#i was born in a communist country hence the design

[by-izz]

After recruiting Jaheira, the drow comments on the usefulness of the Harpers and whether they have a positive impact on the world by preserving 'the balance' or whether their actions impede world's progress. Anyway, here's recruitment poster for the Harpers.

Thank you @cheeserwinkle for the amazing and inspiring Jaheira photos!!!

[potteresque-ire]

On the Hong Kong Protests

2019-08-17

I rarely talk about myself here, but I’m a Hong Konger, born and raised. I moved to the US a long time ago, but the city will always be my home. 

I’ve been following the news there closely these two months. I haven’t slept well. I’m perpetually stressed. I’m both sad and happy, both frightful and hopeful.

Sad and frightful because of what the protests have come to. The violence, the sheer rage and animosity burning on the streets. Watching where tear gas and rubber bullets land every week is a strange way to revisit childhood memories, but here I am. 

Happy and hopeful because Hong Kongers are finally standing up to what believe in. Hong Kongers, in my mind, have always been somewhat apathetic when it comes to politics, perhaps because they’ve never had much say in their fate. They've been mostly quiet--until now.

They roar. 

I’m with the protestors. They are fighting for self-determination, for the freedoms they were promised in the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration (which led to the return of the former British crown colony to China in 1997), for the transparency and true social order--one that was borne out of respect for the rule of law and not of oppression, state-sponsored violence or white terror--that had made the city such a beautiful, phenomenal place to live. 

I’m posting this because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has turned on its propaganda machine in full force, and I feel obliged to say something about what I know.

What a turbo-charged CCP propaganda machine means is this: many of you will be faced with what Hong Kong and Taiwan see every day--a massive influx of social media posters who are on CCP’s payroll, whose task is to push a script written by the CCP. A script that is mostly fictional, filled with half-truths and lies. The script on Hong Kong has evolved into this: the Hong Kong protestors are violent rioters who lack popular support and above all, are terrorists and separatists. These terms are chosen to make the Western world withdraw their sympathy. They’re also designed to further fan the hatred between mainland Chinese and Hong Kongers, to ensure that the former would see what’s going on in Hong Kong as something nefarious, rather than an outcry against the ills of their common rule. To fuel the nationalist sentiment that has been propping up the mainland regime as its economy deteriorates.

Tactics of these paid social media posters include: dumping multiple posts in a thread, often repeated messages that make little sense beyond swear words and nationalistic battle cries, which quell any reasonable discussions; making death- and doxxing- threats, especially if the target is a Chinese speaker; claiming freedom of speech as they spread lies and attack their opponents, knowing that Westerners treasure their freedom of speech and are wary of trampling upon it especially when it comes to the voice of foreigners, so they get to be the loudest and drown out rival opinions. (Australians may know that this tactic has moved beyond social media: pro-Beijing supporters have physically attacked peaceful rallies in support of the Hong Kong protests, to the praise of the Chinese embassy). The meeker ones would insist that Westerners lack understanding of the situation; who are you to know what’s going on in Asia? The internal affairs of the vast People’s Republic of China? They claim that they, who’re Chinese like the Hong Kongers and Taiwanese possessed by their government, have first dibs on the truth.

Please remember this: the truth is the one thing these posters don’t have. News in the People’s Republic of China is completely censored, to a degree perhaps unimaginable for most in the West. Media outlets in China have not reported at all about the anti-extradition bill movement that had started the Hong Kong protests, about the massive but peaceful demonstrations that had only gone unheard, about the many lies the government has told before and since (the extradition bill hasn’t been withdrawn; “being dead” is not a legal term), and above all, the unprecedented police brutality that have caused the young protestors, angry and terrified, to retaliate as a means to defend themselves, knowing that the local police is now part of the CCP political machine (the Hong Kong government is officially no more than a puppet) and is working with the mafia, both local and from China, to hunt and beat protestors down (Note: Hong Kongers do not carry firearms). 

Western reporters at the scene have called the situation chaotic, a mayhem, but I’d like to emphasize this: the protestors have, so far, not looted one shop; their targets have remained singly focused on the locations and people that they saw as symbolic of those responsible for the betrayal of Hong Kong, as snitches working on CCP’s orders. The chambers of the Legislative Council (equivalent to the Congress / Parliament; they didn’t even touch the library). The HK police and its headquarters. The “ghosts”, as locals call them: police / soldiers sent from the mainland dressed in Hong Kong police’s uniform (such that CCP can deflect accusations of interference); fake reporters who’ve mingled among the protestors to take photos for later identification and arrests. This laser-focus may not hold for long: police officers have increasingly been spotted donning the attire of protestors to stir up emotions and excess violence, even plant evidence in the protestors’ belongings (caught on live feeds). The “reporter” from the mainland who was beaten up at the airport last week, who has since been hailed as a hero in Chinese state media and Chinese social media cycles, is very likely such an example of CCP's attempt to destroy the protests from within. Mr Fu drew the ire of the protestors because he possessed the same blue “I love HK” t-shirt worn by a group of thugs who’d beaten up protestors several nights before, thugs who appeared to be of the same crop as those who’d attacked subway passengers indiscriminately on July 21st with the implicit blessing by the police and several prominent pro-Beijing figures. Global Times, the state propaganda tabloid, later claimed the man works for them--hence his “reporter” status--but the man didn’t own a press pass. Many have since suspected, from his unusual behavior leading to his “detainment” and beating by the protestors (he wore the fluorescent vest worn by reporters, then claimed to be a tourist, then tried to run away), that his presence was planned with the intention of making the protestors fall into CCP’s script of acting like violent rioters in front of the international press--and it worked. The incident was widely reported. 

The beating was wrong, and the protestors had willingly chosen to fall into the trap. But were their suspicion, their rage and fears completely unfounded? The clip has gone viral with the push from Chinese-sponsored social media posters as evidence of the protestors’ brutality. What about the context?

Related to this, please consider: a powerful weapon that CCP has, that Hong Kong and most countries do not, is the sheer number of people at its disposal. People it can coerce, bribe, brainwash, and unleash onto Facebook and Twitter etc, derail conversations and force opinions their way. Social media is, by definition, run by the masses. CCP has the masses.

So, please, please don’t be led by the mass when reading news surrounding the CCP, and now, Hong Kong. Please doubt the things you hear on social media, even if the voice seems the loudest, even if it seems to be the majority. Even if its English is perfect. Even if it claims to originate from Hong Kong--Westerners are not trained to detect the subtle difference in language use between the two places, but speaking as an observing Hong Konger, pro-CCP posters playing Hong Kongers in social media threads are very common occurrences. Go through the facts. Watch videos longer than a few seconds that capture the context. Think. Do not trust anyone. Do not trust me.

Please choose a reliable news source. New York Times (US) and The Guardian (UK) have been following Hong Kong’s protests closely from the start. TIME magazine has also done some in-depth coverage: its latest Asia edition presents a decent summary of the root causes of the protests. Also of note: the majority of Hong Kong’s local press, such as the English-speaking South China Morning Post (SCMP), have been bought out by capitalists affiliated with the CCP (SCMP is owned by Alibaba). Outlets from Taiwan and South East Asia (Singapore, Malaysia etc.) are often CCP-friendly as well for similar reasons. These outlets aren’t as outwardly pro-CCP as the Chinese state-run People’s Daily or Global Times, but they can be very skewed, if not lying, when the actions of CCP itself come to focus. 

For those who’d like to watch the happenings live, relatively free from the filters by news agencies and their political agenda, here’s a link. Videos will appear whenever events and live feeds take place:

https://ncehk2019.github.io/nce-live/

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you’ll consider following the news of Hong Kong, listen to what the people are fighting for and judge for yourself where you stand. Yes, it’ll look ugly at times. Yes, you’ll see the protestors act rashly, out of anger and fear and despair. You’ll see them make mistakes, do things that make you frown, think they’ve gone too far. And if you’re planning to travel there, their actions may cause major inconveniences. I hope you’ll still choose to stand with them--do you know they've actually gone out and apologized for their behavior in the airport? Visited the subway station where the police had fired tear gas and cleaned up the toxic residue? Would rioters or terrorists do that? 

The protestors are up against one of the most brutal and inhumane regimes in modern history, and they have no leaders, no precedence, no army, no funds, no backing of any kind other than popular support, other than a pure and simple faith that their actions will defend their homes and future. This isn’t a regime they can vote out in the next election. This isn’t even a regime with which they can have a conversation or make humble demands (the Five Demands of the protestors are almost laughably simple). The path the protestors have taken these two months has been made one step at a time; they’re learning, feeling their way out of the dark as they go. Because the movement is largely driven by social media, people like myself with a command of the local language can sometimes catch a glimpse of how the decisions unfold; it’s messy and loud and fascinating. It’s an experiment on direct democracy.

Do I agree with the protestors’ every action? No. But they’re the ones fighting the fight; they're the ones showing the strength, the courage that my generation, and the generations before me, didn’t have. They’re fighting because older generations like my own saw every warning sign of CCP’s encroachment but didn’t do enough, say enough. For me, one of the most heartbreaking photos of the protests was shot on July 1st, of a graffiti on a pillar in the trashed Legislative Council: it’s you (the government) who taught me that peaceful demonstrations are useless. This was a lesson they learned; this is a lesson many Hong Kongers have learned this summer. And most of these protestors have to face this knowledge so young; 700+ have been arrested so far, most in their late teens and 20s (youngest: 13). Rioting carries a sentence of 10 years; now that their “crimes” have been escalated to terrorism and treason, one can only imagine how horrific their sentences will be, the treatment those arrested are facing, even now, in detention before the trial. This is the price they’re willing to pay, for the right to self-determine, for the freedoms that should’ve been theirs all along. And the only way they can “win”, if their victory is only that the last cry of Hong Kong can be heard before CCP clenches its throat (which it will undoubtedly do), is if the West pays attention to what’s happening. 

Please do. Please help.

