20 July to 27 July

'The past is a different country'

Twenty-two years ago I was teaching in a Chinese university. Though the iconic statue of Mao Tse Tung which graced the campus as it did most public spaces, was dismantled during my stay, I still had to queue for two hours in Tiananmen Square to file through his mausoleum. A nervous conversation twenty-six hours into a train journey offered a glimpse into the terrors of the cultural revolution, which had subjected my companion's academic body to hard labour and left his wife dead. He concluded, when pressed, that Mao 'might' have made 'one or two' mistakes.

In those days Tiananmen Square saw only an occasional bus, and multiple lanes of bicycles. The economic revolution has filled it with cars, and symbols of high-status Western consumerism. The 4th June this year was the twentieth anniversary of Tiananmen's most inglorious days. The terrors of an army firing on its own people may seem inconceivable in today's China. Yet official denials that any massacre happened, the removal of those seeking to commemorate the event or mourn the dead, and the disappearance of activists, including the famous 'tank man', suggest that sometimes the country of the past may not be so different after all.

David Killick, Head of International Programmes and Teacher Fellow, International Faculty.