EastAsiaNet Research Workshop, Memory in East Asia: Ruptured Pasts, Contested Presents, Uncertain Futures

Sean Golden, member of the Inter-Asia research group, spoke at the EastAsiaNet Research Workshop, Memory in East Asia: Ruptured Pasts, Contested Presents, Uncertain Futures, at the White Rose University East Asia Centre of the University of Sheffield (UK), 24-26/04/2014, on the subject of:.

后折腾时代 houzheteng shidai. From the Cultural Revolution to the Chongqing Model and Beyond. What Have the Children of Yan’an in Mind for the Future?

Abstract

How do the Chinese people –and more specifically, their current leaders-- understand their contemporary experiences in relation to the Maoist period (1956-1976) of the Chinese socialist revolution? How are social institutions, power relations and communications media –including the new ICTs and social networks-- involved in the construction of the corresponding discourses, and what are the implications of memories of Maoism for economic and political, as well as social and cultural relations and institutions, in East Asia and for the 21^st century world order? The “Chongqing Model” associated with the now disgraced leader 薄熙來 Bo Xilai, contemporary debate about the famine that followed the “Great Leap Forward”, the recent fleeting appearance in the Chinese media of the image of the “tank man” from1989 and the novel «盛世:中國, 2013年» by 陳冠中 Chan Koon-chung [“In an Age of Prosperity: China 2013”, published in 2008; published in English as The Fat Years in 2011] will serve as case studies to explore how the past, present and future are mediated, negotiated and embedded in public discourses through discursive practices in contemporary China. Chan Koon-chang portrays a fictitious –but ominously realistic-- collective amnesia. The Famine seemed to have disappeared from collective memory and the events of 1989 are taboo in public, yet efforts are being made to restore those memories. People marginalised by the processes of 改革开放 gǎigékāifàng recur to Maoist terminology and analyses to defend their rights. The Party condemns Bo Xilai for his policy of “唱红” chàng hóng singing red songs but 习近平 Xi Jinping uses 毛文體 [毛文体] Mào wéntǐ “MaoSpeak” to structure his own discourse on the 中國夢 Zhōngguó mèng “Chinese Dream”. What do the 延安儿女 Yán'ān ér-nǚ “Children of Yan’an” think about the past? And what have they in mind for the future?