The Murderers of Bian Zhongyun.
Carma Hinton's "Interview" of Song Binbin*
Carma Hinton says it took her three years to convince Yan Song (nee Song Binbin) to appear in and be interviewed for Hinton's movie Morning Sun.
One would never think that words as common as "appear" and "interview" would need explanation as terms of art but with Dr. Hinton they do.
As mentioned in an earlier article here Yan Song "appears" in Morning Sun back lit so that her face is not revealed. This is the technique used for example for those who inform on the Mafia. There is no explanation given for why this extraordinary
measure was needed for Yan.
Nor is the common meaning of "interview" appropriate as used by Dr. Hinton, who now teaches at a Virginia commuter school. None of her questions appear on Morning Sun and especially as regards Yan Song there is no evidence that Dr. Hinton is acquainted with the concept of "follow-up questions" or even follow-up information. Yan is just allowed to talk, to say whatever she wants to say.
So after three years of convincing this is what Dr. Hinton got for her efforts. The first quote is Yan's account of the pinning of the Red Guard armband on Mao:
"The Red Guards were all excited. They went around putting armbands on party leaders. Someone said 'Binbin why not give one to Chairman Mao.' So I went up to him."
Now if we didn't know our history we would assume that Song was not a member of the Red Guards. If Song was a member of the Red Guards she would have used the inclusive "we." She doesn't so she must not have been a Red Guard, right? Wrong. Song was indeed a Red Guard and momentarily was to become the worldwide face of the Red Guards.
So too does Song seem to differentiate herself as one who was not "all excited." It was the Red Guards who were excited not, she seems to say, her. Unfortunately, immediately after this statement from Yan Dr. Hinton's film cuts to archival footage of Song pinning Mao and shows them talking immediately afterwards. Song is beaming and is so excited she is jumping up and down as if she can't hold her water much longer.
The way Yan tells it she was something like a Forrest Gump up there with Mao: "Someone said 'Binbin why not give one to Chairman Mao. So I went up to him." Did that happen very often, someone just going up to Mao and do something physical to him?
That is ludicrous. This was a "signal honor"** that had been bestowed upon Song, not an accidental encounter.
The next quote refers to the conversation with Mao. Mao asked her if her given name meant "educated and gentle," Song said that it did and Mao then said that she should have a "more martial" name. Thus Song Yaowu (Be Militant) was born:
"I was very naive and took it to be a casual remark. But an article soon appeared in the newspaper with the title 'I put a Red Armband on Chairman Mao.' It was written in the first person and signed Song Yaowu with my name Song Binbin in brackets. I couldn't believe the press would fabricate a new name for me and put words in my mouth for their propaganda purposes."
She "took it to be a casual remark?" If this was a 60 Minutes interview (in the commonly understood sense of the word) at this point the camera would pan to Mike Wallace arching his eyebrows in disbelief.
Mike: "Ms. Song, have you had a ct-scan recently? You took it as a casual remark, like, 'Oh, you know that Mao, such a cut-up?' Weren't Mao's words, ma'am, taken to be gospel, as it were, at the time?"
"TAKEN AS A CASUAL REMARK? Violence had already occurred at your school and now the Great Helmsman himself is suggesting that you change your name to 'Be Militant' and you didn't think he was serious?"
"TAKEN AS A CASUAL REMARK! THE NAME OF YOUR SCHOOL WAS CHANGED TO THE 'BE MILITANT MIDDLE SCHOOL!'"
Yan: Carma Hinton believed me.
Yan: "I couldn't believe the press would fabricate a new name for me and put words in my mouth for propaganda needs."
I have watched Morning Sun three times now and I can never get past this point without laughing. There are three things that Yan is trying to foist upon naive viewers here.
First, is that it was the press who gave her the name Yaowu, just "fabricated" it out of whole cloth. Minutes earlier in Morning Sun Yan ADMITTED that the name was suggested to her by Mao. This time at least People's Daily didn't fabricated anything. They got the facts exactly right.
Second, is that she did not write that article in the People's Daily. Now we are not so naive as to believe that everything penned in the People's Daily was true back then. However, there is compelling if not conclusive evidence that she did write the article: She DID pin Mao. We have the film evidence of that, and she DOES admit in Morning Sun that the conversation with Mao did in fact take place. So Mao did suggest that her given name should be changed to something more martial and then two days later there's a front-page article in the paper on the pinning and the name change and she had no idea? Possible: somebody else heard it/was told about it, and wrote it "in the first person" without Song's knowledge. More PROBABLE, the circumstantial evidence suggests, is that Song was the author. UNBELIEVABLE is Song's protest that the article was written without her approval, even if post-facto.
But then there's her statement about her naivete that the press would do what she accuses it of doing. She was "shocked, SHOCKED!" that such a thing could occur IN MAOIST CHINA? And Carma "Mike Wallace" Hinton let her say that without follow-up?
