IT will soon be one year since the Olympic Games were inaugurated in Beijing to the enjoyment of the world and the glory of the hosting country, China. But these most happy moments were accompanied and then followed by new and unforeseen challenges. First, the Sichuan earthquake and its 80,000 or so victims had called for some unprecedented efforts towards solidarity. The banking and economic global crisis has affected, to differing degrees, every nation of the world. Despite its leading importance, China has not been spared but with millions of migrants and city workers laid off from their jobs. Added to this, more recently, a fast spreading A virus has been lurking in many cities around the world. These worries are well-known.

They should not leave past tragedies in “the oubliettes of memory” as if they had not happened. In the ancient Roman Empire, authorities used, in times of crisis, to mitigate the dissatisfaction of citizens by organizing general food distributions and sports competitions (hence the expression panem et circences,(1) bread and circus games). The relative prosperity of many individuals in China, not to mention the state’s financial reserves, should not be an excuse for not facing “the shared duty of memory”.

As no one forgets past tragedies, they also have anniversaries. Commemorations are first a manifestation of respect for those who have lost their lives. Eulogies are pronounced in their “memory”, a way to rekindle, were it necessary, the flame of their ideals, the values they were sharing and for which they were exposing themselves, sometime at a very early age. After their disappearance, entire families face for years the anguish of a wounded memory, which never heals.

Yet memory has its own traps: the quest for revenge, were it ever possible. It has happened, but revenge does not really heal a wounded memory. As the saying goes: “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” and what else after that? What is lost is lost for ever.

Revenge is a trap: its furore shouts louder than the voices of memory that claim justice. If damage has been perpetrated, damage should be acknowledged and reparation be done by those responsible. What is also tragic is that responsibility for past tragedies is often either blurred or shared or both. Historians know that in many instances such responsibility can never be clarified.

Human justice, it is sad to say, however legally based on proper juridical procedure, can never fully compensate for the loss of human lives taken in the turmoil of history. Yet, out of the turmoil, the sacrifices that these lives have made of themselves for the sake of a better civil communion, of a real national ideal, of a quest for higher moral values should never be considered as made in vain. These lives bare fruit and remembering them is the proof of it.

One of the most important fruits that they can bare could probably be to let the memory of their sacrifices “breathe” freely in the heart of everyone. Beyond the quest for “revenge”, beyond the wait for “justice”, instead of being merely satisfied by such ideal as “to be rich is glorious” the duty of memory is to pursue the claims ruthlessly stifled in the past tragedy. This is most probably the only path towards reconciliation: to follow the ideal that is remembered. The challenge is to do so in the midst of the present not so healthy predicament: good for a few and no so good for most. It is the predicament that the ancient Romans had to face with “bread and games”. Wise people are not to be fooled.

Shared duty of memory can generate peace in many hearts. With that peace, fruit of wisdom, anyone who steps into the heart of Beijing will rediscover that, despite the tragedy that has spoiled its soil, the square should again deserve the name of “The Gate of Heavenly Peace”.


1. Iuvenalis, Satire 10, 81.


Yves Camus 赵仪文, Editor

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