The Return of Faith 2/5
Tuesday 14 March 2006 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
2/5. Paul Allen and guests discuss China's surprising new found relationship with the 'opium of the masses'. They debate the excesses of the new consumer capitalism and the disillusionment of China's 100 million itinerant workers for whom the economic miracle has not happened, but upon whom the economy and the 2008 Olympics depend.
Playlist
In 1949 it was estimated that there were no more than seven hundred thousand Protestants in China. Today the figure stands at twenty million ..and that’s a conservative estimate.
There’s been an explosion too in the number of Chinese Catholics and Chinese Buddhists and a marked resurgence among folk religions….A puzzling situation for a country whose Communist leadership once described religion as the opium of the masses.
In Night Waves this evening Paul Allen will be trying to understand how this extraordinary situation has arisen. Has China turned to religion to fill a void left by disenchantment with Maoist ideals? Or has the revival more to do with the manoeuvring of a state conscious that religion has a crucial role to play in promoting social cohesion and balancing the excesses of consumer Capitalism?