香港加油。天佑香港。

God bless Hong Kong.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Sun Myung Moon – Emperor of the Universe video and transcript

The link above is to a 47 minute version of the original 60 minute documentary.

“REPUTATIONS Sun Myung Moon: Emperor of the Universe” 

A BBC / A&E Network co-production    2000.

It may also have been known as “Reverend Sun Myung Moon: Emperor of the Universe”. It was broadcast as a 60 minute documentary by the BBC.In the US and Asia a shortened version was broadcast.

_____________________________________

Sun Myung Moon died in 2012. These words were written on his coffin:

天一國眞聖德皇帝億兆蒼生 (천일국 진성덕황제 억조창생)


萬勝君皇太平聖代萬事亨通 (만승군황 태평성대 만사형통)

“True Emperor of Cheon Il Guk with Holiness and Virtue


Emperor of Absolute Victory over the whole”

_____________________________________

Contributors

Allen Tate Wood (ex senior member) Antonio Betancourt (Unification Church) Bo Hi Pak (special assistant to Moon) Chung Hwan Kwak (senior leader, Unification Church) Cathryn Mazer (ex follower) Cesar Zaduski (Unification Church, Brazil) Donna Collins (ex member, second gen.) Sir Edward Heath (former British Prime Minister) George Bush (former President of the US) Herb Rosedale (anti-cult lawyer and founding member of ICSA) Jorge Guldenzoph (Unification Church, Uruguay) Juan Ramos (Bank Worker’s Association of Uruguay) General John Singlaub (former Chairman of World Anti-Communist League) Michael Hershman (US Congressional Investigator) Nansook Hong (Moon’s ex daughter-in-law) Neil Salonen (former President of the Unification Church in the US) Robin Marsh (Unification Church, UK) Ron Paquette (former executive in Moon organization) Ronald Reagan (former President of the US) William Cheshire (former Editor, Washington Times)

________________________________

Transcript updated October 23, 2021.

A transcript of the full 60 minute production follows. Note that about a dozen images have been added to the transcript. These are indicated by ❖. Some are just better or alternative versions of images that are in the documentary. A few comments have been added.

November 28, 1999 Reno, Nevada

Narrator: “Yesterday the body of a 21-year-old Korean male was found on a casino skywalk after apparently falling 17 floors. A hotel guest spotted the body shortly after dawn. He had checked in the previous day around 8am. It sure looks like suicide.”

Narrator: “In the press the young man’s death stirred barely a ripple of interest – until it emerged who he was. He lived on a palatial estate. His father was famous – a modern day messiah.”

Seoul, South Korea

Bo Hi Pak (special assistant to Moon): “He is a great teacher. He is a great prophet, and the messiah.”

Antonio Betancourt (Unification Church): “We see him as the lord of the universe, the first person coming as God’s representative.”

Narrator: “A convicted felon, he controls wealth beyond imagination.”

Allen Tate Wood (ex senior member): “At the heart of Moon’s psyche is the drive, the need for power.”

1:00 Narrator: “He thinks he can literally buy countries?”

Herb Rosedale (lawyer, ICSA): “Absolutely”

Narrator: “He leads a church or a cult?”

Allen Tate Wood: “He [Moon] is quoted as saying this, ‘We want absolute control of the mind,’ and to me that means brainwashing”

Narrator: “He marries off total strangers.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon is, sort of, [the] world’s finest matchmaker.”

Rev Moon: “Mansei!”

Allen Tate Wood: “They are given a kendo stick, and the woman has to bend over and the man hits her three times as hard as he can with the kendo stick.”

Narrator: “He crusaded against communism.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Who did liberate communism? To me, [it is] very clear. It’s the Rev. Moon.”

Narrator: “His stated aim is world domination.”

Donna Collins (ex follower): “You have to be prepared to die for him, and he says that.”

Cheering crowd: “Mansei!”

2:00 Narrator: “He is Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Moonies”

Cheering crowd: “Mansei!”

Allen Tate Wood: “He’d clap his hands and he’d say: ‘Where I am going is to the Kingdom of Heaven, and I want you to come with me, all of those of you who want to come with me, come ahead. The rest of you, out of my way.’”

Allen Tate Wood: “One of the things they say in their prayers is ‘Crush Satan, Out Satan, Crush Satan, Out Satan.’ Oh, it was tremendously exciting. These were the end times. These were the ‘Last Days’ and we had the great blessing to be on the side of the son of God. I loved him, I adored him.”

Antonio Betancourt: “It is an awesome feeling when you are near him.  You feel in the presence of an enormous power.”

Allen Tate Wood: “This is a man who is going towards his destiny regardless of what anybody else thinks, says or does.”

3:02 Narrator: “Moon says that from soon after his birth in 1920, in a village in North Korea, he was clairvoyant and could see the future. His legend is strange and fascinating. At age 15, his followers believe, he walked up into the mountains one Easter morning to pray. There were clouds tipped with gold. Jesus stepped out of the clouds.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Put his hands on his head, and the voice was very clear: ‘Now you are to take over my undone mission. I will be walking every step of the day with you.”

Narrator: “Moon protested he was unworthy, but Jesus insisted.” LINK

4:00 Bo Hi Pak: “To me, Rev Moon coming to this world is the second coming of Christ.”

Antonio Betancourt: “Well his power is greater than Jesus’ because Jesus is working with him, so two is better than one. And many people have seen this spiritually, when Rev Moon is speaking they see Jesus next to him.”

Narrator: “Then, his followers believe, other prophets appeared.”

Bo Hi Pak: “He met with Buddha, met with Mohammed, met with Confucius. He had many, many incredible spiritual encounters.”

Narrator: “So Jesus and the Rev Moon are working together?”

Antonio Betancourt: “Absolutely, absolutely. But not only. Jesus is working with Rev Moon in America. In the Islam, it is Mohammed. In Asia it is Buddha.”

4:55 Narrator: “He came down from the mountain transformed. In his village Moon was supposed to have wisdom beyond his years. He was seen to wrestle trees on the hillside in a state of trance. Before World War II, Korea was under Japanese occupation. Koreans were ordered to follow the Japanese Shinto faith. Now nearly 20, Moon says his struggle was ‘not with the Japanese, it was with the devil.’”

5:40 Bo Hi Pak: “I have never seen any man so dedicated to God.”

Narrator: “Legend has it that at his home in Seoul, overwhelmed by the suffering of God, he would cry for days on end. Once his tears leaked into the room below. As Japan made ready for World War II, Moon went to Tokyo to study engineering.”  [In that way he could avoid being drafted into the Japanese military.]

6:05 Chung-hwan Kwak (senior leader, Unification Church): “I asked him, why you don’t go to missionary school, seminary school, why you go to engineering course. He’s laughing, smiling and he explained, he’s not necessary [to go] to theological seminary…”

Narrator: “Because God had told him that he was the messiah?”

Chung-hwan Kwak: “Absolutely, of course.”

Narrator: “As Moon saw it, evil began in the Garden of Eden. Eve tasted the forbidden fruit. She had sex with Lucifer, the archangel. Then she had sex with Adam.”

Cesar Zaduski (Unification Church): “But for Rev Moon, it is quite clear there was a sex relationship. Why so? That is very simple, because what is the part of Adam and Eve they hide after that? If they had eaten some apple they would hide the mouth, but they hide the sexual parts.”

7:15 Narrator: “Her original sin was transmitted to future generations. Hence the ‘Fall of Man.’ There was famine and pestilence. As Moon told his followers, he was the third Adam, here to restore the perfect world that God had designed.”

▲ Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han’s 1960 wedding

7:55 Bo Hi Pak: “You have no way to know if Rev Moon is the messiah just [by] looking at him. He was praying more than 17 hours every day. He is a man of prayer. Through him I feel elevated and closer to God.”

Narrator: “Ironically, Moon’s church was born out of suffering. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese surrendered and pulled their troops out of Korea.”

Douglas MacArthur: “I now invite the representatives of the Emperor of Japan to sign the instrument of surrender.”

Narrator: “Now there was religious freedom in Korea. Back in Seoul, Moon got married. According to legend he told his wife he was going out to buy rice for their new baby. He never came back. God told him to go to North Korea – to preach.”

9:20 Bo Hi Pak: “His way of teaching, it was just simply fascinating. All the conventional questions [were] resolved automatically, like the snow melting.”

Narrator: “His belief that Korea had spawned a new messiah outraged many Christians.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev. Moon was accused as heretic.”

Narrator: “Worse still, Soviet troops were swarming into North Korea, stifling freedom of worship almost as soon as it began. Today Moon’s followers are told that he was framed by the new communist regime of Kim Il-sung – punished for speaking the word of God.”

Bo Hi Pak: “He was absolutely incredibly tortured by the communist police. Incredible. He was just virtually beaten to death.”

Narrator: “He was sent to North Korea’s Heungnam Death Camp.”

Narrator: “According to a later FBI report, the charge was bigamy.”

Bo Hi Pak: “None of the prisoners survived in that prison more that 18 months.”

10:15 Narrator: “In his book, Divine Principle, which lays out his theology, Moon says he endured suffering unimagined by anyone in history. He suffered so much he atoned for the sins of mankind and became perfect.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon was sentenced to that death camp for five years imprisonment.”

Narrator: “In 1950 North Korea invaded the South. The cold war had begun, a long confrontation between the Soviets and the West. Perversely, the Korean War saved Moon’s life. UN bombers pounded the city where he was held. In the chaos Moon was freed.”

11:14 Bo Hi Pak: “The day before they were systematically killing all the prisoners, knowing that UN forces [were] coming up. Before [it was] Rev Moon’s turn, luckily the UN forces rushed the gate.” [Only the political prisoners were being executed. Moon was in jail for bigamy and was not due to be executed. The guards fled the camp, and that is how Moon became free.]

