Amelia Gentleman’s article in The Guardian about a day in the life of an elderly care home is very hard to read, but very necessary, and compassionately written. The constant contrast between the residents’ past lives and their undignified present existence persistently reminds us that this could be our future too. She doesn’t criticise the quality of care that the patients receive, but just shows us what it feels like to grow so old that we become helpless again.

After the jump, a few examples of what I mean:

Life here is another era preserved. The names are from the 1920s (Ethel, Alfred, Dot, Winifred, Gladys), the accents are a thicker Suffolk than heard anywhere now, the residents are all white, and talk about jobs they had that no longer exist (seamstresses, drapers), using defunct exclamations (”Cor blimey”). No one here has a mobile, and the only electronic chirping is the alarm to say that someone needs to be taken out of the loo.

[...]

Someone has tried to sweeten her existence by putting a bird table outside the window, and inside there are other attempts to mitigate the misery of her life in this shoe-box shaped room – photos of relatives’ weddings, framed pictures of her long dead, bricklayer husband, looking handsome in a soldier’s uniform.

[...]

The process takes 45 minutes. When Diana no longer has the energy to whisper yes or no to offers of food, she raises a long and elegant manicured finger on the bed to indicate when she is ready for more. The bright carmine red nail polish is incongruous – it’s the fingernail of a 1940s femme fatale, not a dying woman in a flowered nightdress.

Diana just breaks my heart.

The new cartoon was the initiative of the Iranian-American Sina Payman, who has put together a website called Spread Persepolis to promote the project.

The creator of the original cartoon, Marjane Satrapi, gave permission for the update, but was not directly involved.

Payman said the updated cartoon was aimed at showing how history is repeating itself in Iran.

(The Guardian)

Click here for more on Persepolis

So many great songs, and this isn’t even in my top three (Billie Jean, Off the Wall, Blood on the Dancefloor; special mention for his part in I Want You Back), but I think I’d like to remember him like this:

The top 3/4 after the jump:

Billie Jean – the first live performance at Motown 25 in 1983:

Off the Wall, live in 1979:

Blood on the Dancefloor:

The Jackson Five singing I Want You Back on TV in 1972:

Warning: This video is unbelievably graphic and horrific.

(via The Guardian)

Neda Soltani was shot dead on Saturday, while protesting with her father music teacher in Tehran. Her death is not being reported by the state-controlled media inside the country. She was the same age as me.

On day before the 20th anniversary of the crackdown, Amnesty is gathering a group of survivors, and joining their calls for an independent inquiry into the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Today’s Speakers:

Wu Yenhua: He was Assistant professor and Program Director at the Institute of Chinese Classics at the China university of Political Science and Law in 1989, and actively involved in the pro-democracy movement. He now lives in exile in the US.

Dr Wang Rongfen: She was a member of the Beijing Association of Academics and spent almost every night of the protests in Tiananmen Square. She had earlier been imprisoned for 13 years for writing to Mao Zedong, challenging his ‘Cultural Revolution’. She is now based in Germany.

Shao Jiang: He was an organiser of non-violent demos in Beijing in 1989, and was jailed for 18 months afterwards. He has lived in exile in the UK since 1997.

Xia Ze: She is the UK Director of Friends of the Tiananmen Mothers; her 19-year-old cousin was shot dead during the crackdown of 1989.

Kate Adie, who reported from the square for the BBC in 1989, will also be speaking.

—

(via truthandfilm)

Shao Jiang: There was a lot of human rights abuse and social disaster that arose from this regime [Chinese communist government]… Urge your government to monitor the Chinese regime, to press them into change.

Wu Yenha [translated]: In the year 1989, when [it] happened, I was at the place the whole night… 20 years have passed, and I cannot forget what happened, the killings… I have been trying to tell people the truth.

There were 14 [40?] military troops in Beijing at that time… there were also many other armies, there were about 200 000 in Beijing…

I would like to describe what I think was the most horrible thing about the event. About 6am on 4th June 1989, about 3000 students were chased by the army from Tiananmen Square, I was one of them that time… this was about 150m from the centre of Chinese government… The tanks threw tear gas at the students and 11 were killed, more were hurt. 5 bodies of the students were taken to the university where I taught at the time. It was the China University of Political Science and Law. It was unforgettable. So many dead bodies around there. That was the most bloody scene I saw at the time.

On 6th June, they didn’t care who you were, women or children, they just killed people… a 9-year-old boy was killed by the army. We don’t have much time now, but I can answer questions later.

Dr Wang Rongfen [translated]: I would like to tell you a story that happened 43 years ago, at the start of the Cultural Revolution. I made a mistake. I wrote a letter to Mao Zedong, that was altogether 3 and a half sentences. I said… what are you going to lead the Chinese into? I also wrote that the Cultural Revolution is not the people’s movement, it is one man with a gun. I said I would quit the party from now on, then my signature and my school. Then I was arrested. I was sentenced to indefinite imprisonment; I was in jail for 13 years.

