“Patriotic Education Campaign in China”

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SOCI0003 Contemporary Chinese Society - Fall 2012 Tutorial Essay: “Patriotic Education Campaign in China” Name: Yu Chung Man UID: 2010252510 Date: 21-11-2012 Introduction This essay will focus on the Chinese national “Patriotic Education Campaign” started in 1991, under which “one hundred years of national humiliation” is used as the main theme of the campaign. Firstly, we will discuss the relation between collective memories of the country’s traumatic national experiences and the shaping of national identity. Secondly, the shifting of CCP’s ideological tool involved between 1980s and 1990s and the background of patriotic education campaign is introduced to have a clear picture of how it was enacted. Thirdly, the core objectives in this campaign are further discussed. Fourthly, the instrumental means including the new forms are introduced to discuss how the objective of the campaign is practically revealed in the general public. Lastly, a real case interview with a Chines student together with the real incidents happened in China is demonstrated to analyze the real impacts of the patriotic education campaign to the Chinese. Relation of collective memories and national identity In this part, the relation of collective memories of the people in the past and the shaping of national identity is discussed. In the patriotic education campaign, “one hundred years of national humiliation” in the history against the West and Japan’s invasion is chosen as the collective memory to reshape the national identity. As Eller (1999) has pointed out, “history” is often used as the prime raw material for constructing ethnicity and these collective memories of the past can help bind a group of people together. To the extent of a nation, the country’s collective memory is forged to be an integral part of nation-building (Podeh 2000, 65). The “selection” of collective memory

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