
China wants us to forget the horrors of Tiananmen as it rewrites its history - okket
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/19/china-wants-us-to-forget-the-horrors-of-tiananmen-as-it-rewrites-its-history
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chewz
Every country rewrites history continuously. Some just use softer ways to
rewrite dominant historical narration then others.

> What is a nation? A group of people united in mistaken view about the past
> and hatred of their neighbours.

> Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the
> creation of a nation. [1]

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_a_Nation%3F](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_a_Nation%3F)

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vfulco2
Oddly this was accessible from mainland without VPN. Wonder how long this will
last?

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gremlinsinc
If they don't want remembered for atrocities in the past, maybe they shouldn't
keep doing them in the present (e.g. ethnic concentration camps).

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dm3730
Unlike "us", we never rewrote our history, right?

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johnchristopher
Any example of events 'us' is actively removing from history the same way
China is doing with the the Tiananmen event ?

edit: I can think of the Armenian genocide but it's not yet dealt with the
same diligence and tech level than the Tiananmen event is.

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y4mi
I'm neither the parent poster nor American, but from a Europeans perspective
I'd say that America handles their censorship differently. Dissenters
disappear in China. In America they're discredited and made into conspiracy
theorist.

But nonetheless: the tiananmen square is quite unique in it's bloodiness.i
know of nothing even remotely as bad as military personal killing unarmed
civilians in the hundreds which mostly just try to flee.

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powerapple
Because no one cares to report anything else.

How is it unique in its bloodiness? You are rendering the human history a
lovely picture of peace and kind. It may not be as nice as the Chinese
government portrait it, and it may not be as bad as europeans portrait it
either. There is nothing wrong with leaving it to the past and move one.

~~~
y4mi
> _How is it unique in its bloodiness? You are rendering the human history a
> lovely picture of peace and kind_

Absolutely not. It's uniqueness comes from is bloodiness in the context of the
situation.

Most crimes of that caliber happen by systematically alienating a people,
'legitimizing' these clearly inhumane actions in some way.

Take the Holocaust for example. Jews were portrayed as the source of all
problems for years and subsequently slaughtered in the millions. Clearly
inhumane and wrong... And way worse than the square was, but still a 'us vs
them' situation.

On the square, you got the military doing a parade and civilians standing in
the way in a demonstration. Their only crime was their unwillingness to let
the parade continue. And the military opened fire on these people, because
_they were standing in the way and unwilling to leave_

You don't think that such a situation is unique?

