China's Great Wall of Silence:
The Murderers of Bian Zhongyun.
Dr. Weili Ye*
Weili Ye is a former Red Guard and
student at the Girls Middle School. She says, and
we have no reason to doubt her at this point on this,
that she was absent for the part of August 5 that
included the parading of Bian out into the school-
yard and the torture and murder. She says that she
returned only after Bian had been murdered.
She doesn't say where she was, who she was with
or what she was doing in the interim.
Ye is now a professor at a second-tier American
academic institution, the University of
Massachusetts at Boston. She has written a
memoir with a fellow Red Guard called Growing
Up in The People's Republic. In it she writes
seemingly sincerely about how the death of
"Aunt Bian" effected her then and now. She has
also written what is the most detailed
account of that day that we have come across,
The Death Of Bian Zhongyun, in the journal
The Chinese Historical Review, Fall 2006. The
latter coincided with the fortieth anniversary of
the torture/murder. The last sentence in the
article says that it "is a tribute to Bian, leader of
my secondary school, mother of four, and one
of the first sacrifices to the Cultural Revolution."
To complete this account of Dr. Ye's emotional
affect she also spoke with apparent feeling on the
subject in Morning Sun.
As to the substance of what Dr. Ye has written
she states that "The physical torture took place in
broad daylight..."
So there must have been lots of witnesses!
In fact she states that she spoke to "over twenty
schoolmates" including "A NUMBER OF STUDENTS
FROM THE CLASS IN FIRST YEAR SENIOR HIGH
THAT INITIATED THE AUGUST 5 EVENT."(emphasis
added)
HERE WE HAVE IT! A COURAGEOUS CHINESE-
AMERICAN SCHOLAR HAS GOTTEN THE TRUTH
FROM EYE-WITNESSES AND IS GOING TO TELL
ALL IN THE NAME OF VERITAS AND HISTORY!
Right? Wrong. The names of almost all who she
interviewed are unidentified. Further, what
THEY said is summarized by Dr. Weili, there
are few direct quotes. FURTHER, Dr. Ye
does not even summarize WHO if anybody
they said participated in the torture/ murder.
This is academic mush. More, it is deliberate
obfuscation.
Dr. Ye devotes a separate section of her
article to "Song Binbin and the CR Mythology."
She continues to use the name that Song went
under forty years ago, calling her neither by her
nom de guerre Song Yaowu ("the militant"), or
her current name Yan ("the stone") Song.
She absolves Yan Song of any responsibility:
"Of the nine former classmates I interviewed
in recent years, no one saw Song Binbin
(Yan Song) participate in the beating or other
forms of physical torturing during the entire
episode, or heard about Song's (Yan's) participation."
She continues "Both Song Binbin (Yan Song) and
Chen Xiaolu...were INNOCENT (emphasis added)
of committing any violent acts.."
Great, Yan's innocent! So who did your nine
former classmates say did the beating, Dr. Ye?
Silence.
She says "Based on my many interviews of
the students and teachers of the school I
believe it is possible to identify the initiators
of that day's event." YES, here it comes a
courageous stroke for truth, justice and
the Chinese-American way!
No. She never says. She never says who
her interviews pointed to or who might
be able to tell us. Silence, China's Great
Wall of Silence.
Dr. Ye says that she interviewed Yan
Song in Beijing on May 12, 2006. By now
the reader knows what to expect. Dr. Weili
never says what Yan said.
What a sham. What a disgrace to American
scholarship that such a eunuch of an article
could get published in a peer-reviewed
scholarly journal, not in China, but in
America.
After Mao Zedong's death and the arrest
of the Gang of Four, Chinese newspapers
simply air- brushed the Gang of Four out
of the mourning photos. Absurdly, the
photos, with a gap as big as a six year-old
missing her two front teeth, were foisted
on the world as if noone would notice.
Weili Ye is following in this great People's
Republic tradition by publishing a sanitized
version of history, a history that showers
apparent sympathy on the victim while
leaving gap-toothed the whole photograph,
with who the victimizers were.
This is Public Occurrences.
*Dr. Ye was sent a draft of this post and
offered the opportunity to suggest any
corrections or to write a rebuttal before
publication. She responded with silence.
Anyone with information on the
identity of those responsible for
Bian Zhongyun's torture and
murder, contact publocc@gmail.com.
