XU, Kaibin and XU, Rencui

Winter 2022, 52.1, pages: 78-93

Remembering, Propaganda, Hope and Forgetting: The Rhetoric and Politics of the Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial

Abstract:

After the catastrophic Wenchuan Earthquake occurred in Sichuan, China in May 2008, a memorial was built to commemorate the disaster. This essay aims to study how the Wenchuan Earthquake Memorial, as a rhetorical space, creates a national image of tenacious rebirth through the rhetorical reconstruction of the trauma. Analysis shows that the memorial selectively remembers the disaster, publicizes the collectivist spirit and the Communist Party’s leadership for their role in disaster relief and reconstruction of the disaster areas, conveys the rhetoric of hope for the people in the disaster areas and the nation, but ignores the controversies surrounding the quality of school buildings and student victims through silence and alternative presentation. As a political carrier and a tool for educating visitors, the memorial has become a politicized space and transformed from a natural historical site to a political memory space, thus realizing the penetration of politics into people’s daily life.