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《神州交流》Chinese Cross Currents
History and memory are tightly connected: both deal with the past, and one cannot exist without the other. Without the lineaments of memory—whether writings, works of art, oral accounts or physical sites—history would have nothing to relate. Without the narrative of history, memory would be utterly fragmented and liable to vanish with the passing of its first and unique carrier. Memories are constitutive of being, human and social, and history allows memory to nurture the present and build the future. The connection between history and memory is, of course, open to debate. Some argue that these two ideas are made of a very different fabric, memory being borne by living societies founded in its name, whereas history is always reconstructed from what is no longer, and so is problematic and incomplete. Others see history as a special case of social and cultural memory. Our contemporary era has again been full of “sound and fury”. Empires have been replaced by nation-states, all places on the earth have been discovered, all cultures and civilisations have been put in contact, and yet we have witnessed in the twentieth century some of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind. Living in a modern world scarred by these terrible man-made disasters, and on a planet where the escape routes have almost all disappeared, suggests that global communication has yet to translate into global understanding. It is our belief that the manufacturing of historical consciousness, what “history and memory” is all about, has thus become a need—witness the trend for commemoration and celebration of all kinds and in all guises—and an imperative. Macau has been a place of real and uninterrupted encounter between the West and China for the past 450 years, and, as such, is a “place of memory” in which everywhere remnants of history can still be found. True to its vocation to serve as a bridge between cultures, historical paths and schools of thought, bringing in elements of comparison between China and the rest of the world, not only to illustrate differences but also to uncover elements of commonality and the narrative of shared experiences, the Macau Ricci Institute held its December 2005 international symposium on “History and Memory: Present Reflections on the Past to Build Our Future”. (1) The symposium gathered thirty-two scholars from all over the world and was organised in five sequences: “The Liaisons between History and Memory: Epistemological Issues”, “Questions of Method: On the Sources of History and towards an Interdisciplinary Approach”, “Selecting and Constructing Memories”, “Teaching History and Preserving Memory”, and “The ‘Duty of Memory': For Whom and to What End?”. The symposium was also the occasion to sponsor a public showing of three films related to the general theme: From Nuremberg to Nuremberg by Frédéric Rossif and Philippe Meyer, Morning Sun by Carma Hinton and Geremie Barmé, and S-21 by Rithy Panh. Choosing from the many stimulating papers that were presented during this conference was not an easy task, but space constraints cannot be escaped and we opted for a “representative selection”. (2) In Zhao Shiyu's article, we are being shown how legendary stories shape and frame clan identification in the case of migrants coming from Shanxi during the early Ming Dynasty. Vivian-Lee Nyitray suggests that one way of examining the nature and character of the connection between history and memory is to delve into the role of the individual, whether as an historical subject, as a constructed subject in recorded history, or as a member of a later audience. Liu Qingfeng and Jin Guantao, expressly focussing on nineteenth century China, make their point that what constitutes the core of historical memory are the events in the panorama of the history of ideas rather than the social facts, if the latter are not connected to the Weltanshuung , the spirit of the time. Ding Dong gives a first-hand account of the extraordinary work done at Old Photos , a periodical-booklet published in China since 1996 that has tried hard to promote alternative sources of history. For his part, Rana Mitter convincingly argues that the discussion of the “meaning” of the Nanjing Massacre is, and can only be, a first step for both Japan and China to engage in a pluralist debate about this war crime. Finally, Haviva Peled-Carmeli offers a very touching presentation of the "personal objects" section of the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem where, from the point of view of the victim, these objects perpetuate the memory of the Jews murdered during the Holocaust. If the “duty of memory” cannot be used for every purpose and occasion—there is a growing trend for collective lamentation in the form of celebrations than can only impair critical thinking—it is also true, to quote the French historian Jean-Pierre Rioux, that “in our media-driven age, the dictatorship of the ‘present' can easily sweep everything along in history”. The papers we are publishing in this issue have in common their attachment to reason, their craving for knowledge, their respect for justice and humankind, and their insistence on the requisites of intelligibility and critical appraisal. In this year of double commemoration of the Cultural Revolution—the fortieth year of its starting and thirtieth of its ending—we could not have wished for more. (1) For more information on the symposium, please visit our website at: http://www.riccimac.org/eng/symp2005/index.htm. |
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Updated Date:2007-06-20 |