The Murderers of Bian Zhongyun.
Dr. Weili Ye*
Weili Ye is a former Red Guard and
student at the Girls Middle School. She says, and
we have no reason to doubt her at this point on this,
that she was absent for the part of August 5 that
included the parading of Bian out into the school-
yard and the torture and murder. She says that she
returned only after Bian had been murdered.
She doesn't say where she was, who she was with
or what she was doing in the interim.
Ye is now a professor at a second-tier American
academic institution, the University of
Massachusetts at Boston. She has written a
memoir with a fellow Red Guard called Growing
Up in The People's Republic. In it she writes
seemingly sincerely about how the death of
"Aunt Bian" effected her then and now. She has
also written what is the most detailed
account of that day that we have come across,
The Death Of Bian Zhongyun, in the journal
The Chinese Historical Review, Fall 2006. The
latter coincided with the fortieth anniversary of
the torture/murder. The last sentence in the
article says that it "is a tribute to Bian, leader of
my secondary school, mother of four, and one
of the first sacrifices to the Cultural Revolution."
To complete this account of Dr. Ye's emotional
affect she also spoke with apparent feeling on the
subject in Morning Sun.
As to the substance of what Dr. Ye has written
she states that "The physical torture took place in
broad daylight..."
So there must have been lots of witnesses!
In fact she states that she spoke to "over twenty
schoolmates" including "A NUMBER OF STUDENTS
FROM THE CLASS IN FIRST YEAR SENIOR HIGH
THAT INITIATED THE AUGUST 5 EVENT."(emphasis
added)
HERE WE HAVE IT! A COURAGEOUS CHINESE-
AMERICAN SCHOLAR HAS GOTTEN THE TRUTH
FROM EYE-WITNESSES AND IS GOING TO TELL
ALL IN THE NAME OF VERITAS AND HISTORY!
Right? Wrong. The names of almost all who she
interviewed are unidentified. Further, what
THEY said is summarized by Dr. Weili, there
are few direct quotes. FURTHER, Dr. Ye
does not even summarize WHO if anybody
they said participated in the torture/ murder.
This is academic mush. More, it is deliberate
obfuscation.
Dr. Ye devotes a separate section of her
article to "Song Binbin and the CR Mythology."
She continues to use the name that Song went
under forty years ago, calling her neither by her
nom de guerre Song Yaowu ("the militant"), or
her current name Yan ("the stone") Song.
She absolves Yan Song of any responsibility:
"Of the nine former classmates I interviewed
in recent years, no one saw Song Binbin
(Yan Song) participate in the beating or other
forms of physical torturing during the entire
episode, or heard about Song's (Yan's) participation."
She continues "Both Song Binbin (Yan Song) and
Chen Xiaolu...were INNOCENT (emphasis added)
of committing any violent acts.."
Great, Yan's innocent! So who did your nine
former classmates say did the beating, Dr. Ye?
Silence.
She says "Based on my many interviews of
the students and teachers of the school I
believe it is possible to identify the initiators
of that day's event." YES, here it comes a
courageous stroke for truth, justice and
the Chinese-American way!
No. She never says. She never says who
her interviews pointed to or who might
be able to tell us. Silence, China's Great
Wall of Silence.
Dr. Ye says that she interviewed Yan
Song in Beijing on May 12, 2006. By now
the reader knows what to expect. Dr. Weili
never says what Yan said.
What a sham. What a disgrace to American
scholarship that such a eunuch of an article
could get published in a peer-reviewed
scholarly journal, not in China, but in
America.
After Mao Zedong's death and the arrest
of the Gang of Four, Chinese newspapers
simply air- brushed the Gang of Four out
of the mourning photos. Absurdly, the
photos, with a gap as big as a six year-old
missing her two front teeth, were foisted
on the world as if noone would notice.
Weili Ye is following in this great People's
Republic tradition by publishing a sanitized
version of history, a history that showers
apparent sympathy on the victim while
leaving gap-toothed the whole photograph,
with who the victimizers were.
This is Public Occurrences.
*Dr. Ye was sent a draft of this post and
offered the opportunity to suggest any
corrections or to write a rebuttal before
publication. She responded with silence.
Anyone with information on the
identity of those responsible for
Bian Zhongyun's torture and
murder, contact publocc@gmail.com.
