Canada - than the recent erection of a statue of Lenin and Mao in a major Canadian city; one that also happens to be hosting the upcoming Winter Olympics and is being turned into a Communist police state for the occassion. See OLYMPIAN SECURITY ORWELLIAN GAME & AIRPORT NAKED-SCAN POLITICIANS.

Lenin-Mao statue a monstrosity, Canada.com, Jan 1, 2010 (...The public disgrace disguised as 'art' adjacent to the ICBC building, directly across the street from numerous condos, and local businesses, and not to mention the proximity to the Olympic Oval, not only has no place in Richmond, but has no place in Canada...)

Maybe idolizing Lenin & Mao is to be expected in the city known as Canada's "Asia Pacific Gateway", home to hundreds-of-thousands of immigrants from Communist China, who are perhaps homesick for icons of Mao all over the place. See CANADA GATE FOR CHINA & CHINA'S CANADIAN ADVENTURE & WINSTON SMITH NOW WONG & CANADA'S TOP 100 CHINESE & OZ PM SPIED FOR CHINA & CANADA'S RED TRUDEAU.

Or maybe it's because Vancouver is the city where an ex-KGB agent is being illegally given sanctuary in a church - supported by provincial politicians - to keep him from being deported back to the USSR. See BYE BYE AMERICAN APPLE PIE & SOVIET DEFECTOR IGOR GOUZENKO.

Give former KGB agent Mikhail Lennikov the gift of freedom: MPs, by Andrea Woo, Vancouver Sun, Dec 21, 2009
Two B.C. members of Parliament invoked the spirit of Christmas Sunday as they called for the government to back down and allow former KGB agent Mikhail Lennikov to stay in Canada. "Christmas is the season of giving and forgiveness, the season of generosity," said Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh at a news conference with NDP MP Don Davies and Lennikov at the church where Lennikov has taken sanctuary. "In that spirit, I wanted to make sure that we remind the government that they have a chance ... to be forgiving and giving and generous and allow Mikhail Lennikov to permanently stay in the country."... Lennikov, 49, entered Canada on a student visa in 1997 and has lived here with his wife and son for more than a decade. He says he did a combination of clerical work and translation for the KGB from 1983 to 1988. He took sanctuary at the First Lutheran Church in east Vancouver in June after immigration officials declared him a threat to national security and denied his application to stay in Canada....

What really adds insult to injury, about the Lenin-Mao statue, is that - like everything else in Canada - it was "made in China" by Chinese workers. ~ Jackie Jura

Watch video Lenin-Mao Statue Vancouver, Canada, by Gao Brothers

...see updates and visit to statue at: LENIN-MAO MOCK CANADA OLYMPICS

GOUZENKO OUTED TRUDEAU SPIES

CHINA'S INVISIBLE BLACK HAND

MONSTER MAO UNKNOWN STORY

SECRET WORLD CHINA COMMIE PARTY

CHINA FOODFIGHT FOR CANADA POTASH

LENIN-MAO MAN-MADE STARVATION

CHINA IN CANADA SAY SPY CHIEF

TERRY FOX NEWFIE VODKA

HONOUR TERRY FOX NOT LENIN-MAO

Stalin statues going up again in Russia (the fruit of creeping re-Stalinization) & Stalin's revival in Russia (rehabilitating homicidal maniac) & Trotsky the firebrand (zeal for collectivizataion & terror) & TROTSKY REVELLED IN SOVIET EVIL (along with Lenin he created system Stalin used) & Lenin-Mao sculpture divides Canadian residents (4000-kilo/9000-lb chrome bust by Chinese artists) & MPs say give KGB agent freedom in Canada (gov't order deport; threatens national security). Tele/Mill/NatPost/VanSun, Jan 20, 2010. Go to 7.Systems & 35.BB Brotherhood & 2.Big Brother Is Watching You

Sculpture of Mao and Lenin divides Canadian residents
by Adam McDowell, National Post, Jan 11, 2010
At first glance the sculpture suggests grace and balance, with a tiny figure staying atop a giant head with the help of a long pole. Upon greater reflection, the face is that of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and the balancer is a tiny, "feminized" Mao Zedong; and therein lies the problem for some residents of Richmond, B.C. Since being unveiled at the intersection of Elmbridge and Alderbridge Way on Dec. 15, the 4,000-kilogram sculpture by a pair of Chinese artists has divided residents of Richmond. Gao Qiang and Gao Zhen's Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin's Head has proven as inscrutable as the face of Lenin and as open to interpretation as Mao's Little Red Book.

