This is a good article.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/dec/18/chinas-brave-underground-journal-ii/. I like it. Several months ago Ian Johnson emailed me, he asked only for one specific thing, the source of one of Dr. Weimin Mo's translated documents. I provided it, put him in touch with Weimin. Ian and I corresponded just a few more times after that.
I had not remembered Ian when we were emailing. Last night I was fooling around on
Public Occurrences; as I recall I was reading a post on China that someone had clicked on and then went to some related posts around the same time and I saw that I
had heard of Ian Johnson before, had written a short post on him by name!
http://publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com/search?q=IAN+JOHNSON. That post was follow-up on earlier post, which was commentary on a
New York Times article. I read that post.
http://publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com/2012/04/bo.html I liked it. In the retrospect of three years I liked that post, sometimes I don't like posts I've written so much, but I still liked that one, I thought it was good. In that April 26, 2012 post, "Bo Did It," I questioned the accuracy and the sourcing of the
Times article, which I saw had been the lead article in the whole paper the previous day. I didn't mention the writers by name but they were Jonathan Ansfield and Ian Johnson.
"China's Brave Underground Journal--II, Ian Johnson,
New York Review of Books, December 18, 2014:
-Don't like that title. Don't know if Ian is responsible for that title, don't think he is, but don't like it.
Remembrance, the Chinese ezine, which published the ludicrous roundtable discussion of Song Binbin's role in Cultural Revolution violence, is not brave, imo.
http://publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com/2010/11/chinas-great-wall-of-silence_28.html
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"Bian was beaten badly on August 4." I don't remember badly, I remember beaten.
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"That evening she told her husband that the girls would kill her." Yes, and bathed so that her corpse would be clean.
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"He [Wang Jingyao] urged her to somehow escape..." Not what he told me.
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"...but she was proud and certain she was a good Communist." Yes, she was.
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"The next day when she left for the school, she formally shook her husband’s hand, as if to say farewell." Yep, and he walked her partway to the school, watching her disappear around a corner, the last time he would see her alive.
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"Bian was tortured all day." Hot day, too.
-"In
Though I Am Gone..."
What follows indented is from
Though I am Gone, which Mr. Johnson has watched, which I have watched, which I don't have with me now so can't check, so when I say below "I don't remember that" or "No, that's not true," it is from my memory of
Though I am Gone and my knowledge of the facts from all sources combined.
I have no reason to doubt Ian's account
of what was said in "Though I am Gone."
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"witnesses say the girls wrote slogans over her clothes..." Don't remember that.
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"...shaved her head..." Her corpse had hair so if they shaved her head they didn't do a good job.
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"... jabbed her scalp with scissors..." Don't remember that.
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"...poured ink on her head..." Yes.
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"...beat her [Yes.] until her eyes rolled into her head..." Don't remember the eyes.
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"...When she started foaming at the mouth..." [I know her body was found with foam around the mouth, you often see that in dead bodies, but I do not remember an account of her foaming at the
mouth while still alive.
"...they laughed"...[Don't remember that]
"...and ordered her to perform
manual labor..." [Yes]
"...by scrubbing the toilets." [And carrying heavy objects, other "manual labor," yes.]
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"...She collapsed and died there, her clothes soaked in blood and feces." Yes.
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"...Hours later, some students carted her away in a wheelbarrow." Yes, to the hospital right across the street.
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"When students mentioned Bian’s death to Party officials, they brushed it off as not inconsistent with Mao’s orders." They reported it, like an official notification, they didn't mention it in passing conversation. Not in those words but "brushed off," okay, the party didn't arrest anyone. I think Deng Xiaoping himself was notified.
End indent. That concludes the direct references to
Though I am Gone if I am reading the article correctly.
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"Song’s direct role in Bian’s killing is unclear." Yes.
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"She has never been credibly linked to the beating," Yes.
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"...but as one of the student leaders, many assumed she must have at least known about it." Oh, she
knew about it for godssake; at best for Song, she was in a meeting while Bian was being beaten, was told that the beating was occurring and went out to check on it. The key point about her culpability is that she was
the leader of the Red Guards at the school and the beating could not have occurred at all unless she approved it. That is from Dr. Youqin Wang who was a student and who was there.
