The Quotation Of The Day Mailing List |
Quotation of the Day for June 5, 2010"While collective memory is usually grounded in fact, it need not be. If you go to China, you will more than likely be told the story of the park in the foreign concession area of Shanghai that had on its gate a sign that read "Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted." While it is true that the park was reserved for foreigners, insulting enough in itself, the real insult for most Chinese was their pairing with dogs. The only trouble is that there is no evidence the sign ever existed. When young Chinese historians expressed some doubts about the story in 1994, the official press reacted with anger. "Some people," a well-known journalist wrote, "do not understand the humiliations of old China's history or else they harbour sceptical attitudes and even go so far as to write off serious historical humiliation lightly; this is very dangerous." "It can be dangerous to question the stories people tell about themselves because so much of our identity is both shaped by and bound up with our past history. That is why dealing with the past, in deciding on which version we want, or on what we want to remember and to forget, can become so politically charged." - Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History. Submitted by: Lynn Kisilenko May 31, 2010 |
| Shopping through our Amazon links supports Quotation Of The Day. | Find Margaret MacMillan  at Amazon.ca. Visit our Amazon.ca store | Find Margaret MacMillan  at Amazon.com. Visit our Amazon.com store |