The sculpture arrived in British Columbia courtesy the Vancouver Biennale, a two-year exhibition of sculpture in public places that started last July. Offended residents have argued the shimmering likenesses of two mass murderers have no place in the public realm even as "art," and others have called for Miss Mao to be taken out of its square at the heart of the Vancouver suburb before it can embarrass Canada during the 2010 Winter Olympics. Advocates of public art, meanwhile, urge the public to see a deeper meaning in the reflective sculpture. "When I went to the gym at 5:30 this morning it's all people were talking about", said Richmond city councillor Derek Dang in an interview last month. "People just can't believe it. [Miss Mao] certainly has caused a lot of debate and evokes some strong emotions among people who remember those times" -- that is, hard times under communism. Mr. Dang nevertheless supports the artwork. "[The Gao brothers'] inspiration and imagination is what makes it art." Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie has also spoken in favour.

Meanwhile, the letters page of the local biweekly Richmond News, a community newspaper (owned by Canwest, which also owns the National Post), has filled up with indignation aimed at the sculpture. Miss Mao is seen as an affront to survivors of the oppressive regimes Mao and Lenin created in China and the former Soviet Union, and an irresponsible image to put before the citizenry without context. One resident called the work "a public disgrace disguised as 'art'" while another objected to the Gao brothers "[protesting their] government from our country."

The Biennale silently watched the controversy brew before finally releasing a statement last weekend. It included a plea by the Gao brothers to see the work as a call to help people "recall the misery and suffering Communism caused," though it offered no hints on how to interpret the elements of the work. In an interview yesterday, a spokeswoman said the Biennale held off entering the debate because the debate itself was an aim of the artwork. "It was important to let the public speak," said Miriam Blume, the Biennale's director of marketing and communications, in an interview with the Post. "We were fascinated watching the media coverage, reading the letters to the editor." Now that the Biennale is entering the fray, Ms. Blume stressed, "This sculpture is not in any way a statue that memorializes these two figures. It's not just about stirring controversy, and it's certainly not about offending people." She said the artists have said they are thrilled the piece has got Richmond residents "standing around the water cooler ... talking about Lenin and Mao," which is what they wanted. Fans of Chairman Mao the brothers Gao are not. Their father was killed during the Cultural Revolution. As if to prove their stance, the Gaos smashed one of their own Mao statues with mallets in a performance in Moscow last summer. Ms. Blume said the artists' Beijing studio is regularly raided by censorious Chinese authorities, and the men have been forced to exhibit their art "underground."

Richard Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art magazine, agreed that to his eyes, Miss Mao looks more like a dissident statement than an endorsement of communism. "I haven't seen the sculpture, but from looking at the image of it, they've certainly set both figures in what we call in the art world a critical context. They're [provoking] a reinterpretation of meaning of these figures, and I certainly don't see anything pro-totalitarian," said Mr. Rhodes. He said Mao's balancing act could refer to contemporary China's difficulty of reconciling the late Chairman's communism with its present capitalist zeal....

Mr. Rhodes and Ms. Blume both suggested greater exposure to art could make more Canadians think first and write angry letters later. "Public art is challenging, and a city like Vancouver and quite possibly a country like Canada is fairly new to public art," Ms. Blume said. "We have to go beyond understanding art as just something that's aesthetically pleasing or not. Art is much more than pretty. Art is a mode of communication." Most of the sculptures in the Vancouver Biennale, including Miss Mao, will be removed from their locations in the summer of 2011.

Gao Brothers continue to rile art world with Lenin-Mao sculpture
LosAngelesTimes, Dec 28, 2009
Vladimir Lenin and Mao Zedong are long dead and buried. But like Jesus Christ, they are continually resurrected by artists looking to get a rise out of curators, collectors, journalists and government censors. One of the latest incarnations of communism's most recognizable faces is a large-scale sculpture titled "Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of Lenin’s Head", on display as part of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale. The artwork, created by the brothers Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, features a giant bust of Lenin's head with a small figure of Mao on top performing a balancing act....

