by Kerry Bolton
Such contentions paved the way for the cultural and spiritual subversion of the 1960s. The intelligentsia had its Sixties movement (Sestiger), some of whom had worked in France. They wrote of Afrikaner self-doubt. Such was the decay of the Afrikaner cultural Establishment, once infected, that in 1964 the Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (“Science and Art”), “guardian of Afrikaner culture”, awarded the annual Hertzog prize to Etienne le Roux for the novel Sewe Dae by die Silbersteins, “a parable on the failure of the nationalist mission”. Afrikaner “cultural hierarchy” had been “fractured”.261 By the 1970s, the Broederbond, the mainstay of Afrikaner political and cultural hegemony, had opened dialogue with the African National Congress. In 1990 the Broederbond had prepared a memo in which apartheid was described as detrimental to Afrikaner interests. Professor Pieter de Lange, the chairman of the Broederbond since 1984, said: “Some of us became convinced that Afrikaner interests had become so entwined with everyone’s interests in South Africa and internationally that you couldn’t promote Afrikaner interests in isolation. You had to promote everyone’s interests”.262
China
The annals of China’s imperial courts record the decadence that resulted in the mythic loss of the “Mandate from Heaven”, which justified the overthrow of successive dynasties. Much of this decadence revolves around the influence of the caste of eunuchs whose corruption infested the imperial court. China succumbed to decadence centuries ago, dynasty after dynasty. The Maoist interregnum has only reanimated a corpse by the use of Western technics and economic models. Nonetheless, Chinese civilisation endured for two and a half millennia. Of the epochs of decline, Backhouse and Bland wrote in their study of the Chinese annals:
“Amongst such morals and conclusions as the reader may draw from study of these three centuries of Chinese history, one of the most obvious is to be found in the persistent coincidence of periods of demoralisation in the State with the ascendancy of eunuchs at Court. The Chinese have always realised the truth of this matter; scholars, historians and moralists never fail to declare that the Empire’s crisis of private corruption and public disorder, the decline and fall of dynasties, have been caused or greatly hastened by the interference and intrigues of these Court menials in affairs of State. The first Manchu rulers perceived clearly the evils of a eunuch-ridden Court, and took wise precautions against them. In the fate of the Mings, the lesson was writ plain for them to learn, adding one more to the many warnings of history against the insidious dangers of the Court’s excessive polygamy and the atmosphere of debauchery and enervation thereby created. They could see for themselves to what a pitiful state the Throne and Court had been brought by the tyrannous cruelty, treachery and greed of the eunuchs who infested the Forbidden City and projected the ‘poisonous miasma’ of their influence to the farthest frontiers of the Empire. …”263
Chinese Bowl from the Ch'ien Lung period.
After the decay of the Ming dynasty, the Manchus re-invigorated China with military vitality, administrative efficiency, and civic virtue, purging the eunuch caste. Yet, the authors ask, why was it that from this state of revivification of China under the Manchus that within their reign China again reverted to decadence? Backhouse and Bland, writing of Chien-lung (1711-1799), state:
“Studying the history of this great Monarch’s long reign, and that of his immediate successors, we perceive that the chief cause of the swift decline and fall of the Manchu power, and of the consequent demoralisation of the whole system of government, lay (as Tzu Hsi264 admitted on her deathbed) in the corruption of public and private morals which set in, so soon as the ‘rats and foxes’ of the Court were permitted to interfere in affairs of State. So long as the Palace eunuchs were kept in the place wisely assigned to them by Shun Chih,265 and debarred from all high offices, the Court retained its virile dignity and the public service its efficiency. The luxury, nepotism and venality introduced during the regime of Ch’ien Lung’s favourite, the Grand Secretary, Ho Shen, restored to the Palace eunuchs opportunities which they had not enjoyed since the overthrow of the Ming dynasty. Fifty years later, their ascendancy at Court was completely established. Henceforward, they were able to exercise once more their traditional functions as the tempters of youth, the debauchers of age, in the profound seclusion of the Forbidden City, until gradually the Son of Heaven on his Throne became a defenceless puppet in their supple bloodstained hands”. 266
The last of the Ming dynasty at the middle of the 17th century continued their debaucheries while the Manchus pushed forward.
