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| “乌有之乡”书店是中国左派避难所
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| 时间：2009/02/07 出处：经济学人 |
在北京的高校区一座办公住宅两用建筑的第九层有一家小小的书店，里面的工作人员佩带着毛泽东徽章。赞美这位已故中国领袖、谴责资本主义、攻击全球化的作品摆在书架上。“非主流经济学家”是最受欢迎的部分之一。充斥多数书店的书籍（例如如何取得商业成功，玩转股市，进入美国大学之类的）在这里见不到。
这家乌有之乡书店是中国左派（那些怀念毛泽东执政，担心国家放弃其共产主义原则的人们）的避难所。在这个地方，你可以买到毛泽东已故遗孀江青及“四人帮”其他成员的文选。批评中国2007年颁布的知识产权法的三册书售价人民币200元——由于知识产权法偏向私人财产权，因此很不得左派人士的心。
一位书店经理表示，全球经济危机对企业有利。更多中国人开始质疑主张开放市场和私营企业的“主流”经济思想。乌有之乡常说“自由主义破产。现在很多主流经济学家无话可说。”
书店店主称，网站也推动了书店的发展。它包括乌有之乡隔周发行的时事通讯——最新一期就载文谴责西方国家试图让中国沦为经济低迷的最大牺牲品，称中国自由派经济学家和政治思想家是西方的“走狗”。
乌有之乡于六年前开张，是首都北京少数邀请知识分子讲课的私营书店之一。在这类书店中，1988年成立的三味书屋是首家。三味书屋招待了很多有争议的演讲人，他们往往是乌有之乡书店拥护者所讨厌的人……（略）
左派抓住了一个政治机会——哪怕到目前为止只是在书架上。
[转贴]《经济学人》原文
The Little Red Bookshop
Feb 5th 2009 | BEIJING
From The Economist print edition
Whose little-read leftist texts may be coming back into vogue
IN A small bookshop on the ninth floor of an office and residential building in Beijing’s university district, the staff wear Mao badges. Works extolling the late Chinese leader, damning capitalism and attacking globalisation are laid out on shelves. Scour the “non-mainstream economists” section for some of the most popular ones. Staples of most bookshops—volumes on how to succeed in business, play the stockmarket or get into an American university—are not on sale.
The Utopia bookshop is a refuge for China’s leftists, the term used to describe those nostalgic for Mao Zedong’s rule and worried that the country is abandoning its communist principles. This is the place to buy the selected writings of Mao’s late widow, Jiang Qing, and other members of the Gang of Four who were imprisoned after the chairman’s death. A three-volume critique of China’s property law, enacted in 2007 and much disliked by leftists because of its supposed bias in favour of private-property ownership, goes for 200 yuan ($30).
A bookshop manager says the global economic crisis is proving good for business. More in China are beginning to question “mainstream” economic thinking that favours open markets and private enterprise. “Liberalism is bankrupt. Lots of mainstream economists have nothing to say now,” says a Utopia regular.
The bookshop’s owner, Fan Jinggang, says its website has helped too. It includes Utopia’s fortnightly newsletter, the latest edition of which carries an article accusing Western countries of trying to make China “the biggest sacrificial victim” of the economic downturn and describing China’s liberal economists and political thinkers as the West’s “running dogs”. The article’s author, Zhang Hongliang, is the director of a securities-research institute at Minzu University in Beijing.
Utopia, which opened about six years ago (in a different part of Beijing), is one of a handful of private bookshops in the capital to invite intellectuals to give lectures. The first of its kind, Sanwei Bookstore, opened in 1988 and has been host to many controversial speakers of the kind that frequenters of Utopia love to hate. In December a veteran Chinese journalist, Yang Jisheng, addressed a crowded upstairs room on the subject of the famine unleashed by Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, in which, Mr Yang believes, 36m people died.
The authorities watch warily. In his talk Mr Yang avoided a question from the audience about the broader political lessons to be drawn from the famine. But at Utopia, Mr Zhang of Minzu University spoke enthusiastically a few days later (copies available on samizdat CDs) about an important recent speech by Hu Jintao, the president and Communist Party leader. Mr Hu, he noted, had omitted the party’s usual warning about the need to prevent leftism. The left spots a political opening—if only, so far, on the shelf. |
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