11:40 Narrator: “He joined thousands of refugees fleeing south to escape the communists. His followers speak with awe of how he carried an injured man across Korea.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Roughly 200 miles walking and walking in the mountains he carry him on [his] back. [An] 80kg man on [his] back, all the way to the south. To me, that alone shows him [to be] the messiah to me.” [Pak Chung-hwa, the man concerned, explained that he was only carried twice by Moon. Each time was for about 200-300 yards, and it was never through water – once it was up a mountain pass. Pak was pushed on a bicycle for the first part of the journey, and was able to walk the last third. ref Michael Breen’s book, Sun Myung Moon, the early years, for details.]

❖

Narrator: “For years the Moon organization used this photo [above] as evidence, before quietly conceding it was of someone else. In a tiny shack made of US army ration boxes Moon founded his Unification Church. He and his followers often went hungry.”

Chung-hwan Kwak (Church elder): “Our tiny group, very poor, under that circumstances, he trained us [to] overcome temptations of food.”

Singing: “Hallelujah, Hallelujah.”

▲ Sun Myung Moon was given a private jet by the Japanese Unification Church members on his 80th birthday.

Narrator: “In the decades that followed Moon would become rich and powerful. His anthem, inevitably, Handel’s ‘Messiah.’ He would be accused of breaking laws and seeking influence. He’d make friends in high places.”

Allen Tate Wood: “To me that is the heart of Moon’s psyche, it is the drive, the need for power. He is not interested in people developing and finding themselves. He is interested in people finding him and kneeling to him, and bowing to him and then giving him all their strength, all their energy, all their power.”

Narrator: “His church would be accused of brainwashing teenagers and taking their assets.”

Allen Tate Wood: “All of your money, somebody else’s money, their land, their property, any kind of real or material goods they have. Your job is to get a hold of that and bring it into the organization, because outside of the organization it has no meaning. It has no value. It is property owned by satan.”

Narrator: “Moon would talk openly of controlling the earth. [Moon’s words:] “The whole world is in my hands and I will conquer and subjugate the world.”

14:05 Herb Rosedale: “Just as he claims to be a man of love, and yet if you look at any of his speeches, his speeches will exude hatred towards those who disagree with him.”

Narrator: “From the beginning Moon believed that rival churches, the media, even the Korean government, were out to get him.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Just like Jesus Christ came 2000 years ago, he encountered incredible opposition [in] those days [from] the existing religions.”

Narrator: “In Seoul in the 1950s there were stories that Moon was having sex with female converts, to purify them.”

Antonio Betancourt (Unification Church): “There were women coming to lectures, who – they’d rather be at lecture than being with their husbands or with their families – so the husbands could not understand what was going on. So for them they must be having some kind of sexual relationship. There must be something wrong. There must be something wrong that is going on in that place.”

❖

▲ These Ewha Womans University students were all expelled because of their involvement with Sun Myung Moon. One of them had a son with Moon.

15:00 Narrator: “However, a later FBI report claimed ‘that women students had been expelled from university in Seoul because of sexual initiation rites with Moon and some others.’”

Nansook Hong (Moon’s ex daughter-in-law): “Moon claimed, since he was the perfect man, a perfect Adam, by sleeping with women he would purify women. And he did tell me that he did those things – it was God’s work.”

15:55 Narrator: “Divorcing his first wife, he married a woman 20 years younger than himself, Hak Ja Han. He and his new wife would be the ‘True Parents of all mankind.’ He told his followers: ‘Love True Parents more than your own self, spouse or children.’”

❖

▲ Sun Myung Moon married the teenage Hak Ja Han in 1960.

Donna Collins (ex follower): “He said, you know, ‘You must know that I am your only parent, and your father is bad for you. You must forget about him. We are the True Parents. I am the True Parent.’”

Narrator: “In the early days, Moon lived above his church. His speeches would go on for half the night.”

Chung-hwan Kwak (Unification Church): “He never slept. Never. He continued usually until 1:00am, 2:00am. Never slept. His sleep time is always less than three hours. Only two or three hours.”

Narrator: “The Korean War had ended in a bizarre face-off between North and South – surreal, yet deadly. It was a microcosm of what was happening all over the world. Moon was made by the new Cold War.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon frequently said ‘The communist goal is to kick off God from the planet.’ The communistic ideology, if it takes over the entire world, then there is no room for God. We cannot allow God going out of this planet. We need God. Rev Moon from day one is truly an anti-communist.”

Narrator: “To Moon, communist North Korea was satanic, and its Stalinist leader, Kim Il-sung, the devil.”

Bo Hi Pak: “If communists win in the Cold War, and if the entire world is communized, then [there is] no room for free men to stand.”

18:00 Narrator: “In Seoul, nobody laughed at Moon anymore. The word now was that he had powerful new friends, including Kim Jong-pil founder of Korea’s ferocious new intelligence agency, the KCIA. It crushed dissent. In Washington, the Americans heard that Kim Jong-pil was using Moon’s church as a political tool. America was where Moon would make his future.”

Bo Hi Pak: “He looked at America as the chosen nation, so in the most crucial role [that] must get played by America.”

Narrator: “Rather fortunately for Moon, he arrived in America at a time of great anguish. The Vietnam war had divided the generations. American cities were full of teenagers looking for answers. Few knew why Americans were dying in Vietnam, or raining death on a country they had barely heard of. Moon built his church on their self doubt.”

Allen Tate Wood: “Here was a guy that just seemed to be just totally sure. There was just this tremendous energy, tremendous force which he communicated. It was as though his whole body was going to one place, to one point.

Rev Moon speaks in Korean

Bo Hi Pak: “We are not just ordinary Christians.”

Narrator: “Teenagers would be intercepted on the street by Moonies. Often they would be invited to some innocuous seminar.”

Cathryn Mazer (ex follower): “These individuals were just unusually open and honest and friendly and caring and playful and sweet.”

Narrator: “Cathryn Mazer was taken to a house on Long Island.”

Cathryn Mazer: “The name ‘Rev Moon’ never came up. I actually asked when I was first going with them to the site, if they were the Unification Church, and I was told ‘no.’”

20:25 Narrator: “An FBI analyst wrote: ‘Moon’s success depends on very subtle … deceptive tactics.’ Finally Cathryn Mazer was told about Moon. He was her ‘True Parent.’ It would be dangerous to contact her real parents…”

Cathryn Mazer: “… because they could be used by Satan to take away the amazing gift of having met the messiah. That Satan uses the ones you love to influence you away from the remarkable and unsurpassable gift you have been given.”

Narrator: “She says the Moonies encouraged her to lie to her mother on the phone, not telling her where she really was.

Cathryn Mazer: “But it was just important, whatever I told her, that I did not tell her that I was involved with the Unification Church.

Narrator: “And they were perfectly happy for you to lie?”

Cathryn Mazer: “Oh, I was encouraged to lie. I was asked to lie.”

Narrator: “Cathryn’s worried family traced her to the house on Long Island.”

Cathryn Mazer’s mother: “I want to see my daughter. I need to see somebody.”  

Moonie: “I am sorry, she is not here.”

Lawyer: “But you are not prepared to let Cathryn’s mother go in and see for herself.”

Narrator: “They were too late.”

Mazer family: “Well if you can’t prove to us that she is not here, then why should we leave under the assumption that she is not here?”

Narrator: “She had been moved, but the Moonies wouldn’t say where.”

Cathryn’s mother: “Oh my…” 

Lawyer: “Just calm down.”

Cathryn’s mother: “Right, you talk with them.”

Narrator: “So you actually thought that your mother projected Satan.”

Cathryn Mazer: “Yeah, I thought she was being, you know, for all intents and purposes, possessed.”

Narrator: “In trying to find you.”

Cathryn Mazer nods in agreement.

Narrator: “From the early seventies, Moon would be accused of brainwashing, mind control. Neil Salonen, once president of the church in America, says the messiah never brainwashed his followers, or cut them off from their parents.”

Neil Salonen (Unification Church): “Because we are family based, in many cases members, for the first time, begin experiencing a deeper and closer relationship with their parents.”

Group at mansion guardhouse: “They’re worried about their daughter.” “OK, sir...”

Narrator: “But when Cathryn Mazer’s parents arrived at Moon’s mansion outside New York, guards called the police.”

Group at mansion guardhouse: “We thought we…”

Allen Tate Wood: “He is quoted as saying this, that we want absolute control of the mind, and to me that means brainwashing.”

Narrator: “And this brainwashing comes directly from Moon?”

Allen Tate Wood: “Absolutely, Yeah.”

Group at mansion guardhouse: “So we should show up there…”

Narrator: “Ex-Moonie Ron Paquette says he spoke to Moon’s son about brainwashing.”

23:00 Ron Paquette (former executive Moon organization): “And I said in many ways it reminds me sometimes of the communist camps, and at that point he said: ‘Yeah I know,’ he said, ‘Father learned that when he was in prison camp,’ and I kept trying to make the point that no, no, the way we bring in people, and the way we control people is kind of like the way this goes on in North Korean prison camps, and he kept saying ‘I know’.”

Narrator: “Belvedere was the first of Moon’s magnificent estates in America. Once it was owned by America’s wealthiest families. In some cases recruits would make over everything they owned to Moon, then they would go out selling trinkets at inflated prices.”

Cathryn Mazer: “I was sent out on the streets, sometimes for 14 or 16 hours at a time. Sometimes in very dangerous neighborhoods.”

Narrator: “Wandering big cities, Cathryn Mazer lives on hamburgers and donuts.”

Cathryn Mazer: “There were many, many times we were just on the side of basically a highway alone with hundreds of dollars of cash on our persons.”

24:10 Narrator: “In the end she decided to leave the Moonies.”

Cathryn Mazer: “I was told stories about other people who had betrayed the messiah, or who had walked away. Something really, really bad could happen to me, whether it be illness or a random act of violence. I mean I was scared. I was terrified.”

Narrator: “Cathryn went back to her mother. Others stayed, giving Moon their all.”

Ron Paquette: “They like to talk in the church about the blood, sweat and tears of Moon. Well I think, you know, by and large he’s living off the blood, sweat and tears of a lot of members.”

