American Maggie

It’s difficult to decide what is most revolting about White House Communications Director Anita Dunn’s coupling of Mao Tse-Tung and Mother Teresa as her “two favorite political philosophers.” Was it Ms. Dunn’s cheap tactic of using such an obnoxious juxtaposition? Or was it the way in which Dunn’s manipulation of words seemed to degrade the memory of Mother Teresa?

Dunn now claims to have intended “irony” in citing Mao—an irony obviously absent to anyone who has seen her speech. Combining the respected with the repulsive is a technique that hearkens back to Saul Alinsky, who would use such methods to overcome resistance to unpopular ideas. Could it be that Dunn sought to put the discredited ideas of Mao (for example, change through force without regard to rules or political boundaries) in the same league with those of a much admired modern day saint? Wittingly or not, Dunn’s speech also attempted to redefine Mother Teresa and what she stood for.

Dunn says her main point was just to look at finding creative ways to achieve big things, like, for example . . . hmmm . . . like taking over a big country. Hence, her use of a Mao misquote: “You fight your war and I’ll fight mine.” Actually, the closest Mao quote is something akin to “If you can win, you fight. If you cannot win, you don’t fight.”

But whether you quote or misquote Mao, there is nothing new here. In fact, Mao’s philosophy is old and status quo and all about centralized control: “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” That’s all. And, of course he acted on it millions of times—about 70 million times– after he “took over China against all odds” as Ms. Dunn so approvingly stated.

The truly revolutionary philosophy – or way of life — in human history is the One followed by Mother Teresa: to see Christ in every human being, to take care of others one by one, and to expect nothing in return for doing so. Thus, Mother Teresa began her ministry by tending to any abandoned individual in her path. She picked up the near dead – whose rotting flesh sometimes stuck to the streets of Calcutta — just so that they could live their last hours in a clean bed and experience the love of someone unconditionally ministering to their needs.

Of course, this sort of behavior is considered the height of bourgeois subversion by central planners, and described by Mao himself as “an extremely bad tendency.” Naturally, Mao would have had the likes of Mother Teresa taken out and shot. In response, the likes of Mother Teresa would forgive Mao and his executioners as they did so.

Dunn never mentioned anything substantive in what she erroneously terms the “political philosophy” of Mother Teresa. Instead, she tried to match a line about Mao fighting his own war with Mother Teresa’s advice to an “affluent” young person who just wanted to help out in Calcutta. According to Dunn, we are to believe that Mother Teresa told the woman in so many words to simply “go find your own Calcutta!” As in: make your own choices, find your own unique path for yourself, be creative, etc.

In fact, Dunn’s interpretation greatly distorts Mother Teresa’s advice to anyone who would wish to help on a global scale. Here is Mother Teresa’s prescription for a better world:

First, serve your own immediate and extended family. Focus on the needs right in your own home.

Second, once you have done the work God has given you to do in your own family, look in the community just outside your home to serve the needs there.

Third, only after you have done what you can to serve the needs of your family and community – in that specific order and thoroughly — should you venture away to shift your focus to a global scale.

This – not Dunn’s crass and misleading attribution – is the heart of Mother Teresa’s position on truly effective means to achieve real social and economic justice. The truth Dunn attacks through her manipulative words and omissions is this: that charity must always begin at home.

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Stella Sophia is a writer from Maryland.