Here is a AP news item Maoist Sect Scrutinized in Wake of UK Slavery Case
Ian Haworth, founder of Britain’s Cult Information Center, said brainwashing techniques appear to have been used to keep the three freed women in the group. Experts in cult strategies have often studied the way the Chinese government used such techniques during Mao’s reign, he said.
“The woman saying, ‘you’re part of the fascist state’ again and again — I would simply say that whatever combinations of techniques are being employed are clearly working,” he said. “The idea of them being psychologically held for 30 years makes a great deal of sense to me.”
When Sian Davies died after mysteriously falling out of a window in a south London house 16 years ago, her family was stunned — they had not seen her for two decades.
Davies had moved to London as a young woman pursuing a master’s degree, but soon she cut off virtually all contact with her family and disappeared from sight. Her relatives gathered that she had gotten tangled up with a cult — a secretive, closely knit Maoist group whose members lived together in a communist collective. The family knew little else, and was none the wiser even after her death…
Hockx, the professor of Chinese studies, said Maoism should not be blamed for the London cult. But he acknowledged that extreme propaganda — bombarding people with slogans until they are afraid of being caught not repeating them — was a key feature during the height of China’s Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966.
Through the years Davies sent a few letters home, and only broke her silence once — in 1996. She phoned but said very little, brushing aside concerns about her wellbeing, Morgan said.
“The next time I saw her was in the morgue,” said Morgan, who was furious that the collective had not notified her family during the seven months Davies survived in a hospital after the fall.
“They gave no chance to her mother to say goodbye to her only daughter,” Morgan said. “They showed no compassion at all. It was just cruel.”
When the inquest ended without conclusion — the coroner returned what is called an “open verdict” — a commune member, Josephine Herivel, approached Morgan and asked if they could talk about Davies.
Morgan rebuffed her. “I said no,” Morgan said. “I just said what you had done is wicked, or words to that effect.”
Fast forward 16 years, and Herivel, now 57, was identified as one of the three women freed after some 30 years in the collective.( reported for Ap by Sylvia Hui)
In the early 70 there was a split in Communist Party of India and Naxalite movement belonging to Mao than Marxism was engaged in violent activities. This ‘Comrade Bala’ seems to belong to this radical group. There was also another movement called Proutism. All these movements by hind sight have degenerated into making brutes of each as the leader of the South London cell in all probability is. (Shri. Aravind Balakrishnan’s guilt is not yet fully established.) In whichever case we find people seized by ideas and given their full flow of idealism take on the world but end up as brutal taskmasters. They are as deceived as those whom they brainwash. The trail of misery they leave behind is unbelievable! Not to mention the loss in human resources and their potential wasted beyond redemption.)
China has learned to move away from Mao as should be in the context of changes taking place everywhere these radical groups have no depth to absorb new ideas. Paradox of Marxian ideologue speaks of Hegel or dialectical materialism but is set on a single idea to be of any use. In South London we see how radicals end.
It happens also in cults like the People’s Temple of Indiana, USA ended in Jamestown, Guyana. In some Pentecostal cults like the Pentecostal Mission or in New Testament Churches commune living is insisted upon as the early churches of the first Century. They brainwash their followers of holiness that mark them for Zion! But on the earth and in flesh these are servants domestic slaves doing donkey’s work without wages. In all aspects they lose out. Invisible handcuffs make the brothers and sister live without access to medicine. The Mission insists they live on faith but it will not stand the test of scrutiny. Domestic slavery thrives still. (cf: cults-wolves in sheep clothes)
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