Antonio Betancourt: “He receives the treatment of a messiah, and therefore we have the rituals of the court. And in this court it is as pompous, it is as beautiful as being in the presence of an earthly king, or queen, for example the Queen Elizabeth. It is not Hollywood. It is real. That is the court of the messiah, but after this is finished, he becomes a very, very ordinary man. He goes and digs his hands in the dirt. He examines pebbles. He goes into the mud. He goes and eats in McDonalds.”

Moon praying: “With this Blessing Ceremony, I thank you that we build the superhighway to you.”

25:40 Narrator: “The greatest honor for a Moonie, is to be married by Moon.”

Allen Tate Wood: “It is like a pyramid marketing scheme, and it is embedded in the theology. You, in fact, cannot be married by Moon, which is the ultimate blessing according to their theology, until you have brought three people into the church who are ready to die in your place. Once you have brought three people in, then you have the right to be married, you have the right to be blessed by Moon.”

Narrator: “He would even find you a partner, a total stranger.”

Rev Moon praying: “Today I am blessing this … and declare the true … of God…”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon see the family background and the future. So Rev Moon is, sort of, [the] world’s finest matchmaker.”

Rev Moon: “Amen”

Narrator: “Sometimes Moon would choose marriage partners from their photos.”

❖

▲ Rev Moon matching couples by photograph.

Rev Moon: “Amen”

26:30 Nansook Hong: “Sometimes there is a picture matching, and sometimes the people [are in] rows of men and women [sitting] together, and he just picks you, you – you, you – and you are supposed to be husband and wife. And a lot of times it doesn’t work.”

Rev Moon: “Mansei!”

Bo Hi Pak: “That marriage is far more durable, and lasting longer. Of course there are some breakages, but not like the 50 percent in the western world.”

M.C.: “Welcome to Blessing ’97. World Peace through ideal families.”

Narrator: “The church claims that millions of couples have been blessed by Moon in ceremonies from Seoul to Washington, even at the 2000 room New Yorker Hotel, bought by Moon for a few million dollars.”

Robin Marsh (Unification Church): “He looked down into my eyes, and I felt that he knew everything about me. And then he guided me to where my wife was already standing. And he looked at us, and he just beckoned to us to go. We went to another room and discussed whether we would like to continue with this match. And I really felt that this was God’s choice. And I felt a lot of God’s happiness and joy at that time.”

Narrator: “Sometimes the matchings took a bizarre turn.”

Allen Tate Wood: “If they accept it and they come back in the room, the first thing that they do in their relationship is they are given a kendo stick. And the woman has to bend over and the man hits her three times as hard as he can with the kendo stick. And the audience then judges that. If they didn’t hit hard enough, the man has to hit her again, until the audience accepts the strength of the beating. Then the woman turns around and she beats the man. It is the same thing. So this is how these marriages made in heaven begin.”

Narrator: “Moon seems convinced of his own divinity.”

Donna Collins: “But he was kind of innocent in some way. I mean he was very like a child amid all these big important people.”

Narrator: “Donna Collins’ parents led the church in Britain.”

Donna Collins: “You know he seemed sweet at times.”

Voice: “Dream technology, yes”

Narrator: “Moon seemed anything but sweet to church leader Allen Tate Wood, summoned to his home is South Korea. A man lay prostrate on the floor in front of the messiah.”

29:00 Allen Tate Wood: “And from that position he made some kind of greeting to Mr. Moon. And Mr. Moon then barked something back, and they had a conversation. This man never raised his head off the ground. He was looking into the rug. And when this was going on, I began to understand that this is how I am to relate to Mr. Moon, and through me they are teaching all Americans how we are to relate to Mr. Moon.”

Narrator: “By the 1970s Moon was beginning to enjoy fame and fabulous wealth. In Asia he was building an industrial empire, processing titanium and ginseng, making machinery and guns. Over the years church income would grow phenomenally.”

Neil Salonen: “I do think that we are talking hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t know how specific beyond that I could be.”

Narrator: “In the United States the Moons would spend a fortune buying hotels newspapers, fishing fleets and property. In a bleak Massachusetts town they even made machine guns.”

Narrator: “Meanwhile Moon had found friends in high places. He sprang to the aid of Richard Nixon, accused of ordering the Watergate coverup.”

Richard Nixon: “Tonight let me explain to you what I did about Watergate after the break-in occurred, so that you can better understand the fact that I also had no knowledge of…” [August 15, 1973]

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon made a crusade for the rescue of President Nixon.

Narrator: “As Washington bayed for his resignation, Moonies demonstrated for the President. [January 31, 1974]

Allen Tate Wood: “Meanwhile you have ABC, NBC and CBS covering this as though this were some sort of spontaneous demonstration of Americans supporting Nixon, when in fact every single person in the park was a Moonie who had been ordered to be there.”

Narrator: “by Moon?” Allen Tate Wood: “by Moon.”

31:00 Narrator: “Meeting Nixon at the White House, Moon advised him to burn the Watergate tapes.”

Bo Hi Pak: “And there Rev Moon saying, Mr. President what you have to do [is to] ask for the forgiveness of the people.”

❖

▲ Sun Myung Moon’s Little Angels with President Nixon.

Narrator: “At congressional hearings, Moon was accused of conspiring with Korean intelligence to buy influence in Washington.”

Donald Fraser: “I’ll tell you what, Colonel, let’s split the difference. How’s ten minutes?”

Michael Hershman (Congressional Investigator): “Never before or since had we seen such a blatant attempt to influence our political, social, cultural institutions.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Could you kindly give me five more minutes. I said 15 minutes.”

Narrator: “So there was no doubt to you that the KCIA and Moon were hand in hand?”

Michael Hershman (Congressional Investigator): “There was no doubt.”

Narrator: “The South Koreans were terrified the Americans would abandon them, just as they had abandoned South Vietnam.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Korea would be a second Vietnam. If Korea becomes a second Vietnam, Korea collapses, then there is no way, no way the free world can survive.”

Narrator: “The South Koreans believed that Moon had the power to influence events in Washington. And according to a CIA source, were willing to pay for his help. The source claimed the money had been channeled through a company in South Korea. Congressional investigators found that the head of Korean intelligence once held a meeting with Moon’s American leaders at a hotel in San Francisco.”

Bo Hi Pak: “The public and the media misunderstood him, and they thought Rev Moon is act upon Korean government front or Korean CIA front. He must be funded.”

Narrator: “By the mid seventies, Moon was at the pinnacle of his power, holding enormous rallies in American cities. The church claimed 300,000 people attended this rally in Washington.” 

Rev Moon speaking in Korean on September 18, 1976

Bo Hi Pak translated: “Today America is plagued with problems: racism, juvenile delinquency and immorality. Christianity is declining. Communism is rising. The menace of communism is everywhere. Of all these problems….”

Narrator: “Privately, investigators believed, Moon was part of a KCIA plan to win over the Washington establishment. He told Allen Tate Wood to find friends in the military and intelligence community.”

Allen Tate Wood: “His key strategy was, we will find some powerful man or some powerful organization, and we will find out what their agenda is, and we will attend them and serve them, and eventually they will come to recognize in us their greatest ally, and at that point we then begin to be able to dictate to them.”

Rev Moon speaking in Korean.

Bo Hi Pak translated: “We shall never let him down. Never, never, never. Thank you.”

34:00

Subcommittee on International Organizations. April 20, 1978

Bo Hi Pak: “The Lord is my shepherd, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for thou art with me. Thank you Mr. Chairman.”

Narrator: “Bo Hi Pak denied allegations that his master was controlled by the KCIA.”

Bo Hi Pak: “They were trying to crush our movement through the Congressional Hearing.”

Narrator: “Incredibly, Pak accused the committee chairman of being a Soviet spy. The committee in turn accused Moon of violating US tax, immigration and banking law.”

Michael Hershman (Congressional Investigator): “If you were against him, if you were threatening his objectives, you were the devil.”

Narrator: “As the committee saw it, no-one realised how dangerous Moon was, because they didn’t bother to listen to his speeches.”

The words of Rev Moon: “There will come a time when my words almost become law. If I want a certain thing it will be done.”

Narrator: “On the Korean border Moon seemed to expect a bloody apocalypse, out of which he would emerge leader of a united Korea, and then of the world.”

Allen Tate Wood: “And he said in this final battle, the only way for the forces of good to win maybe to force the world to wake up. He said the way we will do that is we will send thousands and thousands of Unification Church members and place them on the border, on the Demilitarized Zone inbetween North and South Korea. And he said if the North Koreans attack then the Unification Church members will be the first people to be killed. If we can have a lot of young people killed who are from England, France, Germany, the United States that will force those nations to come in on the side of South Korea. He would talk to us for hours and hours and hours about how God is searching for a nation. He wants to get Korea, but if he can’t get Korea, then he will try to get the United States. If he can get the United States then he will get Japan. If he can get the United States and Japan and then England, if he can get those three nations that he will quickly grab seven. And once he has got seven, then he will swallow the whole world.”

Rev Moon speaking in Korean.

36:15 Donna Collins: “Loyalty at the end of the day is to him. You have to be prepared to die for him, and he says that.”

Narrator: “In 1982 a young Korean girl arrived at Moon’s estate outside New York.”

Nansook Hong: “It was absolutey beautiful – big mansions, big rooms. The room that I stayed [in] it was like a princess’s room.”

Narrator: “Moon had chosen her to marry one of his sons. She was barely 15.”

Nansook Hong: “Every time we saw him we had to [do] full bows. He was God. He was really God for everybody.”

Narrator: “Inside the estate a fortress mentality prevailed.”

Nansook Hong: “There is [the] inside world and [the] outside world. There were outside people and there was us. We were the chosen people and [the] outside people are satanic people.”

Narrator: “She saw church leaders arriving from Asia with bags of cash for the Moons.”

