Fuzzy History

Recently, the shortage of food worldwide has become a major concern for many international monitoring agencies, governments of state and of course those poverty stricken individuals and families who will be most impacted by rising food prices. Clearly, we are on the brink of a global crisis that could threaten the lives of over a billion hungry people and incite political unrest as the quality of life dramatically deteriorates, particularly in regions across South America, Africa, and Asia. But this serious humanitarian concern is also a source of macroeconomic instability affecting budgets, trade balances, and of course, incomes almost everywhere in the world – from China’s interior provinces, to the shattered neighborhoods of Iraq, and to the streets of Baltimore.

I haven’t fully considered the implications of such a catastrophe, but let’s just assume that it would be a disaster of biblical proportions, old testament, real wrath of god type stuff, fire and brimstone coming down from the sky, rivers and seas boiling, forty years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanoes, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria. So when my great-great-grand son, who will live in an underground bunker his whole life due to nuclear winter stumbles across an old newspaper from April 28, 2008, what will it reveal about the past. Well, if he lives in a bunker in New York, he could start piecing together lost history with stories like:

“…over the next year, international trade in rice is expected to decline more than 3 percent, when it should be expanding. The decline is attributable mainly to recent restrictions on rice exports in rice-producing countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Cambodia and Egypt.”

“Chinese officials blame Tibetan rioters in Lhasa for the deaths of at least 18 civilians … but Tibet’s government in exile in India has made unverified claims that Chinese security forces have killed more than 140 Tibetans. For weeks, Chinese officials have castigated the Dalai Lama and blamed him for orchestrating the protests. The Dalai Lama has denied any involvement.”

“A North Korean defector tried to set himself on fire to halt the Olympic torch relay through Seoul, while thousands of police guarded the flame Sunday from protesters blasting China's treatment of North Korean refugees.
Hundreds of China supporters waving the Chinese flag greeted the torch, throwing rocks at anti-Beijing demonstrators.”


But if his bunker happens to be under Beijing (rumor has it that there is a massive one under Tiananmen Square and even an underground highway connecting it to the suburbs in south-east Beijing) he would read:

“A German agricultural market research group on Friday dismissed the often repeated claim that rising demand from China is the main reason for surging world food prices.”

“A senior scholar has refuted the Dalai Lama’s claim of "cultural genocide" in Tibet and talks about China’s tremendous efforts on Tibet’s culture preservation.”

“Seoul welcomes Olympic flame…..the relay met with even more boisterous support" [As of April 28, 2008, no reports in China show protesters or disruptions of the relay in Seoul]

Beijing’s state run newspapers apply censorship and restrictions to cover-up and control the flow of information thus assigning these mass publications as propaganda instruments and the Party’s most powerful tools to maintaining power over the country and the minds of the people. Western newspapers, like the New York Times and Washington Post, are independent publications containing objective accounts and critical editorials, but often choose events, issues, and sometimes biased reports that they know will attract more readership.

If history is nothing but a collective memory of all those who live in today’s world, I am curious to see how the events of today will be perceived centuries from now, especially if the rise of an authoritarian state dictates the mass media and the wikipedia’s of the future. With 1.3 billion Chinese and a majority of them not aware of any significant event happening in Tiananmen Square in 1989, will such events be erased from history forever. This bleak conclusion of a failed Western civilization may be a bit extreme, but as long as China stretches its sphere of influence and has a government with supreme authority over written history and access to the truth, Chinese historian’s skewed perceptions will not only write Chinese textbooks… but will impact how we write our future textbooks.

In other words, we are only our experiences. If you really want to know about China don’t watch CNN, don’t read the China Daily, don’t read my blog….. just come and visit me here.