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Thursday, June 01, 2006 VIEW: The Cultural Revolution at 40 -Liu Xiaobo http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\06\01\story_1-6-2006_pg3_3 Continuing silence by the guilty only transfers the costs to society as a whole, with life distorted by the weight of lies and evasions. As one generation after another continues to live in denial, the lies will corrode everything they touch. The people will no longer know what is personal honesty or historical truth, and they will repeatedly abuse, miss, or forsake historic opportunities Mao's Cultural Revolution was launched 40 years ago this month, yet, despite 20 years of economic liberalisation, its wounds remain a taboo subject. Today's rulers dare not face up to their own experiences or moral responsibility. So, three decades after the Cultural Revolution ended, the national self-examination that China requires has not yet begun. Of course, the Communist Party has deemed the Cultural Revolution a "catastrophe", a judgment supported by mainstream opinion. But China's rulers permit discussion of the Cultural Revolution only within this official framework, suppressing any and all unofficial reflections. The generalised official verdict, and the use of Lin Piao (once Mao Zedong's vice president and designated heir, who rebelled against him) and the "Gang of Four" as scapegoats, obscures the crimes of Mao and the Party, as well as the entrenched flaws in the system. The Cultural Revolution's major figures, who wrought so much mindless violence, thus either maintain their silence or offer spurious self-defences. Most victims also use various excuses to bottle up their memories. Those who both persecuted and were persecuted are willing to talk only about their being victims. For example, the fanatical Red Guard movement swallowed up almost every youth of the right age. Yet all but a few old Red Guards remain silent, saying, "It is not worth remembering". During the Cultural Revolution's early days, the Beijing-based Allied Movement, formed by the children of party cadres, committed horrendous acts of violence, operating under the slogan, "If the father is a hero, the son is a good man; if the father is a reactionary, the son is a turtle egg." But the memoirs of these rebellious vanguards of yesteryear highlight only their youthful passion and pure idealism, or their sufferings and those of their parents. They do not mention their own barbaric assaults, vandalism, and looting, or their kangaroo courts. The revolution's veterans refuse to discuss their arrogant presumption of "natural Redness," or to mention that they rebelled because they wanted power. Worse still, they express no remorse towards their victims.0 The Cultural Revolution swept up all of China. So many people suffered that it is difficult to count the number of victims accurately. This is all the more true of the persecutors. Yet few reflect and apologise. The terror of the Red Guards, the armed fights between the rebellious sects, the teams established to "cleanse" the social classes, and all the bloody massacres are simply left to rot in China's memory. The official ban blocks reflection, but human weakness and careerist self-interest among those who participated buttresses the official ban. Consider Ye Xiangzhen, the daughter of senior general Ye Jianying, who once discussed her family's Cultural Revolution experiences on television. During the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, she played a dual role: daughter of a Chinese field marshal and leader of the rebels at the School of Art in the capital. She complained that she was "too famous", "too active", and "too stressed" at the time, and she provided extensive details about how Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, persecuted the Ye family and how the Ye children went to prison. But she had only 58 words to say about her career as a Red Guard leader - no details or explanation of how she joined, which activities she participated in, and whether she was involved in "physical struggles" or persecuted others. To call for those people who applied violence and persecuted others to examine themselves and repent is not intended to mete out legal responsibility and moral judgment. But it would at least restore the truth about the Cultural Revolution, summarising its lessons in order to avoid repetition. More positively, restoring truth would counter the traditional Chinese instinct to blame all disasters on external forces, and might lead to a spiritual epiphany for a people struggling to find value in the emerging new China. The person with the most responsibility for the catastrophe of the Cultural Revolution is, of course, Mao, yet he remains China's saviour. The children of Mao's senior cadres who enjoyed the greatest fame during the Cultural Revolution are now the principal beneficiaries of today's economic reforms. But this continuing silence by the guilty only transfers the costs to society as a whole, with Chinese life distorted by the weight of lies and evasions. As one generation after another continues to live in denial, the lies will corrode everything they touch. The Chinese people will no longer know what is personal honesty or historical truth, and they will repeatedly abuse, miss, or forsake historic opportunities. As long as the Cultural Revolution remains unaccounted for, it will not have ended. If historical truth is not restored, the lessons cannot be learnt. No amount of material prosperity can make China a healthy society without this necessary reckoning with the past. -DT-PS Liu Xiaobo is a literary and political critic and current president of the Chinese chapter of PEN Daily Times - All Rights Reserved
