Tiananmen Square

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Tiananmen Square

• John Simpson

I have written a good deal about the Tiananmen
Square massacre, but it remains a perpetually
painful subject for me.
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About JS (1)

• 1944 Born near Blackpool
• His parents separated when he was 7, and he chose
  to live with his father
• He studied English at Cambridge, and edited the
  magazine Granta
• He married twice. His present wife is his
  producer, Dee Kruger.

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About JS (2)

• 1966 joined the BBC as sub-editor in Radio News,
  but found the job unsuitable.
• He worked his way up to BBC correspondent in
  Ireland in the early 1970s, and has remained
  almost always on the foreign beat since then.
• Awards
• Royal Television Society Journalist of the
  Year in 1991 and 2000
• a CBE in the Gulf War Honours
• an RTS award for International Current Affairs
  in 1996
• a Peabody Trust Award for News
• The One World Best Bi-Media News award

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JS the Writer (1)

• Why does he write?
• He sees it as a way to deal with his strong
  emotions when reporting.
• I had the most terrible dreams. The day after
  that, I had to write an article about it. And the
  act of writing and working through it as honestly
  as I was able seemed to deal with it and put it
  in its placeit doesn't haunt me.
• Now he writes a weekly column for the Sunday
  Telegraph.

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JS the Writer (2)

• Wars Against Saddam- The Hard Road to
  Baghdad (2003)
• Simpson's World Dispatches from the Front Lines
  (2003)
• News From No Mans Land Reporting the
  World  (2002)
• A Mad World, My Masters Tales from a Traveller's
  Life (2000)
• Strange Places, Questionable People (1998)  

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JS the Broadcaster (1)

• 1988 appointed World Affairs Editor presents
  the Nine oclock News and Simpsons World.
• Being a broadcaster is like
• - a humble salesman
• A news bulletin is a market economy, with
  buyers and sellers, winners and losers. I am
  merely a travelling salesman, whose stock in
  trade is a pack of pictures, facts and
  conclusions.

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Broadcaster JS (2)

• Glamarous job, and makes him feel proud
• I have reported from 101 countries, interviewed
  120 emperors, monarchs, presidents, dictators,
  prime ministers and other assorted rulers,
  despotic, loony, or occasionally sane, and
  witnessed 29 wars, uprisings and revolutions.
• Recent projects include covering
• war in Afghanistan
• It was only BBC people who liberated
• this city. We got in ahead of Northern
• Alliance troops.

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• - and war in Iraq.

• The job is sometimes dangerous. What makes him
  keep on?
• when it was theoretical and far away, I took
  pleasure in the feeling that I was going to a
  place which most sensible people would avoid. I
  told myself I wouldnt allow myself to be kept
  away from somewhere beautiful and interesting,
  just because of the death rate.

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Events Simpson reported on in 1989 Background of
article (1)
Soviet Union pulled out from Afghanistan
Tiananmen Square demonstration and massacre
Fall of Berlin Wall
Revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Romania
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Background of article (2)

• Snapshot within snapshots
• there are some things which a snapshot can
  convey, and a proper studio portrait cannot the
  confusion, the small details, the emotions, and
  the smells and sounds.

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Background of article (3)

• Tiananmen Square massacre
• - Following the death of former general
  secretary of the Communist Party Hu Yaobang,
  university students took to the streets and took
  over Tiananmen Square to ask for changes,
  notably regarding democracy.
• - The protest was gradually joined by citizens
  from different parts of China.
• - After several failed attempts to persuade the
  people to leave, the government ordered the
  Chinese army to clear the square, with force if
  necessary on the night of June 3 and the morning
  of June 4, 1989.
• - The number of people who died is publicly
  unknown.

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Background of article (4)

• JS actually didnt go to Beijing to report on its
  political turmoil. He was there to cover
  Gorbachevs historic visit to China, which came
  after nearly 20 years of standoff between the two
  communist countries.
• But the demonstrations in the square were a big
  story too, and became even bigger.

