Battling the official narrative China's 'underground historians'
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Controlling history is key to the Chinese Communist Party\\u2019s control of the country. Whether it\\u2019s playing up the \\u2018century of humiliation\\u2019, or whitewashing past mistakes like the Great Leap Forward or the Tiananmen Protests, the Party expends huge effort and resources on controlling the narrative.
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\\nThat\\u2019s why it\\u2019s so important and interesting to look at those Chinese people who are documenting the bits of history that the Party doesn\\u2019t want you to know about. They interview survivors from Communist labour camps, or keep their own memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, and try to keep the memory of past horrors alive through film, magazines and paintings.
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\\nA new book called Sparks documents their work. Its author is Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and long time China journalist. Ian calls these people the \\u2018underground historians\\u2019. He joins this episode of Chinese Whispers.
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\\nVisit https://minjian-danganguan.org/ to see some of their work documented, in an upcoming website founded by Ian and others.
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\\nProduced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.
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\\nThat\\u2019s why it\\u2019s so important and interesting to look at those Chinese people who are documenting the bits of history that the Party doesn\\u2019t want you to know about. They interview survivors from Communist labour camps, or keep their own memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, and try to keep the memory of past horrors alive through film, magazines and paintings.
\\n
\\nA new book called Sparks documents their work. Its author is Ian Johnson, a Pulitzer-Prize winning writer and long time China journalist. Ian calls these people the \\u2018underground historians\\u2019. He joins this episode of Chinese Whispers.
\\n
\\nVisit https://minjian-danganguan.org/ to see some of their work documented, in an upcoming website founded by Ian and others.
\\n
\\nProduced by Cindy Yu and Patrick Gibbons.