"We Are The Future!" crow the young

Technically accurate, but not necessarily a reassuring thought ...

"Li Zhensheng, a photographer who at great personal risk documented the dark side of Mao Zedong’s [youth against elders] Cultural Revolution, producing powerful black-and-white images that remain a rare visual testament to the brutality of that tumultuous period, many of them not developed or seen for years, has died. He was 79."

...

"“I was excited like everyone else,” he recalled in a 2003 interview with The New York Times. “The happiness was real. We felt lucky to be living the moment.”

But his excitement quickly gave way to anxiety. What began as a political campaign aimed at consolidating power soon engulfed the entire country, unleashing decade-long turmoil that upended Chinese society. Factions of radical youths known as “Red Guards” roamed the country battling one another and perceived “class enemies.”

Countless historical sites and relics were destroyed in the name of stamping out China’s “feudal” and “bourgeois” culture. Mr. Li began to have doubts after witnessing Red Guards in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang ransacking churches and temples, burning scriptures and criticizing monks."

...

"By the end of the Cultural Revolution, in 1976, tens of millions of people had been persecuted and up to 1.5 million had died according to some estimates. Many were driven to suicide.

“No other political movement in China’s recent history lasted as long, was as widespread in its impact, and as deep in its trauma as the Cultural Revolution,” Mr. Li said in a 2018 interview with The Times."

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"Mr. Li’s lifelong wish was to make his fellow Chinese remember the Cultural Revolution. That mission became more difficult in recent years as the Chinese authorities reversed efforts to reckon with modern history, resulting in what some have called a nationwide collective amnesia.

Still, he took a step closer to the goal in 2018, when the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press published the first Chinese-language edition of “Red-Color News Soldier.” Though it was distributed mainly in Hong Kong and Taiwan, some copies found their way to mainland China through unofficial channels.

“Some people have criticized me, saying I am washing the country’s dirty laundry in public,” Mr. Li said in 2018. “But Germany has reckoned with its Nazi past [though rebellious authoritarian thugs have staged a Ne0-Nazi resurgence], America still talks about its history of slavery [though the partisanship of authoritarian thugs has increased in backlash to reactive protests], why can’t we Chinese talk about our own history?”" [Why? In twisted Confucianism [state-mechanisms before society], authoritarian repressive-instincts currently dominate governmental policy.]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/world/asia/li-zhensheng-dead.html