Nansook Hong: “I saw sometimes a million dollars, sometimes two million dollars, sometimes $200,000 but for them it is really not a lot of money. It is for their own personal use.”

Narrator: “Publicly Moon railed against gambling, but Nansook says he took her and the rest of his entourage to Las Vegas. An assistant would place bets for him. Did you say to him, ‘Father, I thought we were supposed not to gamble.’”

Nansook Hong: “No, of course not. Haha. If I wanted to die, maybe. No. No, we never raised any questions or doubts. We just had to be there accepting.”

Narrator: “If Moon thought he was safe from earthly law, he was to be disillusioned. He was accused of tax evasion.”

Ron Paquette (former executive Moon organization): “Not paying your taxes, withholding payroll taxes, paying people under the table cash so that we didn’t have to pay the government money, that saved Father money, so therefore it was OK. It was doing God’s will beause anything that supported Moon, or supported the agenda, was doing God’s will.”

Narrator: “He asked God for deliverance.”

Nansook Hong: “We prayed on the holy rock every morning and so did a lot of us. We were there all night praying for Moon, but it seems like nothing worked.”

Narrator: “In 1984 Moon was sent to jail.”

38:44 Lawyer: “The trial judge himself said quite openly that of course were his religion less controversial the government would have had less interest in pursuing the matter.”

Singing: “Justice will be done. Justice will be done.”

Narrator: “To the Moonies, their master was a victim of his beliefs. Martyred by a bigoted and racist Justice Department.”

Nansook Hong: “But we all knew that yes, it was tax evasion.”

[And the serious crime of document forgery] LINK

Narrator: “Released 13 months later, Moon celebrated in his own particular way.”

39:20 Nansook Hong: “Moon crowned himself as the Emperor of the Universe. It was quite odd. Pictures were forbidden. Nobody could take pictures, because it had to be an absolute secret. At that point he became God, in his eyes.”

Narrator: “The chastened Moon realised that he needed more than hotels and fishing fleets to achieve power in America. He needed his own voice in Washington. He founded the Washington Times.”

39:40 Nansook Hong: “And now he has one way to control this country, that was through the newspaper. That’s how he saw it.”

Narrator: “It would counter the liberal Washington Post. The Times would become the voice of the Republican right.”

Ronald Reagan: “The American people know the truth, and you, my friends at The Washington Times, have told it to them.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon never side with the political party, only side with God.”

William Cheshire (former Editor, Washington Times): “It was like the messiah had ridden into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, and Moon would say ‘Rah, rah, rah,’ and Pak would say, ‘Reverend Moon say, all men are brothers.’”

Narrator: “...except for Bill Clinton. The Times worried that he might have had KGB connections, then that he was an asset of the CIA. It raised $100,000 for the Contras fighting the left in Nicaragua.”

Michael Hershman (Congressional Investigator): “I believe they lose tens of millions of dollars a year, perhaps as high as 40 million dollars a year.”

CAUSA presentation: “One man has seen the true…”

41:00 Narrator: “Moon spent millions more funding right wing foundations and pressure groups.”

CAUSA presentation: “He has tasted the bitter evils of communism in North Korea…”

William Cheshire: “I mean the amount of money Moon has invested in The Washington Times alone, it just staggers the imagination.”

Narrator: “What you're saying is that nobody else has ever spent as much money lobbying in Washington as Moon.”

William Cheshire: “No one I am aware of.”

Narrator: “The paper declined to let us film its operations.”

Narrator: “Has The Washington Times always been independent?”

Neil Salonen (Unification Church): “I do think so. In fact every editor, that I have known, and I have known them all, has made the point at different times, that they receive much less pressure from the owner, than the owners of any other newspaper might.”

Narrator: “But in 1987, editor Bill Cheshire resigned, accusing the paper of augmenting news agency copy, in Moon’s favor.”

William Cheshire: “I said this has never been an acceptable or ethical performance anywhere I have ever worked. It is totally irregular, totally improper and totally dishonest, and reprehensible. Well didn’t do any good…”

President George Bush: “And the editors of The Washington Times have told me that never once has the man with the vision interfered in the editorial policies of The Washington Times. Rev Moon never tried to tell them what to say, who to endorse.”

Narrator: “Moon invited George Bush to celebrate the birth of another new paper in Latin America.” [The Tiempos del Mundo was launched in Buenos Aires.]

❖

President George Bush speaking at the launch in November 1996: “You know, a lot of my friends in South America don’t know about The Washington Times, but it is an independent voice.”

William Cheshire: “I doubt very seriously if George Bush has any real understanding of the Rev Moon and the Unification Church, and what they represent in terms of crazy theology and all the other things that are part of the Moon story.”

42:50 Narrator: “Some of Moon’s contacts were far to the right of The Washington Times. In Japan, after the war, he had met Ryoichi Sasakawa, a rich and powerful fascist. He had been imprisoned by the Americans as a war criminal.”

❖

▲ Left to right: Won-pok Choi (a ‘second wife’ of Moon), Hak Ja Han, Sun Myung Moon, Ryoichi Sasakawa, unknown, Hyo-won Eu (who wrote the 1957 Divine Principle and was the main lecturer and organizer of the UC in Korea in the late 1950s and 1960s) and Osami Kuboki (leader of the UC of Japan) at Gimpo airport, Seoul.

Allen Tate Wood: “I heard him say to us, referring to himself, he said ‘I am Mr. Moon’s dog.’ This is the most powerful man in Japan who is essentially saying he is under Mr. Moon. He is serving Mr. Moon’s purposes.”

Rev Moon speaking in Korean

Narrator: “Another of Moon’s Japanese contacts was Yoshio Kodama, an extreme right-winger with ties to the Japanese underworld.”

▲ Yoshio Kodama

Allen Tate Wood: “Kodama is reported as saying that, ‘the people say Mr. Moon is the messiah, well that’s fine but Mr. Moon can’t be the messiah without me, because I am the man who supplies him with money.’”

Narrator: “Moon and the Japanese poured cash into the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), which included neo-Nazis, fascists and even death squad members form South America.”

44:00 General John Singlaub (former Chairman of World Anti-Communist League): “His organization, from my point of view, was more of a political effort, that is to save the world from the ‘evil empire’ than it was to save individuals from the devil.”

Rev Moon speaking in Korean

Narrator: “Moon preached love, but aligned himself with murderous Latin regimes that tortured or killed their left wing opponents. Latin America, he believed, would be the graveyard of communism. He was deeply disillusioned with the United States. ‘Satan created this hell on earth,’ he said.”

Inauguration: “I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear that I will…”

Narrator: “Moon had spent many millions supporting Republican causes.”

President Ronald Reagan: “that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, so help me God.”

Narrator: “But the Reagan administration declined to pardon him for his tax offense.

Michael Hershman (Congressional Investigator): “He was extremely bitter, and decided that he could better grow his organization, better grow his influence, outside our shores.”

Narrator: “In poor Uruguay the army had won a wasting war with Tupamaros guerrillas. The capital, Montevideo, was an off-shore banking center were rich foreigners could hide their cash. For Moon it held other attractions too.”

45:30 Michael Hershman: “A friendly legal environment. That is laws and regulations that were not as well developed as here in the United States. A fairly uneducated and poor population, who was ready to accept a message of anyone who made promises for a better life.”

Narrator: “Moon called Uruguay his oasis. Today he owns newspapers and sponsors radio programmes that preach family values. As Moon sees it, if only the world would listen, all its problems from AIDS to racial hatred would simply vanish.”

Chung-hwan Kwak (senior leader, Unification Church): “If all peoples follow our vision, why not be solved?”

Narrator: “War?”

Chung-hwan Kwak: “War also. This is messiah’s law.”

❖

▲ 4,000 Japanese Moonies arrived in Montevideo bringing cash for Moon.

Narrator: “Moon built Uruguay’s first luxury hotel. He also bought a bank. On one occasion bank employees claimed that 4,000 Japanese Moonies had suddenly showed up, depositing millions of dollars in cash.”

Juan Ramos (Bank Worker’s Association): “The money still had the U.S. Federal Reserve band around it. More than $80 million was deposited over the course of a week.”

Narrator: “More than once the authorities accused the bank of breaching banking rules. A local journalist asked embarrassing questions. Some time later, as he told the judge, he was grabbed by two men in a car who stuck a gun in his mouth. They said they had no connection with Moon, but warned him off. Even in his new haven, Moon was under fire.”

Jorge Guldenzoph: “I remember Rev. Moon’s wife saying ‘How long are they going to think we’re bad?’ I felt humbled because there was no trace of resentment or bitterness in him. No part of him was asking why he had to suffer. It was like Jesus on the cross.”

Narrator: “One of Moon’s key men in Uruguay is Jorge Guldenzoph, a veteran of the dirty war with the left. A former communist, he joined the secret police.”

Jorge Guldenzoph: “The Rev Moon is my savior. My life was literally saved by him. It’s as simple as that, Rev. Moon is my savior.”

▲ Moon’s home in Montevideo.

48:08 Narrator: “By the late 1980s Moon owned so much property in Montevideo that locals wryly renamed it ‘Moontevideo.’ Moonies say that this palatial building was going to be his home, his Latin American sanctuary.

❖

▲ Moon speaking at his Punta del Este resort by the ocean in Uruguay.

Instead he chose a lush resort on the ocean, and a ranch by a river where he could fish. Here he hoped to find peace.”

Antonio Betancourt (Unification Church): “He fishes for the physical fish, but this is symbolic of many things. He fishes, one fish could be a great leader who listens to him.”

Narrator: “He said he would like his own fleet of submarines to free him from national boundaries. In 1989 one of Moon’s greatest dreams came true, the fall of the Berlin Wall. To him it seemed as though he had won his lifelong struggle against communism.”

Bo Hi Pak (Unification Church): “Who did liberate communism? To me, [it is] very clear. it's Rev. Moon, as the messiah.”

Narrator: “In Latin America Moon would spend millions. He said he ‘gave the bait to Uruguay, then the bigger fish of Argentina and Brazil kept their mouths open’.”

