Schenk, Gerrit Jasper ; Mauelshagen, Franz ; Janku, Andrea
Hrsg.: Janku, Andrea ; Schenk, Gerrit Jasper ; Mauelshagen, Franz (2012)
Introduction.
In: Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics
Buchkapitel, Bibliographie
Kurzbeschreibung (Abstract)
Four days after a deadly earthquake in Sichuan killed nearly 70,000 people, injured hundreds of thousands, and made millions homeless the English edition of the People’s Daily Online published an opinion piece entitled “Much distress regenerates a nation,” praising the spirit of the Chinese people who were united in their struggle against the hardship the nation had to suffer in that extraordinary year 2008. 1 This was not the first and was not to be the last disaster to hit China in the year of the Beijing Olympics. It had started with extreme cold and snowstorms that severely disrupted the traffic nationwide during the peak travel season around the Chinese New Year festival. More news of disasters—natural, and also political and technological—was to follow, and when the earthquake struck on May 12 people started to make prognostications based on the five Olympic mascots renamed ‘fuwas of doom’—a contradiction in terms. Based on their names and appearances, they were respectively associated with the protests that accompanied the journey of the Olympic torch, a disastrous train crash in Shandong, the violent clashes in Tibet, and the earthquake in Sichuan. The final one that came in the shape of a Yangzi sturgeon was then seen as predicting a flood and, unsurprisingly, heavy rainstorms lasting from late May through the month of June caused disastrous flooding in large parts of the country, particularly in the southern provinces. While it does not take much to predict a flood somewhere in China in any given year, what is interesting about this is the ease with which such events lend themselves to all kinds of interpretations, in particular political interpretations, and the unease they cause, visible in official attempts to censor this kind of popular doomsaying. 2 The significance of any such event for human societies is largely the result of its historical context, the kind of religious, scientific, and political interpretations it evokes, and the ways these are communicated both through time and space.
| Typ des Eintrags: | Buchkapitel |
|---|---|
| Erschienen: | 2012 |
| Herausgeber: | Janku, Andrea ; Schenk, Gerrit Jasper ; Mauelshagen, Franz |
| Autor(en): | Schenk, Gerrit Jasper ; Mauelshagen, Franz ; Janku, Andrea |
| Art des Eintrags: | Bibliographie |
| Titel: | Introduction |
| Sprache: | Englisch |
| Publikationsjahr: | 2012 |
| Ort: | New York/ London |
| Verlag: | Routledge |
| Buchtitel: | Historical Disasters in Context: Science, Religion, and Politics |
| Reihe: | Routledge Studies in Cultural History |
| Band einer Reihe: | 15 |
| Zugehörige Links: | |
| Kurzbeschreibung (Abstract): | Four days after a deadly earthquake in Sichuan killed nearly 70,000 people, injured hundreds of thousands, and made millions homeless the English edition of the People’s Daily Online published an opinion piece entitled “Much distress regenerates a nation,” praising the spirit of the Chinese people who were united in their struggle against the hardship the nation had to suffer in that extraordinary year 2008. 1 This was not the first and was not to be the last disaster to hit China in the year of the Beijing Olympics. It had started with extreme cold and snowstorms that severely disrupted the traffic nationwide during the peak travel season around the Chinese New Year festival. More news of disasters—natural, and also political and technological—was to follow, and when the earthquake struck on May 12 people started to make prognostications based on the five Olympic mascots renamed ‘fuwas of doom’—a contradiction in terms. Based on their names and appearances, they were respectively associated with the protests that accompanied the journey of the Olympic torch, a disastrous train crash in Shandong, the violent clashes in Tibet, and the earthquake in Sichuan. The final one that came in the shape of a Yangzi sturgeon was then seen as predicting a flood and, unsurprisingly, heavy rainstorms lasting from late May through the month of June caused disastrous flooding in large parts of the country, particularly in the southern provinces. While it does not take much to predict a flood somewhere in China in any given year, what is interesting about this is the ease with which such events lend themselves to all kinds of interpretations, in particular political interpretations, and the unease they cause, visible in official attempts to censor this kind of popular doomsaying. 2 The significance of any such event for human societies is largely the result of its historical context, the kind of religious, scientific, and political interpretations it evokes, and the ways these are communicated both through time and space. |
| Fachbereich(e)/-gebiet(e): | 02 Fachbereich Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften 02 Fachbereich Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften > Institut für Geschichte 02 Fachbereich Gesellschafts- und Geschichtswissenschaften > Institut für Geschichte > Mittelalterliche Geschichte |
| Hinterlegungsdatum: | 15 Apr 2019 13:26 |
| Letzte Änderung: | 25 Jul 2024 09:38 |
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