Jiang Jian, president of China Red Cross Qufu Hospital and NPC deputy: “A good nation is one that does not forget history”. (China Daily 16/3/07)
Of course he was referring to Japan and its (renewed) denial of the horrible things they did over sixty years ago, upsetting not only China but other countries in the region. I don’t understand them. They have a lot to learn of the Germans. On the other hand I think some individuals over here must be very happy with the stubbornness of those Japs. So, nobody will have time to sit back and wonder why here there is not stubbornness but general amnesia (imposed by you know who) over their own history. See an early entry on this blog on what “expressions” are forbidden in the media. Just imagine people asking for justice, indemnification and clarification for the many who were tortured or lost their lives and possessions during the fifties and then the seventies (so, much more recently!). Too many innocent victims.
History, according to Jiang, must be very selective indeed. It’s like pages are ripped out of history books. One day it will come back. Will it? Sometimes I wonder. Chinese tend to forget their own history unless it involves “bad” foreigners.
Not that China is alone. Selective memory exist in other countries, even in the USA. Remember McCarthyism (Joseph McCarthy), prohibition, imprisonment of innocent people of Japanese descent, etc. On the other hand, Hollywood makes movies about all that, to be fair; one would never see this over here. Indeed, just saw a movie on HBO about Joseph McCarthy (“Citizen Cohn”*), quite scary as it reminds me too much of what happened here in the seventies.
Some notes:
Wanted to check out Joseph McCarthy on Wikipedia but it was “unavailable” (again!). Yeah, yeah. But as we say in China, there is a “backdoor” for everything. Seems the debate about that witchhunting period is far from concluded. Even the Kennedy clan liked him. Figure that one out.
*In 1952 McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as the chief counsel to the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. Cohn had been recommended by J. Edgar Hoover, who had been impressed by his involvement in the prosecution of Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg] [see: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyism.htm] (this one was “available” here without backdoor)