Yan continues: "My name didn't belong to me anymore. I had to change it so my friends helped me find a new single-syllable name by randomly picking a word out of a dictionary."
Indeed. One can see this poignant scene clearly:
Song: "Comrades my name has been changed by the evil communist propaganda lackeys at People's Daily!"
Her comrades: "Fear not Educated and Gentle, we will help you pick a new name! See here, comrade Rouge Guarde #236, happens to have a dictionary! Eenie-meenie, minee, moe, pick a new name and don't let go. A ha! here is 'yan' in said dictionary. Henceforth child, thouest shall be known as Yan (the 'stone', 'rock') Song!"
Song: "Oh thank you comrades!" (sobbing).
Later on Dr. Hinton's expose turns to some of the other "excesses" of the Cultural Revolution, and her three years of negotiations with Yan produce this bit of self-absolution:
"I didn't take part in smashing the four-olds or the house searches but rumors wereeverywhere: 'Song Be-Militant, the one who put the Red Guard armband on Mao, who brutally beat people up.' I was very upset because I had been always against violence."
Maybe it's true... As we have said here, we have no EVIDENCE at this point that Song "brutally beat people up." But there is a responsibility, we would submit, that Dr. Hinton has if she is an honest and truth-seeking scholar to tell us what Yan knows about WHO DID DO THE BEATINGS rather than just accept her statements of self-absolution. To do otherwise is to tell the story of the Six Million without telling us about the Nazis.
"Red Guards from other schools would come to check me out. 'You're the one? You're not what we expected.' I didn't fit their idea of a Revolutionary. My name and my image were hijacked. I had lost control of my identity. I was furious but I was also sad that people suffered because of what that name stood for."
It is clear from this that Yan continued to be known as Song Yaowu for some time. She does not say here in Morning Sun that she told these inquiring Red Guards from other schools that it was all untrue, that the press had given her this name against her will.
If her name and image had been "hijacked" why didn't she tell people right then and there that her name was not Song Yaowu and that she had never committed any of the violence attributed to her. Why didn't she tell Carma Hinton this in Morning Sun? Why didn't Dr. Hinton ask?
"When I first joined the Cultural Revolution I thought we were going to repudiate bourgeois policies in education but it turned into something altogether different."
This is absolutely untrue. Temporally, although there had been sporadic violence in the schools that summer it was not clear to what extent Mao sanctioned it. Yan's pinning of Mao represented the official sanctioning of the Red Guard violence.
Second, Yan seems to imply that the Cultural Revolution was initially something like a curriculum or textbook battle and then things somehow went awry. Totally untrue. The Cultural Revolution in the schools was precisely about students taking control of the schools from the teachers, and denouncing and beating them. Bian had been beaten in June, she had been beaten on August 4, she and four other school officials were beaten again on August 5, this time resulting in Bian's murder. Yan was one of the student leaders at the school at that time. She knew that the Cultural Revolution in the schools meant student violence against teachers.
If Yan thought that the movement was about teaching reform then why, after knowing that Bian had been murdered on her watch at her own school, was she still a Red Guard on August 18 when she so giddily pinned the armband onto Mao? And why didn't Dr. Hinton ask her?
The following quote concerns Yan's experience as a volunteer in the countryside:
"Rumors about me reached the village before I arrived. 'Song Be-Militant is coming to settle here, the one who burns, loots and rapes.' The villagers were afraid and they didn't want me there but by working hard with them I was able to gain their acceptance and they came to treat me with great kindness."
RAPES?
This interrogation of Song by Dr. Hinton is accompanied by photographic reinforcements: a photo of Song tossing a bale of hay on a farm, a photograph of Song posing lovingly with a calf, a photo of Song posing lovingly with a sheep. Apparently there was no photograph of Song with a teddy-bear available.
"My father named me Binbin because he wanted a daughter who was gentle and refined and I was indeed like that. If my name hadn't meant gentle Mao wouldn't have said 'better to be militant' and there wouldn't have been all these rumors. The name Song Be-Militant is totally against my beliefs. It's sad how history could have played such a bad joke."
More rumors, all rumors. See it was actually her father NAMING her Binbin that caused her difficulties. And history has just played a "bad joke" on her. Maybe it's true but Yan's denials are so total that they do not sound credible TO ME. One step in finding out however would be if Song agreed to a real interview. Carma Hinton, did not do that.
Morning Sun is not scholarship, it is not documentary, it is not history, it is propaganda.
This is Public Occurrences.
*Dr. Hinton was sent a draft of this post before publication and offered the opportunity to suggest corrections or write a rebuttal. She responded with silence.
**Chang and Halliday, Mao The Unknown Story.
Anyone with information on the identities of those responsible for the torture and murder of Bian Zhongyun please email publocc@gmail.com. Anyone with a photograph of Song Binbin with a teddy-bear please email Carma Hinton at chinton@gmu.edu.
