At Global Voices, Oiwan Lam draws attention to a popular Weibo user’s recent posting of a collection of photos doctored to support the historical narrative of the Communist Party. From Lam’s introduction:
On January 29-30, 2013 one of the top ten micro-blogs in Sina Weibo, the most influential micro-blogging platform in China, has a set of historical photos showing two versions of the Chinese history during Mao’s Era (1949-1976).
The micro-blog, in the form of a collage, published by @Pongyoung with a brief comment: “How history has been amended?”, has been retweeted 13362 times with 2237 comments within one day. The photos and their explanation were originally published by the history channel [zh] of ifeng.com.
In order to help our readers see the difference between the two versions of the Chinese history, I cut the collage into 10 photo sets with a brief explanation.[…]
The missing person is Peng Zhen, also once a CCP leader. He was purged during the Cultural Revolution for opposing Mao’s views on the role of literature in relation to the state.[…]
See the whole gallery at Global Voices.
For more on selective portrayals of history, see “At China’s New Museum, History Toes the Party Line” via CDT. Also see prior CDT coverage of propaganda and historical revisionism.
