Mao Tse-tung vs. Mother Teresa

Monday, October 26th, 2009 Blog / Commentary by IARC

The White House Communications Director, Anita Dunn, has stirred up a major controversy over statements she made this summer in a speech to high school students about her political heroes.  Here is what she said about the Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa, who cared for orphans in India:

And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Tse Tung and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say “why not.” You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before.

But here’s the deal — these are your choices. They are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Tse Tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, Chiang Kai Shek and the nationalist Chinese held the cities that had the army. They had the airport. They had everything on their side, and people said, “How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all the odds against you?” And Mao Tse Tung said, “You know, you fight your war, and I’ll fight mine.”

And think about that for a second. You don’t have to accept the definition of how to do things, and you don’t have to follow other people’s choices and paths, OK? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war. You lay out your own path. You figure out what’s right for you. You don’t let external definitions define how good you are internally. You fight your war. You let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path.

And Mother Teresa, who, upon receiving a letter from a fairly affluent young person who asked her whether she could come over and help with that orphanage in Calcutta, responded very simply, “Go find your own Calcutta.”

OK? Go find your own Calcutta. Fight your own path. Go find the thing that is unique to you. The challenge that is actually yours, not somebody else’s challenge. One of the things that we see the Obamas, both of them, Michelle and Barack, came out of backgrounds as community organizers, working.

Communist Leader Mao Tse-tung

It’s simply startling to hear anybody draw up any type of comparison between these two individuals in the same sentence.  Mao organized mass killings and tortures, including cutting people’s stomachs open and taking out their hearts.  Under Mao’s rule, famines were widespread as was the disposal of political prisoners.  It is estimated that 40-70 million people died, yet the current Communists in China are busy trying to reinvent his legacy and whitewash his atrocities both in the East and in the West.

Mother Teresa on the other hand won the Nobel Peace Prize and the highest civilian award from the Government of India for her humanitarian and charitable work.  Ms. Dunn strangely refers to Mother Teresa as a “political philosopher,” when her only aim was to help the poor and destitute.

It’s no small wonder that the American people are examining the center-left ideology of those in the executive branch and realizing that their belief-system is out of touch with the center-right country they are now leading.

President Ronald Reagan hosts Mother Teresa in the White House