“Habits and ambitions of luxury, and with the degenerate Mings the lust of perquisites and power, of pomp and circumstance, was not killed by their cataclysmic disasters. For eighteen years, harried from one short-lived capital to another, four successive claimants to the Throne of their dynasty retained some semblance of their regal state and a place in the minds, if not the hearts, of their people. During these years there were times when, had there been a strong man amongst them, their dominion might well have been restored and the Manchus driven back, for the Confucian virtues of faithfulness and loyal devotion … were not lacking at this period; many a brave soldier, many a stoic philosopher of the mandarins, upheld the proud traditions of their caste, and died rather than submit to the rule of the alien, and many millions of the ‘stupid people’ went bravely to their graves because of that loyalty to the central idea of the Confucian doctrine. But the Mings were all unworthy, even in adversity. As they had been before the threatening storm, so they remained … invertebrate, irresolute to the end. Four years after the flight from Peking, when the adherents of Kuei Wang, the last of the Mings, were making a successful stand in the Kuang provinces, when Coxinja was beginning to organise new forces of resistance to the Manchus, and when several rebel forces had taken the field on their own account, a little statesmanship, a little courage, might have won the day. But it was not to be. The little Court in exile kept up its tinsel state, grateful to its loyal adherents only so long as they replenished the Privy purse which paid for its revels; leaving its armies unvictualled whilst it rehearsed some new play, or sent the eunuchs through the country in search of new favourites for the harem of the ‘Palace,’ that was now a moving tent”.267
Again the social degeneration of the culture has started to rot from the head down. Yet the Ming dynasty was not weak militarily. As the Manchus advanced on the Yangtze with a force of 60,000, the Ming emperor lamented mournfully to his eunuchs that “there is not in all my court an actor worthy of the name”. General General Shih K’o-fa, a brave soldier and a scholar, asked to be given control of the 80,000 strong forces at the Emperor’s disposal and to lead them without the interference of courtiers and civil officials, but the Emperor refused, and “he continued to squander money on revels and banquets, while the troops in the field were left insufficiently fed and clad”.268
Amidst Court intrigues, General Shih addressed his Emperor in Spring, 1645:
“Whilst Your Majesty is banqueting on choice viands and quaffing wine from beakers of jade, it behoves you to remember your starving servants in the North. If, in spite of all his efforts, the late Emperor was unable to ward off disaster, how much more should you, inferior to him in ability, tremble as one who stands on the brink of a precipice. If you perform your duties with zeal and vigilance, it may be that your ancestors’ spirits in Heaven will intercede with the Almighty on your behalf, and that your heritage may be regained. But if you remain in idle dalliance in Nanking, lavishing favours on sycophants and forgetful of the welfare of your troops, if you proclaim our secret plans from the housetops and fail to distinguish between loyal devotion and treason, if you show yourself so lacking in dignity that the worthy men about you are constrained to retire from official life, and the brave hesitate to serve you, then assuredly your ancestors will regard you as unworthy of their aid, and destruction, inevitable and final, will come upon you”.269
General Shih awaited supplies that never arrived. His supporters at cou
rt were being executed on the advice of corrupt advisers. Shih observed that “fawning eunuchs” intrigued for high office and rewards for themselves and their protégés at Court. Backhouse and Bland comment: “Where the Court is not pure, the army will surely fail in its duty”.270 On the inevitable defeat of Nanking by the Manchu forces, Prince Yii spent three days attempting to persuade General Shih to become Imperial Commissioner of the Nanking Province. Yet he would not betray his Emperor and chose beheading.