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• Later, Bill Buford, editor of Granta, asked JS to
  write about the subject, and the article was
  published in September, 1989.
• His cooperation with Buford led to his writing
  several descriptive scenes in the piece
• - scenes of soldiers being killed
• - sound and smell

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The Plot

• A plot is a narrative of events, the emphasis
  falling on causality. The king died and then the
  queen died is a story. The king died, and then
  the queen died of grief is a plot.
• E.M. Forster

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The Story Plot (1)

• External about JSs encounters on his way to and
  in Tiananmen Square on that night
• Internal about JSs emotional journey
• Sraightforward way of putting events, in
  chronological order
• Pace alternatively slow and fast, rather like a
  horizontal wave on a long spring

It was humid and airless (p.347)
People were shouting (p.348)
We pushed our way towards (p.348)
And then, suddenly, everything changed (p.348)
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The Story Plot (2)

• Mysterious suspense the climax is a scene
  where the soldiers are killed.
• Theme
• - It was hard to define the mood. There was
  still a spirit of celebrationbut the spirit was
  also giving way to a terrible forebodinga
  reckless ferocity of purpose. (p.349)
• - the river of change had been damned, and below
  me in the avenue where it had run, people were
  dying (p.353)

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Characters

• You would have me, when I describe horse
  thieves, say Stealing horses is evil. But that
  has been known for ages without my saying so. Let
  the jury judge them its my job simply to show
  what sort of people they are. Anton Chekhov

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Characters (1) Students

• Rather sympathetic, and depicted the students as
  innocent, naïve, peaceful their intent is best
  and noblest.
• A boy displayed his weapons, laughing all the
  time. (p.349)
• A couple clung to each other, her head on his
  shoulder. (p.349)
• The student who asked him to sign his t-shirt.
  (p.349) whats he doing? Why does he still care
  for the signature?
• The students trying to save the soldiers. (p.351)

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Characters (2) The mob

• so animal-like, fierce and violent, that he
  finally intruded and stopped them
• They were from the factorieslook aggressive,
  even piraticallooking forward to trouble.
  (p.348)
• A terrible shout of triumph came from the crowd
  primitive and dark, its prey finally caught.
  (p.350)
• All around me the men seemed to be yelling at the
  sky, their faces lit up. (p.351)
• The killing of the soldiers his body dragged
  away in triumphtheir mouths were open and
  panting, like dogs

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Characters (3) John Simpson

• A journalist-observer
• - Details differed, and I had trouble finding
  out what was being said(p.348)
• - We will all die. (p.349) why didnt him
  ask the student to go?
• A proud and confident one
• - I felt especially conspicuous. But I also
  felt good(p.349)
• - He argued with his colleagues and then left.
  (p.349)

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• Brutal hitting the people to reunite with his
  colleagues (p.350), stupid obscenities.
• overwhelmed And all the time the noise and the
  heat and the stench of oil burning overwhelming
  our senses, deadening them. (p.351)
• panic when the armoured personnel carrier was
  pointing at him (p.350)
• Wake up to his conscience Hes rather
  cool-headed at first, pulling the cameraman back.
  The ferocity of the crowd had entered mebut he
  saved a life in the end (hes explaining why he
  didnt do anything before)

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Symbols

• A symbol assumes two planes, two worlds of ideas
  and sensations, and a dictionary of
  correspondences between them.
• Albert Camus

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Symbols (1)

• Bland, moonlike portrait of Chairman Mao
• Over the Gate of Heavenly Peace there hung the
  portrait of Chairman Mao, the founder of a new
  dynasty. I was unable to take my eyes off it. It
  was a masterwork of utter blandness. This was the
  man whose whims had cost more lives than
  Stalins, and yet there was no expression
  whatever No cunning, No anxiety, No past. It was
  a portrait of facelessness, and yet it was
  exactly true to life.

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Symbols (2)

• Hypnotists voice
• The thoughts of government, the voice the people
  of China had been listening to for forty years
• Goddess of Democracy, with her sightless eyes
• The symbol of all our aspirations, the fruit of
  our struggle, looked very fragile

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• ???????

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• The End