Narrator: “He thinks he can literally buy countries?”

Herb Rosedale (anti-cult lawyer): “Absolutely”

Narrator: “Several countries did take the bait, including Brazil. In 1994 Moon bought a swath of its Pantanal region, a vast area known for its extraordinary beauty. Here would be the new Garden of Eden, where Moon would have absolute dominion.”

Cesar Zaduski (Unification Church farm manager in Brazil): “Rev Moon named it because he wants this place to be as pristine and as natural as it was in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were created by Heavenly Father. And Rev Moon said that this area could be in the same shape like in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were created.”

Narrator: “According to the church it would have an airport big enough for wide  body jets and millions of acres of fertile land.”

Bo Hi Pak: “This is why he is engaged in millions and millions of acres in Brazil to cultivate those wasted lands into beautiful fertile farmland, producing millions of tons of tons of food.”

Narrator: “It would teach the Brazilians new farming methods, educate the area’s mainly Catholic population and unite religions. People on the farm hope that Moon, now in his 80s, will spend his last years in Brazil. From here he can communicate with his other 200 projects around the world.”

▲ Communications mast in Brazil

Antonio Betancourt: “I have been with him there, in the Pantanal, which he considers one of the gates, one of the earthly gates of the Kingdom of Heaven. Going at three o’clock in the morning, with no reason except a compelling spiritual reason to go into places that nobody will go because they are not tame yet. He could get lost and nobody would find him in ten years.”

Narrator: “To be near their messiah, Korean and Japanese Moonies are bused in after a gruelling flight from Asia.”

Cesar Zaduski: “And these families, living with the nature, they can learn the original aspects of God, that was lost after the Fall of Man.”

Narrator: “His followers fish like Father Moon, work on the land, pray and procreate in small air-conditioned rooms.”

Cesar Zaduski: “And for Rev Moon especially, this place is the place where the families should do what they were supposed to do in the Garden of Eden, and was done wrong – so we should do it right.”

Narrator: “Moon has other great dreams, like a road from London to Tokyo, but it is just a dream. At New Hope there is no airport for wide body jets. Its manager says it rains erratically so it is hard to grow crops. Despite Moon’s talk of uniting religions, local Catholics dismiss his creed as junk theology.”

Cesar Zaduski: “But it is quite clear that in the history of mankind, always someone who came with a big idea, or a new understanding was stoned, and after his death they made a big statue and proclaimed him as a saint. That always happens.”

Narrator: “Sealed inside his many fine houses, gazing out over tropical gardens or great oceans, Moon has had many sorrows. In 1989 a teenage son, Heung-jin, was killed in a car crash.”

❖

▲ Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han with the body of Heung Jin Moon

Nansook Hong: “This Moon’s child went to heaven and became the ruler of heaven. Even Jesus came and bowed down to this child.”

Narrator: “Moon’s followers said they had seen visions of his son taking the place of Jesus.”

Nansook Hong: “Because he was Moon’s child, he can have this kind of position in the spiritual world, in the heaven.”

Narrator: “A higher position than Jesus?”

❖

▲ Sun Myung Moon wrote this calligraphy for his son: “Absolute Victory of Moon Heung Jin 文興進 as Commander-in-Chief of Heaven.”

53:40 Nansook Hong: “A higher position than Jesus, and he was going to hold that position until his Dad comes.”

Narrator: “As Moon saw it, to achieve his proper place in Heaven his dead son needed a wife.”

William Cheshire (former Editor, Washington Times): “And so they took his body, I suppose in a coffin and went ahead with the marriage ceremony. The corpse was married to Bo Hi Pak’s daughter.”

❖

▲ The 1994 marriage of Julia Pak to a photograph of the deceased Heung Jin Moon. Nansook Hong is standing at the back on the right.

Narrator: “Julia Moon, the daughter of Moon’s right hand man, leads his international ballet company.”

Nansook Hong: “And so she married with his picture in her arms. And it was strange, but we simply accepted the fact that was the case.”

Narrator: “A baby was found and given to Julia Moon to bring up with her dead husband.”

Nansook Hong: “We had the wedding ceremony. We had entertainment.”

Narrator: “So it was an ordinary wedding except the bridegroom wasn’t there.”

Nansook Hong: “Yes, exactly”

Narrator: “Much of Moon’s wealth flowed to his children. Nansook says her husband, Hyo-jin, spent it on cocaine in Harlem. High on drugs, he would threaten her.’”

55:00 Nansook Hong: “There were a lot of times he kept saying he was going to kill me, he was going to kill me. There was a point that I knew he was going to kill me. I knew when he was drunk enough, he was high enough, he was capable of doing anything.”

Narrator: “Physically abused, she fled the Moon compound with her children.”

Singing: “Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you.”

Narrator: “At the beginning of the year 2000, Moon celebrated his 80th birthday, and some saw him as a prophet out of step with time.”

Donna Collins (ex follower): “In one speech he said that it would be better for men to cut off, their privates, penises, and he said penis, than to engage in a homosexual act. Over time he became more embittered, more angry with the western world for not accepting him, for not realizing and bowing down to his messianic role.”

Dan Quayle: “May God bless you.”

Narrator: “The world’s statesmen who speak at his conferences are a dwindling band. They include Dan Quayle, Kenneth Kaunda and Sir Edward Heath. They applaud his work for peace, but Sir Edward can’t say what he’s actually achieved.”

Sir Edward Heath: “I can’t name anything, no. But what I have done is to address their conference. I think this is the third occasion. No, I have no connection with Dr. Moon.”

Narrator: “But Moon can lay claim to one crowning achievement, a reconciliation with his old enemy, Kim Il-sung, the leader of North Korea. Moon agreed to invest millions in a country he once thought satanic.”

Bo Hi Pak (special assistant to Moon): “Rev Moon, in his own lifetime, has done more than any individual I have ever known in history.”

57:00 Narrator: “Why Moon’s son, Young-jin, fell to his death from the seventeenth floor of a hotel in Reno remains unexplained. So finally is the drive and true nature of his father. Some say their assets and lives were stolen by a megalomaniac.”

Ron Paquette: “You know sometimes when I think about the loss of time and the violation is so great that…sigh.”

Narrator: “Others say Moon has enthused their lives with meaning, and for that, by some, he is revered.”

Bo Hi Pak: “Rev Moon will be known, far more, far greater in next hundred years, next thousand years. And he will be known as the man who truly brought the truth and changed the world. Not by the bullet and fire, but by the spirit of God and the truth of God. He brought more change here on earth than anybody else.”

Subtitle: Moon says that after his death, he will lead his Church from the spirit world.

END

_________________________________________

Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moons: My Life In The Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family Little, Brown & Co.  Boston, New York, Toronto & London, 1998

pages 148-150

“Reverend Moon was freed [from jail] on August 20, 1985. …

At East Garden it was as though Father had returned from a world speaking tour and not from a prison term. The old rhythms returned. The meetings around his breakfast table resumed. But something was different. There was a perceptible shift in the Reverend Moon’s Sunday-morning sermons at Belvedere after his release from the penitentiary. He talked less and less about God and more and more about himself. He seemed obsessed with his vision of himself as some kind of historical figure, not merely as an emissary of God. Where once I had listened intently to his sermons in search of spiritual insight, I now found myself more uneasy and less engaged.

The Reverend Moon’s hubris culminated later that year in a secret ceremony in which he actually crowned himself and Hak Ja Han Moon as Emperor and Empress of the Universe. Preparations for the lavish, clandestine event at Belvedere took months and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Church women were assigned to research the regal robes of the five-hundred-year Yi dynasty that ended in the nineteenth century. Others were ordered to design solid-gold-and-jade crowns modeled on the ones worn by tribal kings. My mother was in charge of buying yards and yards of silk and satin and brocade material and finding seamstresses in Korea to turn these expensive raw materials into the costumes of a royal court. All twelve of Sun Myung Moon’s children, all of his in-laws, all of his grandchildren, were to be outfitted as princes and princesses.

In the end Sun Myung Moon’s crowning ceremony looked less like a historical reconstruction than like a popular Korean television soap opera set during the Yi dynasty. I felt silly, as though I were dressed for a period comedy rather than a sacred religious service. The Reverend Moon was aware enough of how an act of such monumental egotism would be received by the world that he banned photographs from being taken at the actual ceremony. Invited guests, all high-level church officials, who arrived with cameras had them confiscated by security guards, who blocked the entrances to gate-crashers.

In his gold crown and elaborate robes, Sun Myung Moon looked to me for all the world like a modern-day Charlemagne. The difference was that this emperor bowed to no pope. Since there was no authority higher than the Reverend Moon, the Messiah had to crown himself Emperor of the Universe.

The coronation was a turning point for me and my parents. For the first time we voiced our doubts to one another about Sun Myung Moon. It was not an easy thing to do. Much has been written about the coercion and brainwashing that takes place in the Unification Church. What I experienced was conditioning. You are isolated among like-minded people. You are bombarded with messages elevating obedience above critical thinking. Your belief system is reinforced at every turn. You become invested in those beliefs the longer you are associated with the church. After ten years, after twenty years, who would want to admit, even to herself, that her beliefs were built on sand?

I didn’t, surely. I was part of the inner circle. I had seen enough kindness in the Reverend Moon to excuse his blatant lapses — his toleration of his son’s behavior, his hitting his children, his verbal abuse of me. Not to excuse him was to open my whole life up to question. Not just my life. My parents had spent thirty years pushing aside their own doubts. My father tolerated the arbitrary way in which Sun Myung Moon ran his businesses, inserting unqualified friends and relatives into positions of authority, promoting those who curried favor and firing those who displayed any independence. My father survived at the top of Il Hwa pharmaceuticals by accepting the Reverend Moon’s frequent public humiliations. For his part, the Reverend Moon left my father in place because Il Hwa continued to make money for him.

