Mass Murderer Restaurant Art

What’s up with the pictures of Chairman Mao in Chinese Restaurants?

China Bar in Melbourne has a picture of Mao walking stridently in Green Uniform across a part of the Forbidden City. There’s also a bar called Double Happiness where Mao smiles down on punters at happy hour doubling the drink sales. There’s even a restaurant called Mao’s with miniature statues and posters of the Great Leader everywhere.

Is this the same Mao whose death toll as a mass murderer comes in at around 40 million human beings? It is just add the figures from the Rural and Urban Purges, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Tibet, Forced land reform, work camp deaths and collectivisation. The figure could be even more if you add in the Famine’s caused by his regime’s stupidity.

What is so cuddly about Mao that we want to stare at his iconic metaphorically blood soaked face while we dine on Beef Chow Fun? I have even seen Stalin, the 20th centuries greatest liquidator of human beings adorn some venues and book shops in Melbourne.

Can you imagine a German restaurant having diners sit under portraits of Hitler in full regalia? Why not, he’s no worse than Mao. Hitler’s death toll stands at around 6 million (leaving WW2 out, ok, ok, add another 20 Million if your a pedant) and he is still a third place starter, compared to Mao and Stalin.

Or perhaps on Lygon st., can you envisage dining under the smiling vista of Il Duce? Mussolini is not a blip on the war criminals of the twentieth century wall chart. His own atrocities don’t even make it into 7 figures. Mussolini ranks under half a million people killed and only if you include the Ethiopian conflict.

I’m not one to advocate censorship and taking down these Commie psycho’s from Restaurant walls, as they have a certain pop culture perversity and je ne sais quoi. They are icons of certain ideas and have a romantic appeal to Leftists, I imagine. Hell, I have a soft spot for Mao and Stalin’s crazy ambition, strong leadership concepts, writings and their self evident historical significance. I like this portrait of Mao too by the way (above) adorning this article. I don’t know why?

So, let these Commies hang.

But, please lets have a little sympathy for the other spectrum of politics. Fascist dictators are getting a raw deal, in the restaurant icon adornment stakes. You heard it here first on Idea Fix, peeps.

Perhaps, in the name of simple fair play in the realm of iconic mad dictator art, let’s see The Fuhrer, Franco and Il Duce’s happy visages smiling down benevolently on the people of Melbourne. Yes, in German, Spanish and Italian restaurants who want to get even in the pop culture icon stakes, let see these Fascist’s lead the way… to a delicious meal.

Bon Appetite.