In 1989, I was a professor. I was working with Max Lieber in Germany. We were going to hold a meeting in Beijing, but, because of the events of June 6th, we had to change it.

The Chinese never voted for this [communist government]. Why has the communist party continued in China for another 20 years? [...] They have the army.

Since the Republic of China was founded, the leader of the communist party is also the leader of the Central Military Commission. Mao Zedong, who I wrote to, he was the leader of the party, and the leader of the Central Military Commission.

In 1989, the 200 000 troops in Beijing were sent by the Central Military Commission… I think the Chinese Army is the army of the communist party, they suppress the Chinese people. In the past 60 years, they have killed 70 million, and they are continuing to kill people. The Central Military Commission and Judiciary Commission in China is not for justice. The law is not for justice. The Secretary of the Judiciary System is also in charge of the police… the Judiciary System decides who is guilty and who is not guilty. If the judge makes a decision, he will lose his job and be put in jail… the communist party is in charge of the Chinese people’s lives, and they want to continue for ever, but the Chinese people will not agree, they are fighting for democracy and human rights.

If there is no help from international organisations like Amnesty International there is no hope for the Chinese people… I have a wish for the June 4th event: I hope Amnesty and other international organisations could investigate the truth of June 4th… I hope the murderer will be sent to court. We owe something to the people who died in this event.

Xia Ze: [passes on a message from her late cousin's mother, her aunt] She would like to thank everyone outside China who has helped to reveal the truth of Tiananmen Square and gave moral and physical and financial support to the families. We have been trying to support the victims, the families of victims, and to reveal the truth.

My cousin was 19-years-old – he just stood in the street, holding a camera. He was doing nothing. He was shot dead because, on that day, no filming or photos were allowed. He was shot once through the head. Ambulances arrived twice and turned away. People were begging soldiers to help him, but they said that they would not save him, that they would shoot the others first.

Even more miserable for the family is that they are still suffering from persecution these 20 years. My auntie has been under house arrest, followed, had her movements restricted. They arrested her for receiving a parcel of T-shirts from Hong Kong, saying “Remember Tiananmen Square.” They said that these T-shirts harmed Chinese security. They also arrested 2 founders of Tiananamen Mothers, who had not receieved parcels… then false statements were released [in her aunt's name]. Three generations of my family have been persecuted.

We must get the killers, the people who were ordering the killings, to justice. Still we want justice for the victims, for their families. I appeal to the media: please use your pens to help Chinese people to be free from the dictatorship, to be free to speak out, to have human rights… there are so many Chinese people thirsty for human rights. Please help.

Anu Kultalahti, Amnesty’s China expert: It is not an event of the past.

China has changed a lot over the past 20 years. China is keen to become a world leader.

This year, China introduced its first human rights plan, but of course, it depends on how it is implemented.

Last weekend, 18 human rights lawyers didn’t get their law licences renewed – they are subject to annual renewal. That’s the biggest number we’ve ever seen in a year. These lawyers have been taken up cases of those involved in Tibet in 2008, other human rights activists.

Lots of leading key activists in China are kept under house arrest, to keep them from talking to the media and from protesting in the streets. China has just blocked sites like Twitter and Flickr.

Kate Adie: Everyone wants to remember… what there isn’t, is any noise from Beijing. People we spoke to for the documentary a few weeks ago are now under house arrest or constant surveillance. It is standard practice.

I was late to the demonstrations… it happened over many weeks, and the other reporters had lost their steam, so I came in. I arrived a few days before the night the army shot its way in – it tried on 2 occasions… I was called about 10 minutes to midnight, and things seemed quiet.

We got a call that there was shooting going on, in Chang’an Avenue, which was miles from the square. It happened in all the streets around the square, not in the square itself. We saw burnt-out vehicles further out over the next few days. they were shooting from many other directions.

We were convinced that there had been a high death toll. I’d be guided by the Chinese Red Cross – they said at least 1000 a few days later – taken from the medics on the scene. Immediately after that announcement, that number disappeared. That figure has been erased, it can no longer be found in any official documents.

Trucks came in before tanks. The ordinary citizen, a man standing next to me, was no longer there. He had dropped to the ground – shot. It took me and the camerman that the trucks passing the street were full of soldiers firing down the side streets. Ordinary people coming out of their houses, wandering out in a daze, were shot. Some of the bullets went through the clay walls of the houses. I saw a woman dead in front of her TV. I think this was the main number of the casualties.

The children’s hospital was a scene of carnage… everyone had major exit bullet wounds. They were using high-powered rifles. If there is one particular reaction which I think is unique to China – disbelief. People did not run away – they stood in disbelief. They’ve had it rammed down their throats for decades, that the army loves the people… in Beijing they did not run for their lives and take cover. They were firing right down at the students from just a couple of hundred yards away.

