Memories of Redress and Rehabilitation and the Narrativity of In/justice

Pingfan Films and Chinese Political Culture

Abstract

After the end of the Cultural Revolution, many yuan’an 冤案 (unjust cases) of the Mao era were revised with the aim of reintegrating those wrongly convicted into the processes of reforms. Pingfan 平反 (redress and rehabilitation) reinstated their and their families’ social and political status, but did not address issues of individual suffering and accountability in a manner that would enable either victims or perpetrators to deal with the traumatising experiences of the past. Film provided a forum to reflect on the lack of answers to questions left over from recent history in the immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, and continued to do so in later periods. This paper traces the framing of related issues from early pingfan films, through independent documentaries of the noughties, to a 2014 film about the transitional period. It identifies three narratives of justice unachieved pervading the memory-scape of China’s transition: the impossibility of achieving justice through procedurality, the impossibility of doing justice to the former selves of those affected by trauma, and the impossibility of providing them with the acknowledgment and explanation they would have needed to overcome the inconceivability of the injustices endured. The finding of an interrelationship between memory frames, discourses on newly embraced politico-legal concepts and perceptions of persistent socio-political problems leads to the conclusion that the conditions of (not) coming to terms with the past have been formed by and had an impact on the development of Chinese political culture from late 20th to early 21st century. 

文化大革命結束後，中國政府開始大規模糾正冤假錯案，平反昭雪。儘管受害者及其家庭的社會和政治地位在一定程度上得以恢復，但關於受害者的痛苦和加害者責任的問題仍未得到全面解決，導致雙方均難以擺脫創傷的陰影。本研究通過分析電影和獨立紀錄片中的反思，探討了社會轉型的記憶景觀中關於無法申冤的三種敘事：程序正義難以實現；受創傷個體未能討回公道而難以釋懷；曾經的自我認同難以重塑。此外，研究發現，記憶敘事與圍繞新政法概念和社會政治問題的討論之間存在著一定的關聯。研究顯示，從改革開放初期至21世紀初，中國政治文化的發展與冤案當事人能否面對過去之間存在相互影響的關係，進一步揭示了政治文化發展與歷史處理方式之間深刻的內在聯繫。