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"...Still, all accounts show that it had been an anarchic and confusing day, and she might not have done any worse than the scores of other girls who were in the school at the time but did nothing to stop the violence." Anarchic and confusing, yes, but absolutely not that she was just one of girls who did nothing. She had the power to approve it, and she did, and she had the power to stop it, and she didn't. The other girls, like Dr. Wang, had no power to do anything. You can't lump Song in with
"other girls who did nothing."
-The meeting with Mao on August 18, Song Binbin becomes Song Yaowu:
"The next day, an article under the byline Song Yaowu condoned extremism, saying that “violence is truth.” [Yes.]
"Song became one of the most famous Red Guard leaders." [Yes.] Song denied that she ever changed or adopted the name "Yaowu" or wrote the article! She said, in
Morning Sun, that the article was written by someone else and she was shocked, SHOCKED to see her new name associated with content like "violence is truth." She took great umbrage at that article and said "Then why did my father name me 'refined and gentle,' huh?" lol.
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"In Beijing alone, 1,772 people were killed that August, with Vice-Principal Bian’s murder usually reckoned to be the first." No. Bian was the first teacher killed, not the first person.
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"For years, many believed that Song killed Bian as well as others." Under the law of principals, if the evidence was that Song knew about the beating and approved it, then Song killed Bian as well as the others who struck the blows. If I hire a hitman to kill my business associate I am as guilty of first degree murder as the guy who pulled the trigger.
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"In the 1980s, she emigrated to the United States, changed her given name to Yan (which means “stone”), earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," And in geology or some rock-related field, which I have always thought funny. But in
Morning Sun, Binbin/Yaowu denied that
she had changed her name to "stone;" she said some friends picked it out of a hat for her, lol.
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"In the 2003 film Morning Sun by the US filmmaker Carma Hinton, she consented to be interviewed, portraying herself as an unwitting girl who had been almost tricked into meeting Mao on the rostrum. She also said she didn’t write the article condoning extremism, and generally abhors violence. Hinton, who grew up in China and participated as a Red Guard at another Beijing school, was a gentle interviewer:"[I love that: "gentle interviewer." She didn't ask her a question. Hinton didn't ask her a single question on the film.]
"...in the film, she doesn’t ask Song about Bian’s killing, and she filmed Song in a dark room so that her face was obscured." [Man, I wish everybody could see that. It is like something out of
Borat.]
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"Instead, Bian’s death was discussed by one of Song’s classmates who had not been present at the
school that day. She started her account by saying that Bian had been in poor health, implying that this was an important reason for her death." I'm pretty sure that was Weili Ye.
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"That same year, Song threatened to sue the University of California Press for a book, Chinese Femininities, Chinese Masculinities: A Reader, that made several assertions about Bian’s murder, including that Song “led” the students in torturing Bian to death. The two sides reached an agreement, with Song not pursuing legal action in exchange for the press issuing an erratum to the book and promising to make corrections to the second edition. The editors and authors also issued an apology for presenting Song “as responsible for violent acts that occurred near the start of the Cultural Revolution. Including these statements in the book was a serious error in judgment.” Yes, but Jung Chang also directly implicated Song and Song didn't sue her. Jung would have fought back and would have won!
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"A few years later, Song again surfaced in the media. To celebrate its ninetieth anniversary, the experimental high school published a picture book of famous alumni, including Song, and prominently featured the picture of her meeting Mao on the rostrum. Almost perversely, the facing page has a picture of Bian, with no mention of the link between the two women. Pictures taken at the anniversary event show a banner that Song’s classmates made for her that flew outside the school. It is adorned with photos from her youth, including the picture with Mao. The photos were widely circulated in China, eliciting scorn and anger among many victims of Mao-era violence." There is a snap of Songie herself looking at the book open to those facing pages!
-"But friends close to Song say she was troubled by being associated with violence, [She didn't look troubled up there on the Tienanman Gate with Maoie, hoo-doggie, and that was only 13 days after Bian's murder!]
especially Bian’s death. [Oh, puhlease. Ditto hoo-doggie.]
