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, summarizing 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 savior and beyond reproach. 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 learned. No amount of material prosperity can make China a healthy society without this necessary reckoning with the past.
Liu Xiaobo is a literary and political critic and current president of the Chinese chapter of PEN.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
RSS