The ascension of the Manchus under the Emperor Shun Chih, a young man both physically and mentally strong, at first saw the relegation of the eunuchs to that of menials,271 and supervision of admission to the priesthood. In 1661 Shun had died or withdrew to the priesthood. Four ministers were appointed as Regents, awaiting the coming of age of Shun’s seven year old son K’ang Hsi, a firm but humane ruler under whom there was a flowering of the arts.272 However, most of K’ang’s twenty-four surviving sons acted with cruelty and ignorance.273 In particular the Heir Apparent, Yiin Jeng, was regarded as deranged. Yiin was arrested. K’ang declared that such a man could not be the nexus between heaven and the people, declaring in public:
“The Classic of History says: ‘Heaven sees as my people see; Heaven hears as my people hear. Heaven will surely detest the man whom the people hate.’ How can such a man be permitted to perform the ancestral sacrifice or worship the tutelary deities as Emperor?”274
K’ang died in 1722, and was succeeded by the least depraved of his sons, Yung Cheng. As under the Ming, the Manchu dynasty was wracked by rival cabals at Court. The acrimony among the Emperor’s brothers remained intense, several of whom Yung had executed for rebellious conspiracy. Yung’s reign was marked by rebellion throughout the Empire, with increasing references to the “alien” rule of the Manchus. Yung nonetheless left an impressive corpus of scholarly writing and it can be supposed that he would have been a great ruler had it not been for the intrigues of his brothers. In particular, he reduced the Court eunuchs to menial status.275 The rule of Chia Ch’ing was notably worthy, having qualities of soldier, statesman and scholar, and eschewing opulence at Court.276 The rule of Ch’ien Lung for sixty years was also one of nobility, yet his favourite minister, Ho Shen, Grand Secretary, was to be the source of decay for the succeeding regime.277 “Amongst Chinese historians and scholars there is a common saying: ‘A cycle of virtuous rule was brought to nought by Ho Shen : the disastrous century of rebellion and decline which followed was due to him and to him alone’.”278
Empress Xiaoyichun (1727-1775) consort of Emperor Ch’ien Lung.
Ch’ien also rejected the blandishments of British and other foreign trade and diplomacy, recognising the dangers to China’s culture, although Ho Shen tried to counsel a more conciliatory course. Ch’ien referred to the irreconcilability between the cultures, stating that those Europeans who were living in Peking were obliged to blend into the Chinese culture. To King George III, Ch’ien wrote:
“As to your entreaty to send one of your nationals to be accredited to my Celestial Court and to be in control of your country’s trade with China, this request is contrary to all usage of my dynasty and cannot possibly be entertained. It is true that Europeans, in the service of the dynasty, have been permitted to live at Peking, but they are compelled to adopt Chinese dress, they are strictly confined to their own precincts and are never permitted to return home. You are presumably familiar with our dynastic regulations. Your proposed Envoy to my Court could not be placed in a position similar to that of European officials in Peking who are forbidden to leave China, nor could he, on the other hand, be allowed liberty of movement and the privilege of corresponding with his own country; so that you would gain nothing by his residence in our midst.”
“Moreover, our Celestial dynasty possesses vast territories, and tribute missions from the dependencies are provided for by the Department for Tributary States, which ministers to their wants and exercises strict control over their movements. It would be quite impossible to leave them to their own devices. Supposing that your Envoy should come to our Court, his language and national dress differ from that of our people, and there would be no place in which to bestow him. It may be suggested that he might imitate the Europeans permanently resident in Peking and adopt the dress and customs of China, but, it has never been our dynasty’s wish to force people to do things unseemly and inconvenient. …”
“You assert that your reverence for Our Celestial dynasty fills you with a desire to acquire our civilisation, our ceremonies and code of laws differ so completely from your own that, even if your Envoy were able to acquire the rudiments of our civilisation, you could not possibly transplant our manners and customs to your alien soil. Therefore, however adept the Envoy might become, nothing would be gained thereby.”
