Week 7 - Yiwen Bao

Yiwen Bao

ASA2 A01

Week 7

This week I found the reading titled “Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the Way for Campus Activism” by Robby Cohen most interesting. The reading told me that the students in the early 1960s didn’t have the rights to seeking rights by raising money and distributing literature. The author illustrated this by listing two examples of whom fighting for civil rights and ending discrimination: Jack Weinberg and the more successful FSM. I found it common for political power to be related to police power. The power of the crowd who fight for rights is usually large, so political institutions often requires police to help keep the order of public, just as it was in Jack Weinberg’s case. The police there was not so rigorous when students spoke loud and gave them much pressure. But this reminded me of the “Tian’anmen Square massacre” event happened on June. 04, 1989. That protest for social justice, issues of unemployment, inflation, political corruption and freedom of speech lasted for almost two months and more than one million of not only students but also others in publish participated as demonstrators. The Chinese government was under so much pressure that time so decided to use military force to suppress and arrest demonstrators. The demonstrators in that event weren’t as lucky as ones in examples in this reading. The police and military forces shot on the crowd and the government prohibited foreign media to spread the news. Now, it’s still a sensitive topic that I could only find information about this event on foreign websites. The certain data of death was between hundreds and 2600. I felt shocked, afraid and hopeless: demonstrators were there to fight for freedom of speech, but it ended up as freedom reduced more and haven’t come back till now. Being politically correct is so complicated while how could it be beyond life? 

Taking different levels of risks, I don’t think protests are efficient for demonstrators to fight for rights because demonstrators put in lots of efforts and time while the government just cooperated with police power, suppressing for a short period of time only to quiet the crowd. Whenever the noise disappeared, the issues weren’t taken concern by the government and no real change could be promoted. The power of the crowd is larger than that of individuals but it’s still at the bottom. Thinking of the guest speaker came in last lecture, I agree that real influential changes would be more possible by entering the top, governmental level of control.

Question:

1. When protests like ones in the reading succeeded, what contributed to the change? The power of crowd? Things demonstrators fight for is right and worth success? The words and efforts of demonstrators? Or the noise the crowd made?

2. People usually talks about fighting for freedom of speech, but are there any threats and disadvantages of complete freedom of speech?

Reference:

Cohen, R. (1985). Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Paving the Way for Campus Activism. OAH Magazine of History. Retrieved November 02, 2017.

Scism, C. (2015). Photo Essay: Remembering the Tiananmen Square Protests, 26 Years Later. The Daily Signal. Retrieved November 03, 2017.

http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/05/photo-essay-remembering-the-tiananmen-square-protests-26-years-later/