Atypical response from a Chinese student.

Dredging the old folders I found this gem because it struck me as a bright, yet atypical response from a Chinese student in the level of vitriol that it contained.

First a synopsis of the lecture to which the student, Kaibin, is responding:

Liberal Representation and Global Order: The Iconic Photograph from Tiananmen Square

Contrary to the fears of public sphere theorists, liberal-democratic public culture always has been underwritten by visual images. Iconic photos are one example of how images organize social knowledge and ideologies, shape understanding of specific events and periods then and subsequently, influence political action both topically and by modeling relationships between civic actors, and provide figural resources for subsequent communicative action. The iconic image achieves its status not because of its news value, but because it embodies basic conceptions of political identity in a manner that provides aesthetic resolution of fundamental contradictions in the dominant social order.

The photo of a solitary Chinese man standing calmly before the barrel of a tank in Tiananmen Square exemplifies how photojournalism negotiates the tension between democracy and liberalism. The image of a lone individual stopping a tank in its tracks is rightly celebrated for its contrast of an anonymous figure of personal autonomy with a stock depiction of the totalitarian state. Yet as the image articulates individual human rights and a universal form of citizenship in a silent, empty public space, it displaces the vividly encultured expressions of popular democracy that had defined the historical event and suggested the possibility of alternative versions of modern development. This displacement can be traced from the design of the image itself through its history of appropriation. Thus, the Tiananmen icon is indicative of a shift from democratic to liberal norms of representation throughout U.S. public culture, and of a liberal vision of global order.

Now Kaibin's response:

Hi Jason and all,

Frankly, as a Chinese, I am very unhappy about the topic of his lecture. This topic has become a cliche in academics and international politics. It is nothing new and I bet what he'll say is but repetition of what many others said in early 1990s. I think Hariman should learn from Ward Churchill and criticize the U.S. government first (if he has that kind of courage) if he is seriously concerned about democracy, particulary when democracy is being threathened in the U.S. since Mr. Bush came to presidency. As a "distinguished" scholar, he should keep up with the changing world situation, not just be preoccupied with something that many others did before and with something on which a lot of literature is available and with what happened long before. His interests in delivering a lecture on such an out-dated topic to graduate students and scholars of a research 1 university, for me, reflects his neo-colonialist and ethnocentric point of view and cold-war thought about the world order and accomplics the U.S. government to use democracy as a name to intervene domestic affairs in other countries. For our department and CU, spending so much money and so much efforts on a lecture that could not yield to any new research orientation is but a waste.

Of course, as a Chinese, I am concerned with democracy in China. Democracy is developing toward a healthy direction. And we are confident of dealing with it on our own and don't want outside interference and misleadingly blind and empty comments. We don't want people who understand little about the contemporary Chinese situation to mislead others.

Can you forward this message to others? Thanks.

Regards,

Kaibin