Mǎ Hǎidé

The following information on Ma Haide was excerpted from Historian emerita Alaoui's history report written up on February 24th, 2023, and presented to the Societies on March 27th, 2023. It was an excellent report, and I thank her eternally for collecting and presenting this information. 

Shafick George Hatem was born in 1910 to two Lebanese immigrants of Maronite origin. A New York native, his father sent him to Greenville, North Carolina, where he graduated as valedictorian of the 1927 class of Greenville High School. Later that year, Hatem enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with the intention to take pre-med classes. As a freshman, he joined the Philanthropic Assembly on October 11 as recorded by Clerk J.A. Lang. The records speak little of Hatem’s involvement in societal activities; as a matter of fact, scarcely does his name grace the minutes, leaving much to wonder. I took to stalking him in our Yackety Yacks–to no avail–and could only trace his contributions to the Philanthropic Society through initials and entries in roll books. We, unfortunately, maintain a sparse record of the Phis’ going-Ons from the 1920s; one can only assume they had much to say and much to do.  

Hatem only stayed at UNC for 2 years, finding its community unwelcome and favoring education in Europe. As a first-generation immigrant, he was subjected to waves of bullying throughout his youth; an interview with the doctor has him recount attacks against his family’s Orthodox Christian background, as well as trying to escape poverty in the American Syriac community. 

Transferring to Geneva, Switzerland, he graduated from medical school there in 1933. With the help of a wealthy friend’s financial support, he embarked on a trip to China. He set up practice in Shanghai, baptizing himself as Ma Haide. In Chinese, this name can translate to either mean “Horse” (a common last name for Chinese Muslims, though Hatem was not Muslim) and also “Virtue from the Sea.” The next few years would yield for Ma a glean of the ideological unrest in China. He befriended a motley crew, including Soong Ching-ling, the widow of Sun Yat-sen. Ma soon grew disgusted by the corruption and dogma rampant in Shanghai (and the world, for that matter) and decided to close his practice. He then boldly forded the Kuomintang lines beyond Nanjing province and ventured into the hinterlands in search of Mao Zedong. 

In 1936 he arrived at Shaanxi province, where dwelled the temporary headquarters of the Chinese Red Army. Influenced by friends, he took to reading Marxist literature, and as China Daily puts it, “came to know the other world in China–the [Chinese Communist Party] revolutionary base.” I’m particularly intrigued by the reverential manner in which China Daily’s article on the doctor narrativized his journey through the early CCP. This fairytale world of young revolutionaries recounts a foreign doctor unveiling the true meaning of unity and strength; brave martyrs at the front lines of the Red Army caused; rural Chinese children tugging at Ma’s heart with hopeful idealist eyes; tempests and cartoonish evil at the hands of capitalist foes. For Ma this was apparently bliss; a desperate change from the old American routine. Nevertheless, one or none of these incentivized Ma to stay in China and dedicate himself to medicinal administration. 

Ma Haide, it seems, would pursue a quieter life in public health and medical research. He helped to establish the Central Dermatovenerology Institute and dedicated himself to the research on venereal diseases and leprosy. By the 1950s venereal diseases had been nearly eradicated from the country, largely thanks to his efforts. So popular was he with the Chinese people, with whom he frequently interacted as both a doctor and countryman, that he earned the title “China’s most loved American.” Despite a tumultuous reputation as a “bourgeois lackey” during the Cultural Revolution, he, too, would remain loyal to the party. I speculate, however, that while Rittenberg’s political motives drew him closer to the institution, Ma’s allegiance was to nothing but the people. His son reflects on his father’s “noble contributions to the PRC,” and how that legacy lives with him today as a journalist and writer. The city square of Hammana, Haide’s ancestral hometown, would be named after him. In 1979 he received the Distinguished Service Award at UNC. Ma spent his last decades as an affluent doctor in Beijing. He won a Lasker Award in 1986 and made a point to frequent the countryside for visits among the rural people. After his death in 1988 at the age of 78, leaders around the world continued to commemorate his memory, including former PRC Chairman Deng Xiaoping, the former president of Lebanon, and current PRC President Xi Jinping. At UNC’s Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, UNC-Project China was founded in Ma’s memory, to connect Chinese and American medical students across international research programs. His nephew, Greg Hatem, is an NC State Alumnus and local business tycoon. Named “Tar Heel of the Week” in 2004 by News&Observer, Greg Hatem is heavily involved in North Carolina-Chinese affiliations and Raleigh proprietorship. 

 The one interaction between Sidney Rittenberg and Ma Haide that I managed to glean from digital records occurred in 1967 when in a fit of radical convulsion the former attacked the latter of what seems to be “loyalty to political dogma.” This happened right before Rittenberg’s second arrest; Ma had supposedly warned him to not speak harshly against the CCP for that very reason. It is a little idealistic to imagine that the two might have bonded over their Societal roots; such little time separated their tenures as members of their respective societies, and such little space existed between their tentative roles in the Communist Party! 

While our current information on the two’s happenings in the Societies is sparse, I believe it important to consider their lives in tandem with the 1960s Speaker Ban Law, when authorities banned Communist speakers from UNC’s campus. It is particularly sardonic that two of the most important Americans in Chinese Communist history, and two alumni of UNC, were alive during the Ban. Would they have had something to say of their alma mater’s contentious resolve against their own political beliefs? What of the Joint Senate’s position on the matter? Without lapsing into a second digression on DiPhi in the tumultuous 60s, I would like to conclude this paper with an anecdote on how important freedom of speech is to this organization. Former senator and J.S. President Hubert W. Hawkins emphasized the Societies’ co-existence with the University; as being the “last truly open forum on campus” during the Act. He berated the “reams of sophisticated prejudices” that haunted the school’s grounds and urged the Societies to combat this “cynicism, thoughtlessness, and ignorance” with a higher aim for freedom of speech. Numerous political ideologies have entered and exited these chambers, generating discourse in their wake and, as we have seen, champions of their contemporary existence. Well after the Speaker Ban Act was lifted, a certain fragility still exists between the external world and the internal workings of our organization. Because after all, in the words of former J.S. President Tony M. Lentz, “Who wants to hear some old Commie speak, anyway?”