Gao brothers, in China, pose alongside their sculpture titled "Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the top of Lenin's Head"

The Mao Cult (...In 1962, Mao advocated the Socialist Education Movement (SEM), in an attempt to 'inoculate' the peasantry against the temptations of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside. Large doses of didactic politicized art, whether figurative or literary, were produced as serum for this inoculation process.... Mao already had appeared prominently on propaganda posters as far back as the 1940s, despite his ambiguous warnings against a personality cult. The intensity of his portrayal in the second half of the 1960s, however, was unparalleled. Under Lin Biao, the PLA increasingly was employed to bolster the personality cult around Mao, and thus to produce art that would contribute to the construction of Mao's god-like image. All this took place with Mao's consent. Already before the compilation of the Quotations from Chairman Mao (Mao zhuxi yulu ?????, the 'Little Red Book', published in May 1964) for use by the armed forces, the PLA had been turned into "a great school of Mao Zedong Thought". The army became the driving force behind the campaign to study Mao's Quotations.... Logically, the Army became responsible for art. This art should unite and educate the people, inspire the struggle of revolutionary people and eliminate the bourgeoisie. Art had to be guided by Mao Zedong Thought, its contents had to be militant and to reflect real life. Proletarian ideology, communist morale and spirit, revolutionary heroism were the messages of a new type of hyper-realism that took precedence over style and technique and that differed in all aspects from art creation until then. In the PLA paintings of the time, the color red featured heavily; it symbolized everything revolutionary, everything good and moral; the color black, on the other hand, signified precisely the opposite. Color symbolism continued to be important in the following years, not only in visual propaganda, but in printed propaganda as well. Mao's wife Jiang Qing supported the artistic direction set by the PLA. The conceptual dogmas and theatrical conventions provided by the model operas (yangbanxi ???) that she supported also became the standard in the visual arts. For the stage, she formulated the 'three prominences' (???,stress positive characters; stress the heroic in them; stress the central character of the main characters). In the arts, this was translated as: the subjects were to be portrayed realistically, and they were always to be in the centre of the action, flooded with light from the sun or from hidden sources. Moreover, when we look at the propaganda posters of these years, it always seems as if we, the spectators, are looking upward, as if the action is indeed taking place upon a stage....Mao could be depicted as a benevolent father, bringing the Confucian mechanisms of popular obedience into play. Or he was portrayed as a wise statesman, an astute military leader or a great teacher; to this end, artists represented him in the vein of the statues of Lenin, which had started to appear in the early 1920s in the Soviet Union. Another group of posters visually recounted the more illustrious of his historical deeds....

Canada residents incensed over art of Lenin, tiny Mao
by Damian Inwood, The Province, Jan 6, 2010
A huge chrome sculpture of Lenin with a tiny sculpture of Mao as a female trapeze artist is causing outrage after it was installed at Elmbridge Way and Alderbridge Way in Richmond. A Richmond church administrator says she's outraged by a giant, stainless-steel bust -- depicting communist leaders Vladimir Lenin with a tiny Chairman Mao perched on his head -- which has been installed a stone's throw from the Richmond Olympic Oval. "It's what Lenin represents-- he's a communist and a murderer," Sharon Clark, administrator at St. Anne's Steveston Anglican Church, said Monday. "With the Olympics coming in less than two months, what are people going to think about our community? I am disgusted that this has been erected without the permission of the citizens of Richmond." Clark said there are many local artists who could put up beautiful works of art in its place. She said there have been widespread calls for the sculpture to be removed. "The whole thing is crazy as far as I'm concerned," she added. But Richmond officials are refusing to bow to protests or to calls for its removal. "The statue is there to make a comment on freedom of expression and censorship and to be provocative and create some discussion around those issues, and that's exactly what it's doing," said Ted Townsend, spokesman for the City of Richmond. "We have no plans to remove it and there are no plans for the issue to come before council." The giant sculpture, by Beijing based dissidents Zhen and Qiang Gao, has been installed outside the Insurance Corp. of B.C. claims centre at Elmbridge Way and Alderbridge Way. It is part of the Vancouver Biennale, an international sculpture exhibit that features more than two dozen installations in Vancouver and Richmond. Barrie Mowatt, executive director of the Vancouver Biennale, was on holidays but told reporters before he left that he was glad to see the sculpture had sparked public discussion.

