Writer reminds China of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution trauma

BEIJING – A Chinese writer has urged the ruling Communist Party to build a museum to Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, challenging the shroud of censorship draped over one of the most traumatic decades in China’s modern history.

Zhang Xianliang, who sits on an elite advisory body that meets alongside the annual session of parliament, was a pioneering chronicler of the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, in which millions of radical Red Guards attacked, often killed, millions of citizens at Mao’s instigation. Zhang told Reuters he had lodged a proposal to the panel, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which closed its annual session yesterday, for an official museum to the Cultural Revolution.This he hopes will expose the ordeal to a country both profoundly wounded by it and at risk of forgetting.”We’ve never recounted in detail or faced up to its trauma and damage.We’ve condemned the Cultural Revolution, but its social and spiritual fall-out haven’t been expunged,” he said.”Many of the social conflicts that have mounted up, and how we’re handling them, bear the shadow of the Cultural Revolution.”Chain-smoking Zhang cheerfully admitted there was no chance his proposal would win official backing soon.But his move suggested Party hopes of enforcing silence about the decade may face growing opposition, even from some close to power, as the 40th anniversary of its start passes in May.PURGED Before Zhang (69) made a fortune in film and television production, he was renowned in the 1980s as a pioneer of “scar literature”, which confronted hitherto taboo memories of the Cultural Revolution.He had been condemned in Mao’s 1957 “anti-Rightist” purge, and endured the next two decades in labour camps.The aftershocks of those events are still felt throughout Chinese society, especially in a “collapse of trust” between citizens, he said.Recalling the Cultural Revolution was more than historical therapy – it was essential to preserving social backing for economic reform at a time of rising public discontent, he said.”People in their 20s and 30s, even 40s, have forgotten how the Cultural Revolution brought about near economic collapse and destroyed humane values.”They lack a historical comparison, so no matter how far society progresses, they feel discontented,” Zhang said.He said he had joined the Communist Party in the 1980s to support its reforms.”I also think it’s strange it doesn’t draw a dividing line with its past,” he said of the party and of Mao, whose giant portrait still stares out across Tiananmen Square.Zhang said he chose this year to make his suggestion because it marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao called on radicalised students to attack authority, as well as the 30th anniversary of its end.One of the first universities to answer 1966 Mao’s call was Tsinghua University in Beijing, where China’s now President Hu Jintao was then a political instructor.Hu has shown no sign of easing official censorship of the country’s recent past.China has no official memorial for the Cultural Revolution’s victims, although there are several private museums displaying posters and Mao badges from the time.The few historical studies allowed are strictly censored.Zhang said about 50 other members of the advisory panel had put their names to a similar proposal for a Cultural Revolution memorial.But he refused to let any sign his bolder proposal, fearing a collective effort would invite official recriminations.- Nampa-ReutersZhang told Reuters he had lodged a proposal to the panel, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which closed its annual session yesterday, for an official museum to the Cultural Revolution.This he hopes will expose the ordeal to a country both profoundly wounded by it and at risk of forgetting.”We’ve never recounted in detail or faced up to its trauma and damage.We’ve condemned the Cultural Revolution, but its social and spiritual fall-out haven’t been expunged,” he said.”Many of the social conflicts that have mounted up, and how we’re handling them, bear the shadow of the Cultural Revolution.”Chain-smoking Zhang cheerfully admitted there was no chance his proposal would win official backing soon.But his move suggested Party hopes of enforcing silence about the decade may face growing opposition, even from some close to power, as the 40th anniversary of its start passes in May.PURGED Before Zhang (69) made a fortune in film and television production, he was renowned in the 1980s as a pioneer of “scar literature”, which confronted hitherto taboo memories of the Cultural Revolution.He had been condemned in Mao’s 1957 “anti-Rightist” purge, and endured the next two decades in labour camps.The aftershocks of those events are still felt throughout Chinese society, especially in a “collapse of trust” between citizens, he said.Recalling the Cultural Revolution was more than historical therapy – it was essential to preserving social backing for economic reform at a time of rising public discontent, he said.”People in their 20s and 30s, even 40s, have forgotten how the Cultural Revolution brought about near economic collapse and destroyed humane values.”They lack a historical comparison, so no matter how far society progresses, they feel discontented,” Zhang said.He said he had joined the Communist Party in the 1980s to support its reforms.”I also think it’s strange it doesn’t draw a dividing line with its past,” he said of the party and of Mao, whose giant portrait still stares out across Tiananmen Square.Zhang said he chose this year to make his suggestion because it marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao called on radicalised students to attack authority, as well as the 30th anniversary of its end.One of the first universities to answer 1966 Mao’s call was Tsinghua University in Beijing, where China’s now President Hu Jintao was then a political instructor.Hu has shown no sign of easing official censorship of the country’s recent past.China has no official memorial for the Cultural Revolution’s victims, although there are several private museums displaying posters and Mao badges from the time.The few historical studies allowed are strictly censored.Zhang said about 50 other members of the advisory panel had put their names to a similar proposal for a Cultural Revolution memorial.But he refused to let any sign his bolder proposal, fearing a collective effort would invite official recriminations.- Nampa-Reuters