Forbidden Memory

Access the glossary of Tibetan terms. Access the glossary of Chinese and English terms. Access the Index. When Red Guards arrived in Tibet in 1966, intent on creating a classless society, they unleashed a decade of revolutionary violence, political rallies, and factional warfare marked by the ransacking of temples, the destruction of religious artifacts, the burning of books, and the public humiliation of Tibet’s remaining lamas and scholars. Within Tibet, discussion of those events has long been banned, and no visual records of this history were known to have survived. In Forbidden Memory the leading Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser presents three hundred previously unseen photographs taken by her father, then an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, that show for the first time the frenzy and violence of the Cultural Revolution in Tibet. Found only after his death, Woeser’s annotations and reflections on the photographs, edited and introduced by the Tibet historian Robert Barnett, are based on scores of interviews she conducted privately in Tibet with survivors. Her book explores the motives and thinking of those who participated in the extraordinary rituals of public degradation and destruction that took place, carried out by Tibetans as much as Chinese on the former leaders of their culture. Heartbreaking and revelatory, Forbidden Memory offers a personal, literary discussion of the nature of memory, violence, and responsibility, while giving insight into the condition of a people whose violently truncated history they are still unable to discuss today.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution arrived in Tibet in July 1966. Upon its arrival, monasteries were systematically destroyed and libraries were looted, rare books and paintings burned. Buddhist scriptures were used as wrapping paper and the Dalai Lama was declared a criminal. Long veiled in mystery, the events that took place five decades ago on the snowy plateaus of Tibet are known to few outsiders. Under the guise of "national unity" and modern civilization," Chinese authorities have managed to cover up their reign of terror on the Tibetan plateau. Forbidden Memory: Tibet during the Cultural Revolution provides a glimpse of the history of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the Tibettan Region through the power of never-before-seen photographs, detailed interviews, and cultural analysis. Denouncing the Chinese government's invasion of Tibet, writer and activist Tsering Woeser refects deeply on the ethnic character and cultural traditions of Tibet. The collection of photographs in Forbidden Memory were taken by Woeser's father, and reveal how the Chinese government transformed the once-secluded Buddhist state into a hell on earth-sacred temples demolished, cultural artifacts destroyed, monks and nuns humiliated and beaten, and formidable processions of troops, bedecked with flags and banners and they march through the mountains. Tsering Woeser's Forbidden Memory brings an end to the silence with an honest look at the disturbing history of Tibet in the latter half of the twentieth century.