Then & Now | ‘Historical nihilists’ know that the truth ultimately seeps through, eroding that which attempts to conceal it

Official narratives that seek to wipe out the public’s collective memory have a way of unravelling, and it is the job of the historian to preserve different versions of the past intact for future generations.

Forced erasure of commemorative events that kept knowledge and understanding alive among those old enough to remember tumultuous earlier times, and helped educate younger generations about those periods, is nothing new.

The overnight disappearance of once-unobjectionable reference points – from statues and memorials to exhibitions and displays of various kinds – plays a role in the long-term legitimisation of “it didn’t happen” narratives.

Without specific focal points for public memorialisation by rabble-rousers, the logic runs, popular attention will soon be diverted elsewhere, and unwelcome versions of the past can swiftly drop away down history’s rabbit holes never to re-emerge. Contemporary Hong Kong offers merely one more example of a broader worldwide trend.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping made clear that “the history of the post-reform period cannot be used to contradict the history of the pre-reform period, and the history of the pre-reform period cannot be used to contradict the history of the post-reform period”.

Since then, concerted efforts to stamp out “historical nihilism” – this catchy term shorthands any version of the past that competes for public legitimacy with official narratives – have steadily gathered pace. A major challenge for contemporary historians, therefore, is to preserve different versions of past events, and keep key historical details safely intact for future times, even when strongly refuted in the present day.