That led to the involvement of the underground magazine Remembrance, whose editor, Wu Di, decided to get involved."
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"Wu told me that Song had long wanted to speak out about the violence but was discouraged by her husband." Bullshit. I'm sure that's what Wu Di told Ian Johnson but Song didn't want to, and didn't, talk about this for her whole life until
Morning Sun. After seeing that performance I'm sure her husband advised her never to do that again. If I had been her lawyer I would have physically prevented her from appearing on
Morning Sun with her face blacked out, lmao.
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"When he died two years ago, she participated in a roundtable discussion that was reprinted in Remembrance." It really would have been better for Song to have been a more traditional dutiful Chinese wife and obeyed her husband's sage advice to not speak.
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" Later that year, the magazine also published a piece by her called “The Words I’ve Wanted to Speak for Forty Years.” I did not know that! Or if I did, I've forgotten.
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"In it, she recounted the circumstances surrounding Bian’s death..." [:o I swear I didn't know about this.]
"...explaining how she urged her classmates not to be violent." [BULL
SHIT! This is Song now, so that can be said, and has been said will be said again, BULLSHIT!]
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"The article went on at length about how Song hated the given name “Yaowu” (be militant)..."[Nope.]
"...and had suffered for being associated with violence. [Nope]
"Reading Song’s essay is an unsettling experience." [I bet.]
"One senses that her feelings are honest"... [This "one" does not even though he hadn't read it.]
"...but muddled, a misguided attempt to equate her sufferings with the atmosphere of terror and violence that she helped create."
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"Song’s article was criticized as an attempt to whitewash her role in Bian’s death. Wu and Remembrance, too, came in for criticism for giving her a platform. Wu told the group of us at the table, however, that this had been his goal. By giving Song a place to air her views, he hoped to open up the discussion on responsibility." Song does not deserve any more platforms unless it's the hanging platform. Song should be questioned, and not gently, she should be interrogated.
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"When Chen Xiaolu, the general’s son, apologized last year, Wu urged Song to take the next step and apologize formally herself."
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"In January, Song returned to her old high school, where a bronze bust of Bian stands on a pedestal in a conference room. Bowing before it with several other classmates, Song pulled out a written apology, saying she felt “eternal regret and sorrow” for her actions. At first, Song largely reiterated her 2012 article, saying she’d tried but failed to disperse the girls."
"But then she went further, trying to explain her actions that day. She said that she had been scared. People who had sided with the moderates were being accused of not following the correct political line. Worried about the consequence for herself, she “followed those making errors…. For this, I have responsibility for the sad death of Principal Bian.” This is what Ian Johnson asked of me, the original source for Dr. Mo's translation of Song's apology. I remembered it being from China Digital Times but Ian said that page was no longer available. So Song changed her story. I do not remember Song admitting having "followed those making errors," I do remember her taking "responsibility" for Bian's murder, I thought that was a commendable thing by Song and I commended her for it. It was up to the Chinese people to decide if it was good enough, I wrote, I think I hinted that I was Chinese I would find it acceptable but my recollection is the Chinese people did not find it acceptable.
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"Wu also helped to organize a conference to discuss the violence at the girls’ school. Song sat hunched over a MacBook Air, and gave her account again, as did numerous other participants. A few weeks later, Wu dedicated an issue of Remembrance to Bian’s killing, including essays by Song and some of her classmates describing their experiences that summer, the violence, and how it happened." Didn't know about none of that there. Nobody tells me anything. :(
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"In some ways the apology was remarkable." [I found it so. And commendable.]
"Unlike the statement by the general’s son, Song’s apology is more detailed. She describes her actions and how, in effect, she had been too cowardly to defend her teacher—"...[I do not find that remarkable or commendable.]...
"a plausible enough explanation given her age and the totalitarian atmosphere at the time." [Disagree vehemently.]