“Swaying the wide world, I have but one aim in view, namely, to maintain a perfect governance and to fulfil the duties of the State: strange and costly objects do not interest me. If I have commanded that the tribute offerings sent by you, O King, are to be accepted, this was solely in consideration for the spirit which prompted you to dispatch them from afar. Our dynasty’s majestic virtue has penetrated unto every country under Heaven, and Kings of all nations have offered their costly tribute by land and sea. As your Ambassador can see for himself, we possess all things. I set no value on objects strange or ingenious, and have no use for your country’s manufactures. This then is my answer to your request to appoint a representative at my Court, a request contrary to our dynastic usage, which would only result in inconvenience to yourself.” 279
In a second “mandate” to King George, Emperor Ch’ien addresses other concepts central to the traditional state, of which Peking was the axis mundi:
“My capital is the hub and centre about which all quarters of the globe revolve. Its ordinances are most august and its laws are strict in the extreme. The subjects of our dependencies have never been allowed to open places of business in Peking”.280
In point 7 of Ch’ien’s second “mandate” to King George, he described the importance of traditional religion as something that cannot be compromised for the sake of “religious freedom”:
“(7) Regarding your nation’s worship of the Lord of Heaven, it is the same religion as that of other European nations. Ever since the beginning of history, sage Emperors and wise rulers have bestowed on China a moral system and inculcated a code, which from time immemorial has been religiously observed by the myriads of my subjects. There has been no hankering after heterodox doctrines. Even the European (missionary) officials in my capital are forbidden to hold intercourse with Chinese subjects; they are restricted within the limits of their appointed residences, and may not go about propagating their religion. The distinction between Chinese and barbarian is most strict, and your Ambassador’s request that barbarians shall be given full liberty to disseminate their religion is utterly unreasonable”.281
To the Celestial Emperor the King of England was no more than the chief of a barbarian tribe, while Peking was the axial centre of the world. The British pleas were called “wild ideas and hopes”. The Emperor by his own account had exercised “kindly indulgence” by hearing them. The Emperor had shown the King of England far more regard than others because George had shown his “submissive loyalty” by sending his “tribute mission”. It was the King’s “bounden duty” to “obey these instructions for all time”. Should Britain’s “barbarian merchants” attempt to land they would be expelled immediately. “Tremblingly obey and show no negligence”.282 Foreigners could not gain anything even by trying to acquire the “rudiments” of Chinese civilisation. Foreigners had nothing to offer China, least of all the merchants’ trinkets.
Ch’ien was a vigorous sportsman, a poet, strong and just, who eschewed luxuries. Of those that brought China to decay following him:
“As the traveller gazes to-day on the melancholy ruins of Yuan Ming-yuan, or the hunting parks at Jehol and Peking, he cannot but wonder that a race which could produce
so wise and so virile a ruler, and send its armies across Asia, should to-day be represented only by the besotted and effeminate creatures who walk so delicately and so uselessly as Manchu Princes”.283
The reign of Chi’en’s son Chia Ch’ing saw an epoch of decline, until his death in 1821. He was succeeded by his son, Tao Kuang. The rebelliousness that had occurred under Chia continued. “The canker worm of effeminacy had already eaten deep into the heart of the Manchu military organisation”. 284The virility had gone from the Manchus as it had from the Ming. Of Tao’s successor, his fourth son Hsien Feng, the chroniclers portray him as “a thoroughly dissolute and depraved specimen of humanity, physically and morally contemptible”, whose reign saw the invasion of the Forbidden City and its looting, and a rival government of rebels established at Nanking.285
“Whatever was left of virility and patriotism at Peking gnashed its teeth in impotent rage, not so much because of the imminence of the danger, as because of the hopeless depravity of the Sovereign and the men whom he delighted to honour. Rome was burning whilst China’s Nero not only fiddled, but danced obscenely to his own music. Whilst province after province passed through fire and sword to acknowledge the sway of the Rebel Emperor, the Lord of Heaven busied himself with the provision of new lights for his harem or joined his evil genius, the notorious Minister Su Shun, in orgies of unspeakable debauch in the low haunts of the Chinese quarter”.286