If the deification of Heung Jin and the crowning ceremony tested my faith, the emergence of the Black Heung Jin nearly destroyed it. …”

_________________________________________

Part of Emperor of the Universe is available with Spanish subtitles:

La secta Moon

_________________________________________

Nansook Hong, transcripts of three interviews, including ‘60 Minutes’

Nansook Hong In The Shadow Of The Moons, part 1

New Republic – The Fall of the House of Moon

Mother Jones – Sun Myung Moon’s secret love child

Moon’s theology for his pikareum sex rituals with all the 36 wives

Sun Myung Moon and the United Nations

FBI and other reports on Sun Myung Moon

United States Congressional investigation of Moon’s organization

The Resurrection of Rev Moon

FFWPU human trafficking is despicable

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

Lmao I have to ask if you've heard JonTron's interview with Destiny on YouTube holy shit this guy

omg

ive had a number of asks like this on top of a posting backlog i want to get to.. i mean

fUCK

OK so i went to check it out and:

this horsehit is 2 hours long…

i was gluing manga to a wall and cutting out lil jebs and gabs to hide on it while i listened to it because fuck (below is the cut out sheet i made lol)

so i had my email open to write notes for later and this is what i wrote, no fixes or anything:

destiny is wrong -> 14 mins -14:30

both dumb at 16 mins for the commies and nazis statement. destiny is compared to commies for noooo reason?? I dont think destiny is backed up by communists???? as a bizarre kneejerk TU QUO QUe when jon tron is thrown a guilt by association argument from destiny because of the neo nazi followers of his. destiny says nazism is a race ideology while communism is an economic thing, i cant wrap my miand  around thisis. he has no idea what hes talking about. jon tron dumb cant adequently adders it either

none of them are using gaslighting right

jon tron loves saying tribalism

at 18:40 desitiny is ignorant as fuck with regards to riots. because he hasnt heard about it, therefore it doesnt exist, which is is about one of the most frustrating fucking things about this shitty clusterfuck of a debate besides jon tron asserting random made up facts and imploring destiny to look it up. Jon tron laughs and references the boiling frog analogy fittingly. Jon tron continues to bring in international examples while dentiny tries to reel it back to the USA and the USA alone. This is annoying on two fronts:

1. Jontron is merely refering to situations rather than go in depth, such as compare tibet to “displacing white perople” when what ttibet is experiencing is hardly comparable to american white flight since the chinese are engaging in conquest/imperialism/ethnic cleansing and the west just simply isnt replacing their own population enough on their own for their corporate overlords tastes, so immigration fills the economic growth hole for better or for worse in their super simplified concept of economy (see: economies stop growing when ethnic civil strife brings it to ruin). but destiny doesnt have a clue what happens outside of his boiases. ;et alone the country, to even call him out, howeever when destiny has the proper misinformation, he will assert things like how japan is dying off or worse off for its homogenity without backing up his argument as well. which is a sign of liberals generally being ignorant to world issues unless their favoured media makes it a big deal ie with japan needing immigration. It’s clear both jon tron and destiny are parroting shit in hilariously broken, scatter shot fasihion

destiny thinks america is the most diverse country in the world, which is fucking wrong. Both of these asshoelss are throwing out garbage statements that are flat wrong that benefit their respective close minded, unresearched biases. Niether of them know any better so they cant even properly dismantle eachother’s argument. Clearly jon tron, nor destiny showed up to the debate with notes or preparation, which is a given considering they are both hot headed gamer shithead youtuber Know-It-Alls becuase they heard something in passing before and just throw out the garbled memory of that soething in debate.

jon tron thinks white people are more libertarian?? for some reason? destiny throws out a garbled statement akin to that MY THING WAS MADE IN THIS COUNTRY WHICH HAD PARTS IN THAT COUNTRY DESIGNED BY THAT COUNTRY YADDA YADDA DIVERSITY IS AMAZING when all these components werent built by americans but by different nation states engaging with others/.

at 37 minutes jontron says rich blacks commit more crime than whites, with no source but smugly tells destiny to look it up, confounding the shit out of destiny and the chatroom becuase hes put the burden of researching a fact that doesnt exist on his opponent.

destiny has

at 42, destiny is called a virtue signaller by jon tron, who is running through a list of things he learned a week ago on a mr metokur video to call destiny, which is every bit as cringe and awful to watch as the australian mp who called another sitting member of government out for man splaining

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXh5repOWI

desinty throws back a solid rebuttal that jontron side steps going “what im saying is…” and totally fuckign forgets what destiny even said 10 seconds later because jon tron is running through his recently learned, stupid diluted “”facts”” rather than listen and speak to any argument of destiny’s, especially in cases like this when destiny lands a solid question

at 45, destiny gussies globalization with how its great and necessary it is and how cutting off bringing in workers to make stuff in the usa (spoilers: jobs leave the USA, not come in) and trade would lower american standard of living since iiphones will be worth $3000 which is the most liberal, whitest fucking statement of argument because, while yes, iphones would get more expensive, but at least they arent being made in slave labour assembly plants where workers commit mass suicide in protest to their working conditions and that the west isnt pilfering the future leaders and skilled workers from these societies that need them most.

destiny, true to his ignorance, thinks cheap shit is awesome because its made elsewhere, unaware that it’s only so cheap because people die and get crippled in hot, unregulated slave labour factorys making his shitty overpriced electronics

desinty is right though that the american identity goes beyond just being white, because american culture is informed by its various ethnic gorups and peoples, for example it’s black community that does a disproportionately great job of establishing culure, music, activism and art for america as a whole

jon tron again doubles back, shifts the subject to other shit and starts talking about balkanization upon facing a solid argument

at 48 i start to lose my fucking mind because they are talking at eachother and jontron accuses destiny of deflecting when it is jon tron doing all the deflecting. jon trons smug laughter is grating

jon tron has to rely on telephone game “MUH EUROPE” over and over because he cant acknowledge that america is exceptional in how it assimilates and functionas as a melting pot in a way that europe fucking cant, which is creating the situations jon tron fumbless at with greasy game controller fingers to conflate with the USA in the first place.

desinty then claims that germany’s economy is doing great because of taking in refugees, here again he is talking out of his rose tinted ass because not only is it too early to tell if they are mkaing germany money or not, but that the reality is that they are likely a net drain on the germany given other countries and historic precedent

at 50 mins destiny thinks anti-abortion is a white christian thing, further enshrinign his white, middle class, youtuber ignorance. i guess catholic latinx or muslims are pro-choice

at 1 hour desinty says “its ok to keep a country frfom progressing as much as it can in order to maintain a rcaial identity"destiny clarifies it as “stifling growth” which is exactly what jon tron was asserting, to which he goes yeah dude, japan etc and this fucking knob destiny asks jon tron why he came to america instead of japan then, thinking his strawman homerun is about to take off - until jon tron says he was born in amerca.. destiny goes “oh… well…  y-your parents/// ijjuhhhUHH FUCK IM NOT TALKING ABOUT JAPAN IM TALKING ABOUT TEH UNITED STATES!!! which is about the best backfire ive seen all debate long considering the smug setup for it destiny had. furhtemore, what the fuck does “progressing” entail?? Neve raxplained

which is funny because when it isnt a country desinty can use as an argument against jon tron, destiny shrieks IM TALKING ABOUT AMERICA to disguise his ignorance unless it befits him (japan)

soon after though, destiny catches jontron on his shit about slowing immigration down so they can “enter the gene pool”

jontron couldve articulated around this but jontron is a moron, so, he just stutters and gets walked all over

i want to stab jon tron. laughing nervously is anot a good cubstitute for a credible argument

destiny stinks, though he fucking is destroying jon tron because jon tron is regurgitating even more  regurgitated shit arguments gleaned from someone else than destiny, who at points is arguing from his own values.

i have stopped paying attention rea

“that is what im talkibg about” -jon tron, who cant articulate what the fuck hes trying to verbal diarrhea for himself

“my oral ulterior motive is to maximize economic growth, and to maximize the slice of the pie for everybody in the united states” -destiny

destiny’s disposition is clearly and decisively about maximizing economic growth, but it rests upon ignorant hopefulness that these immigrants will arrive and abandon their cultures and become “american"this simultaneously exposes destinys humanitarianism as self serving (so long as it leads to economic growht:) ) which is partly why the immigration model in countries like sweden have completely collapsed (jontron touches on sweden but clearly has no fucking clue besides MUH RIIOTS) beause they took on an ABSURD amount of migrants and immigrants thinking it will pay for itself and transform sweden into a post-ethnic nascent economic power like a jr. america, except what the swedes have done is import a shit ton of people to be a “humanitarian superpower” and threw the lot of them into commie block ghettos and stopped caring about them, assuming they would naturally become swedes, permitting the transformation of these immigrant slums and neighbourhoods into economic and cultural parallel societies that frequently are violent toward swedish authorities and outsiders visiting their area, hence the term "no go zones” where police are instantly attacked and services like ambulances require escort.