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"But Song wasn’t entirely convincing. Crucially, she doesn’t explain why she had assumed that the girls wouldn’t beat Bian when they had disobeyed her once before..".[They didn't disobey her once before...I will have to go back and check this. I know that Song was notified; I know she left her meeting to come out and check the beating situation out; I know she didn't stop it. My recollection is her reaction was "Eh," it didn't look too bad to her; I know she didn't say, "What, are you wusses? Harder! Harder!" ]
"...or how she could not have known that Bian was being beaten..."[She knew; she saw it with her own eyes.]
..." after she left the girls—the campus is not that big..." [She did not leave the girls by going off campus if that is what he is saying Song said.]
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"In essence she explains these points by alluding to the fear that possessed her, and one can read between the lines and understand that she probably knew what was going on but didn’t act." [She was not afraid; she had no reason to be afraid, she was in charge. But that sentence in its entirety, I agree with Ian's reading between the lines, she knew what was going on and didn't act. I agree with that completely. Song did not deliver a blow that there is any evidence of and in the way normal people think of these things that is a distinction with a difference. Until normal people think of the hired hitman situation. Or, in the analogous Rodney Dangerfield joke, "Frank Sinatra's a great guy, saved my life once. Yeah, these three guys were beating me to death, Frank came over, said "Okay, that's enough."]
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"Wu is happy about the resulting public discussion but not about how Song was attacked. “I thought liberal intellectuals would applaud us for trying to get this discussion going,” he said to our group. “But after all this criticism of Song Binbin, who’s going to apologize again in the future?” [Validity to that point but it's up to the Chinese people to decide if any apology is acceptable.]
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"Others said they could understand the unwillingness by some to accept Song’s apology, noting that she and her friends still wouldn’t say which of them actually had beaten the vice-principal." [That is a KEY point. Song and her friends know damn well who struck the blows and they won't say. So they are playing this game of hide and seek where they say "Song didn't strike the blows!" If they KNOW Song DIDN'T strike the blows because they were there and were eyewitnesses that Song didn't strike the blows then they know who DID strike the blows and they won't say. That really grates on people. On me, too.]
-Johnson quotes a discussion he heard at lunch among the
Remembrance guys:
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“The point is if they were Red Guards they were under Song’s control.” [That is the point.]
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“They know who did it—why don’t they say?” [That is also the point.]
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“What purpose would that serve? It would end in suicide.” [That's a point. The perps ought to confess on their own, not be outed
if possible]
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“She excused herself but she did apologize.” [Imo, Song did more than excuse herself and she did apologize.]
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“Don’t forget that Bian was the highest Communist Party official at the school. If you put it this way—they beat to death the highest Communist Party official at the school—haha, so if you think of it like this, the West can accept it. The people who beat her to death were anti-Communist heroes!” That bothers me because it is not the West's role to accept or reject. This is an entirely internal Chinese matter. Nobody in the West has any right to accept or reject anything here. The only reason I got involved in this was because Song came to the U.S., took a degree here, lived the Chinese-American dream here and was still living here when I called her on her home phone! Nobody picked up and a few hours later got a call back, id'd myself and they hung up. Wrote about that. Song had not moved back to Beijing permanently in 2007, or in 2003 as Ian Johnson wrote above. Once she did, and I forget when I knew she was gone for good, I lost interest. It was now strictly a Chinese affair. However, I do acknowledge that I agitated,
really agitated about this while she was here. It really pissed me off that she got away with this, fled China
and came to my country! Really pissed me off.
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"Everyone stopped and looked at the person who had made that dark joke. He looked down a bit embarrassed. “Just a jest, sorry.”
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"After hours of discussion, the meeting was almost over...But first Yin Hongbiao spoke. He is a Peking University international relations specialist who also writes on student violence."
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"Yin reminded them that people like Song had been teenagers at the time."
“Children can commit crimes, but you have to ask, who raised them?” He spoke slowly, and looked up at the others who had gathered around the wooden table. “Who encouraged them?” he continued. “We want them to apologize, but shouldn’t others, too?” That's not the point,
"The room went silent. Then they started speaking, incoherent but passionate and urgent, as memories of the past collided with questions about the future."
Okay, well, good luck! Y'all keep in touch, hear?