The army opened fire in broad daylight. We saw people fall. There were thousands of them. There was no attempt at concealment. It was a straight attack, and it was unprovoked.

China has changed, but the determined vindictiveness of the regime has not. Anyone who tries to commemorate Tiananmen Square is persecuted. 19 years after it happened, a man who sent a one-line tribute into a newspaper has been placed under surveillance and is being bullied. They are criminalised within their own communities, they are made to lose friends by the Secret Police, who spread rumours about them.

They know what democracy and freedom of speech are. It’s not true to say that they don’t, as though the Chinese are a different kind of people. It is a small group who are prepared to speak out. The authorities are not moving towards to granting the people any freedom.

—

Here’s a little piece of hope, via The Guardian:

“To safeguard China Day” indeed (wordku.com).

The reasons are well-known outside of China, yes (bullog.org).

This is the cutest:

How cheeky (wuqing.org)!

Click here to see the ridiculous lengths the Chinese government have gone to to keep this anniversary quiet. One word: UMBRELLAS.

Thursday is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Tomorrow, I’ll be attending an Amnesty event where some of the people involved will be speaking, and will be blogging from there.

In anticipation of the anniversary, the Chinese government has already started shutting down online communication services.

After the jump, an excerpt from Chinese novelist Ma Jian’s excellent piece on Tiananmen and what it means now, in today’s G2:

The Chinese have made a faustian pact with the government, agreeing to forsake demands for political and intellectual freedom in exchange for more material comfort. They live prosperous lives in which any expression of pain is forbidden. When I talk to young Chinese about 1989, I am invariably accused of spreading false rumours and being a traitor to my nation; when I bring up the subject with my old friends, most of them laugh scornfully, as if those events are now irrelevant. But I know that behind this show of derision or apathy lies real fear. Everyone knows that attempts to break the Tiananmen taboo can still destroy a person’s life and the lives of their families. The authorities, for their part, may have a monopoly of the nation’s resources, but they can never fully control the nation’s soul, and every day they live in terror that the intricate stack of lies they have constructed will collapse.

The George Tiller story is just upsetting. The Kansas doctor, who performed late-term abortions at one of only 3 centres in the USA to carry them out, was shot in the head inside his church, just before a service. He died. Some anti-choice nuts were behind it. Thanks to commenter PattyPV for bringing it to my attention, and for the link to this Kansas City Star story. Just click on the links and read it for yourself.

I just enjoyed this quite a bit:

That ol’ Nick Griffin and his BNP crew have been up to some cheeky shenanigans! Again! Watch out, I’m linking to the Daily Mail here: yes, non-white British people simply do not exist. No, people should be reminded of their skin colour at all times by being labelled “racial foreigners.” Oh, zing, Nick, zing. Watch those votes for the European Parliament roll in now!

After the jump, a para or two from a nice rebuttal in the Guardian:

One doesn’t have to be a die-hard disciple of multiculturalism to note that Griffin’s suggested descriptive term neither rings true nor is likely to encourage a greater sense of belonging among the children and grandchildren of immigrants. To be told from childhood that you are a second-class citizen, not really British but just a “racial foreigner”, seems guaranteed to increase alienation, anger and a sense of dislocation. I suspect that that is what the BNP would like; any evidence that suggests that immigrant communities are bedding into Britain, anything that implies that Britain is more tolerant and its minority communities are largely benign does the BNP cause no good at all.

The reality is that there are areas of concern, but I don’t believe that the solution is to build walls and tell some that they will never be able to cross to the other side; instead, I would suggest that we try to encourage everyone to believe that being British is about responsibilities as well as rights. The irony is that, in his binary certainty, Griffin has more in common with the Islamists than he would care to admit – both believing in the purity of their visions while the rest of us stumble along in the messy impure complexity of the real world.

(Sarfraz Manzoor)

Pretty much, yeah.

I only ever look at Vice magazine for the Dos & Don’ts, which can occasionally lead to a lol, but this article is sensitively written, on a subject that should be talked about much more openly. My favourite paragraph is after the jump:

One in hundred people will have an episode of schizophrenia – you see people walking around with earmuffs in summer or headphones unplugged and often these are coping mechanisms. Auditory hallucinations are very persistent – like small children, telling them to be quiet or threatening them just doesn’t work. It is like your inner monologue, the wanky one that insists you’re a twat, becomes self-sufficient – it no longer needs you to exist and like a coke-fueled motor-mouthed rant it goes on interminably. Only you hear it as a constant outside noise.

Inner monologues gone wild/autonomous. If only we could see the illness like that more often, rather than demonising the sufferers in this way, or in this. I’m amazed that reading Vice led to posting this. Well done, Vice.