Freedom House the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution, ers that kept China weak before Communist rule. Basic these and other aspects of the party's past were not history textbooks—in addition to omitting or distorting considered utterly taboo, as long as the discussion did the mistakes, failures, and criminal acts of the Commu- not lead to serious challenges to orthodox historical nist leadership—focus on China's persecution at the interpretations. According to the policies set down hands of outsiders, especially Japan. Some Chinese under Xi Jinping’s leadership, talking in classrooms critics worry that the teaching of history is cultivating about Mao’ errors is now forbidden.?° an alarming degree of xenophobia and jingoism.”° The drive to inculcate a national amnesia on the History held hostage worst abuses of the Communist era is not limited to I rien SMM Weld Hida SHEE ale OT NEVE BEEN university courses. Commentary and discussion in the major efforts to confront uncomfortable truths media and on the internet are also heavily censored, about the past. This is certainly true of Germany and especially on anniversary days when, in normal South Africa. Latin American countries like Chile and societies, problematic events of the past are remem- Argentina have probed the histories of ugly conflicts bered and debated.2° The most sensitive anniversary, between military juntas and Marxist revolutionaries. In of course, falls on June 4, marking the deadly 1989 China's own backyard, South Korea and Taiwan have crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Tiananmen moved to address the complex legacies, including Square. Even the most oblique or coded reference to outright crimes, of dictators. that date on social media is quickly censored. The process of accounting for the mistakes and There are wo museums devoted the Cultural Rev crimes of earlier decades can raise a tangle of ethical olution or the Great Leap Forward. The archives of and emotional challenges in any cou