Lenin-Mao statue a monstrosity
by Reesa Steele, Richmond News, Jan 1, 2010
The public disgrace disguised as 'art' adjacent to the ICBC building, directly across the street from numerous condos, and local businesses, and not to mention the proximity to the Olympic Oval, not only has no place in Richmond, but has no place in Canada. I am not sure which is more disturbing; that someone on Richmond City Council agreed to have this despicable structure arrive in Richmond, and then allowed it to be erected, or that the ever growing chorus and public outcry for its removal is being systematically ignored. As a local resident and proud Canadian, I add my voice to those who have already protested to the presence of such an ostentatious and inappropriate symbol that has no place in our democratic society. The disturbing silver head which now looms high in an empty lot for all to see, along a busy thoroughfare, is impossible to miss, and is a shameful and abominable symbol which the world will sadly come to associate with Richmond, B.C. once they all arrive, here, for the Olympics. Media and visitors alike will surely gaze upon this new 'face' of Richmond with bewilderment and disgust, all shaking their collective heads every time they are subjected to this eyesore whilst driving, walking or cycling by this unfortunate choice erected and sold to the masses as public art. Is this how we want the world to view Richmond, B.C.? I think not. I am appalled that such a structure still remains standing in Richmond, despite the local outcry, and wonder why those who agreed to it being brought here did not have the foresight to simply say 'NO' to those responsible for its creation and ultimate placement. Was it offered elsewhere but turned away, only to have Richmond stand up and say "we'll take it?" Is that how the citizens of Richmond ended up having to endure that which most, if not all, find absolutely offensive? Likewise, the person(s) responsible on Richmond City Council for having this repulsive object placed at the corners of Elmbridge and Alderbridge ways, should now step forward out of Lenin's big silvery shadow, and offer a public apology for the objectionable choice that he/she made when agreeing to having the Gao brothers use Richmond B.C. Canada as their means to display that which has no place here. Of course, actions speak louder then words. I call on Richmond City Council to do the right thing by having that monstrosity disassembled and removed immediately.

Art sculpture in Richmond sparks debate, CTVBC, Dec 28, 2009 (...Many politicians, including past and present Presidents as well as others, will absolutely not discuss this and have "stonewalled" any efforts to publish anything regarding this topic...)

Give former KGB agent Mikhail Lennikov the gift of freedom: MPs
by Andrea Woo, Vancouver Sun, Dec 21, 2009
Two B.C. members of Parliament invoked the spirit of Christmas Sunday as they called for the government to back down and allow former KGB agent Mikhail Lennikov to stay in Canada. "Christmas is the season of giving and forgiveness, the season of generosity," said Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh at a news conference with NDP MP Don Davies and Lennikov at the church where Lennikov has taken sanctuary. "In that spirit, I wanted to make sure that we remind the government that they have a chance ... to be forgiving and giving and generous and allow Mikhail Lennikov to permanently stay in the country."

Lennikov, 49, entered Canada on a student visa in 1997 and has lived here with his wife and son for more than a decade. He says he did a combination of clerical work and translation for the KGB from 1983 to 1988. He took sanctuary at the First Lutheran Church in east Vancouver in June after immigration officials declared him a threat to national security and denied his application to stay in Canada. His wife, Irina, and son, Dmitri, were given permission to stay in Canada on compassionate grounds. At the church Sunday, Lennikov said some of his biggest frustrations are not being able to spend more time with his family and not being able to guide 18-year-old Dmitri along a career path. Another is leaving Irina to head the household on her own. “My wife has to bear this burden of providing for the whole family and taking care of Dmitri,” said Lennikov. “It’s extremely difficult, seeing her almost at the edge of her emotional and even physical strength.”

With the help of NDP MP Peter Julian, Lennikov recently obtained more than 3,500 pages of documents from various government departments and says there is nothing in them that indicates he’s a threat to Canadian security. “He has not found anything in those documents other than what he had given them by way of information himself,” said Dosanjh. “We can’t find a sentence — not a word — that would explain to any reasonable person why Mikhail Lennikov ought not to be allowed in this country,” said Davies. Lennikov says he will spend Christmas attending a church service, followed by a dinner with family and friends from the congregation.