“how do you grow an economy if the populatio n is dying off” says destiny, unaware that people can reproduce and will do so the moment people die off enough for real estate prices to collapse from housing supply outpacing demand and wages to skyrocket and make living costs manageable to have enough children to make replacement rate. You know. Naturally rise and fall and rise again. as humanity has done naturally for fucking ever and has fared PRETTY WELL without having to drive the environment and civil stability into the shitter for the ponzi scheme INFINITE GROWTH meme. Destiny argues this yet has no fucking clue what he’s arguing for. fuck destiny, fuck this argument, fuck “economic growth” that means demand from immigration and globalization that makes 600 square foot apartments cost $750,000 and ramshackle crackhouses cost $2million in vancouver. wow, im really feeling the economic growth, fucker.

jon tron brings up the disproportionate violence of black youths, but when asked to explain that, jon tron backs out and laughs about how destiny asking jontron to clarify that point is just like those shows on CNN where people are trying to “TRAP YAH”

Yah, jon tron, it’s called backing up your argument

jon tron jesterly mentions crime rates being consistent across africa when destiny addresses the court systems in america, as if jon tron’s hints toward his earnest views on race were subtle enough

destiny asks jon tron to name 5 african countries

why??

who cares

i am finding myself wishing i were arguing in place of eachotehr, because i see where they are both coming from but are too busy screwin g up their delivery to actually win a point over eachother

they are literally just talking at eachother and calling it a debate

Jon tron accuses destiny of bringing up irish and italians when its convenient

…as if jon tron doesnt bring up MUH YUROP and other whatevers when it’s convenient.

i hate this

they both suck t this. Jon tron has dug a hole through the earth and is now reaching escape velocity with his shovel and is soon to break earths orbit

jon tron brings up turks and iranians being able to assimilate into a culture than a romanian and hungarian would. If jon tron were knowledgeable to pursue this point, he couldve described how Kurds (an iranian people) and turks often fight and engage in conflict with each other in say, Germany to the dismay of germans who expected these groups to assimilate, forget their animosities from their homeland and become good forklift simulator playing germans.

i ahve wasted my hour

i like how i stopped keeping track of time on the video and just started ranting, rambling at the halfway point

I loved it for moments like this tho:

lmao

i feel jon tron is going through a PHILOSOPHICAL AND INFORMATIONAL BLOSSOMING which i guess is taking the red pill for some people. So he is on the same tier as a 16 year old who just discovered holohoax and bell curve graphs for the first time on a 4chan thread loaded with A. Wyatt Man drawings.

He will eventually (hopefully) research for himself these positions if only because he’s constantly being stomped and fighting people over these regurgitated opinions. Which means he is going to try and read up on them to better argue them. Which means he is going to have a hangover of sorts when he realizes what he’s done lol

[englishchinesetranslations]

Six years ago, the Chinese president Xi Jinping made a state visit to Britain. It was an important moment for both nations — the launch of a new “Golden Era”— designed to show that any differences caused by David Cameron’s meeting with the Dalai Lamai in 2012 were forgotten. Behind the scenes, however, it was preceded by months of difficult negotiations as Downing Street tried to meet Beijing’s conflicting demands for a schedule that showed their President to be an ordinary man of the people, while also according him with the respect that befits the leader of a nation better than any other on earth.

Finally, when they unfurled the flags for Xi’s three-day trip, there was lunch for the Red Emperor with the Queen, a glitzy state banquet, two nights at Buckingham Palace and an address to Parliament. But there were also pictures of the President standing aboard a London bus, enjoying fish and chips over a pint with Dave and hanging out with football stars in Manchester — all designed to reinforce the narrative of an ordinary bloke who happened to be ruling one-sixth of the world’s population.

“He has a confident and bullish exterior — he sees himself very much as the big leader,” wrote Cameron in his biography. “But behind the scenes I found him reflective and thoughtful.” Yet there seems surprisingly little wider interest in this enigmatic character who changed the course of China and now seeks to reshape the world.

That state visit came at a time of greater optimism, when many people beyond the Tory leadership fell for the delusion that China might be nominally a Communist country but, propelled by capitalism and consumerism, was sliding inexorably down a path towards greater freedom. How different the world looks today — and not just due to the devastating pandemic that mysteriously emerged from the heart of China, made all the worse by the state cover-up.

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Indeed, there is a growing consensus that this is a country intent on pushing its dictatorial creed in a tussle for global supremacy against Western liberal democracy. It is a nation which has inflicted genocide on Muslim minorities, throttled freedom in Hong Kong, threatened Taiwan, sabre-rattled on borders in the Himalayas, developed a sinister surveillance society and even infiltrated our universities to scoop up their latest research.

All of which makes the lack of curiosity surrounding the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong seem rather strange. As Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor of Chinese history, recently asked: “Why are there no biographies of Xi Jinping?”. Their absence is all the more striking when you consider that China’s ruler is not simply far more important than the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has spawned a small library of books; he is also a fascinating figure with a compelling life story.

Lurking behind that calm facade lies a childhood tale that helps cast some light on Xi’s controlling policies and his aggressive nationalism. Bear in mind that it is Xi who turned his nation back towards harsh totalitarianism, ordered his acolytes to ratchet up repression in Xinjiang and broke any pretence of keeping to the handover deal with Britain to protect Hong Kong’s freedoms. He has ditched term limits to retain power, crushed party foes, stifled domestic dissent and enshrined his name in the party constitution, elevating his position and ideology to the status of Chairman Mao. It is hard to disagree with the view of former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd that he is “the most formidable politician of our age”.

It does not take a psychologist to see that the seeds of his ruthless desire for order, his rigid toughness and perhaps even his political pragmatism may have been sown during his turbulent background, even if it is hard to disentangle the myths from the man. Like any smart modern politician, Xi knows the power of public relations and has worked hard over the decades to create an image that dovetails with both his personal and national desires. Hence those “man of the people” pictures over a pint down The Plough with Cameron.

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Like his British host, Xi had an elite upbringing that involved attendance at one of his nation’s finest schools — although in his case, this led only to trouble and tragedy during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Xi, born in 1953, is the son of Xi Zhongxun, a Communist revolutionary hero who was close to Mao and became a vice premier. Although China was riddled with poverty, this prominent family lived in a compound for party chiefs with their own cooks, nannies and drivers. One official biography claims that his parents sought to ensure their children were not spoilt, so he wore clothes handed down from his siblings — including floral shoes from his sisters that were dyed black. His father, meanwhile, was so strict that friends said his treatment of his son bordered on inhuman, and Xi also attended the “CCP aristocracy school” in Beijing infamous for military-style discipline. Any hint of softness, said one classmate, was seen as weakness.

Disaster struck when he was nine. His father fell out with Mao amid party in-fighting, so was sent to work in a factory in central China and his family lost its prized home —although his mother Qi Xin retained her party job in Beijing. Worse came in the 1966 Cultural Revolution, with its brutal purging of senior officials as enemies of the state. His father was beaten, paraded on a truck through jeering crowds and jailed. The family home was ransacked by militants, his mother forced into hard labour on a farm. Xi, a bookish boy, was made to denounce his father and bullied by teachers as the child of a “black gang”, the term for disgraced officials. His older sister eventually killed herself after being “persecuted to death”.

The following year Xi’s school was shut down and turned into an exhibition to showcase the pampered privileges of the reactionary elite. At the age of 14, he was caught by a gang of revolutionary Red Guards, who threatened to execute him before making him read quotations from Mao. Another time, he fled from a meeting attacked by students armed with clubs, who caught and badly beat one of his friends. “I always had a stubborn streak and wouldn’t put up with being bullied,” he claimed later. “I riled the radicals and they blamed me for everything that went wrong.”

There can be little doubt that Xi suffered as the son of a prominent man who was purged repeatedly for remaining loyal to his lifetime cause of communism. Xi himself only evaded jail after Mao, seeking to regain control of spiralling chaos, ordered 30 million young city dwellers into the countryside for “re-education” by peasants. Analysts speculate this difficult period in his teenage years led to Xi’s ability to hide his feelings beneath an impassive surface, along with the development of his fervent desire for stability. “This generation had everything taken from them so they have the survival instinct,” said Kerry Brown, professor of China Studies at King’s College, London. “They had to deny who they were. It becomes all about control with no room for ego.”

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Xi has since made much of the seven long years he spent as a “son of yellow earth”, living from the age of 15 in a cave dwelling in a remote, impoverished village in Shaanxi region. “I felt lonely at first,” he admitted in his autobiography. He found it a shock to eat rough peasant food, sleep on flea-ridden blankets and perform hard rural labour. Dozens of others sent to this region died from disease or the tough conditions. Instead Xi developed extraordinary self-discipline: “The knife is sharpened on a stone, people are strengthened in adversity,” he said later.

His loathing of chaos was fuelled later by the collapse of the other major twentieth-century Communist empire. “Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate?” he once asked. “In the end nobody was a real man, nobody came out to resist.”

Yet during those formative years he also saw the danger of extremism, when children had free reign to kill and torture in the name of delivering utopia. Did this all leave him with the pragmatism needed to achieve his goals? A leaked US diplomatic cable, based on information from a friend, reported that Xi focused from an early age on reaching the top as an “exceptionally ambitious” character. Unlike many youths who “made up for lost time by having fun” after the Cultural Revolution, Xi “chose to survive by becoming redder than the red”, reading Karl Marx and laying foundations for a political career. He was seen as “cold and calculating”, deemed “boring” by women.

Now he wants to impose his will on the world, having navigated a path through the choppy waters of the Chinese Communist Party. Today, our challenge is not China, that huge land of epic history and extraordinary culture; it is President Xi and his vision of total control. His goal is clear: to make his country great again while usurping the global leadership of the United States — and he does not hide his aims.

In a speech to his party’s 2017 National Congress, Xi laid out “the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation”: to finish building a prosperous society by this year, centenary of the party’s birth; to assume global economic and military leadership by 2035; then to “resolve” the Taiwan issue by 2049, centenary of the People’s Republic, to conclude their rebirth as a “strong country”.

At the centre of his vision lies the Communist Party, firmly in control of everything in China, aided by skilled propaganda and use of technology to control his people in Orwellian style as they walk, talk, shop and work. Such is Xi’s sway that a smartphone app was developed which allowed users to compete over who could virtually applaud that party congress speech with the most enthusiasm — more than one billion claps were recorded in 24 hours. Two years later, the most downloaded app in the country was “Study the Great Nation”, which combined chat and games with quizzes about Xi’s ideology — a digital update on Mao’s Little Red Book designed to ensure compliance and diligence from citizens.

When Xi first met Putin in 2013, he told the Russian president: “We are similar in character.” There is truth in this statement, yet the Chinese leader is far more subtle and ambitious. Xi Jinping sees himself as a saviour of his creed and a man of destiny for his country, a ruthless character driven by fierce resolve inflamed by that suffering of his youth. He is the very embodiment of that Confucian saying: “To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.”