Fuaimrian

Publication Instance Details #1897

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	No	Yes

Details

Human Rights Issues	State Violence
Languages	Irish
Genre	Short Lyric
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	The speaker of the poem watches a documentary about the Great Leap Forward under Mao's China. In this poem, he describes the smelting of steel (for weapons?) from old tools in villages, and Mao's war against the 'Four Pests' - in this case, sparrows - which he tried to eradicate as they were believed to cause pestilence and disease. The speaker of the poem describes the brutal killing of the sparrows and the attempts to control the population. The death of the sparrows means the death of their various tunes music, and the speaker concludes that their death has led to a monotone, brass trumpet, playing the same note day after day. This poem could be read as an allegory for the routing of opposition and dissent in the People's Republic of China: fearing internal dissent and betrayal, Mao began campaigns to root out traitors and corruption, including the "Suppression of the Counterrevolutionaries," the "Three-Anti," and the "Five-Anti" campaigns. These anti-corruption campaigns affected the lives of many Chinese citizens.