MCLC: right to remember (1)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: ALVARO Joseph James <joseph.alvaro at my.cityu.edu.hk>
Subject: right to remember (1)
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Thank you, Chang Ping, for this great article and Louisa Chiang's
translation.

In his essay The Chinese Amnesia (1990), Fang Lizhi described what he
called the ‘technique of forgetting history’, as ‘an important device of
[CCP] rule’, which has the aim of forcing ‘the whole of society to forget
its history, and especially the true history of the Chinese Communist
party itself’. The CCP’s use of the ‘technique of forgetting history’, is
a way of making sure that succeeding generations have no knowledge of
previous insurrections. ‘Human rights violations’, he wrote, ‘are banned
not only from discussion within China, but also even banned from being
remembered’.

Chinese government discourse retains relevance simply because it has the
power to do so. They have made sure that there is nothing but cynicism and
irony left to confront it. State discourse maintains significance because
it has articulated a culture of intimidation, and the citizenry, having
lived for generations under this rhetoric of menace, are fully aware of
the implications; they simply acquiesce. Such discourse stands as a result
of its power alone – and by no means because of its virtue and certainly
not because of its ‘rightness’. As Orwell put it (and I paraphrase),
governments cannot be safe until there are neither words nor memories left
from which to express dissent.

Joe Alvaro
Hong Kong