I Left Beijing In 1987, Shortly Before

The Chinese People Have Been Forced To Forget The Tiananmen Massacre. There Has Been No Public Debate About The Event, No Official Apology. The Media Aren't Allowed To Mention It. Still Today People Are Being Persecuted And Imprisoned For Disseminating Information About It.

In 1989, I Was On Tiananmen Square With The Students, Living In Their Makeshift Tents And Joining Their Jubilant Singing Of The Internationale. In The Two Decades Since, Each Time That I Have Gone Back, Visions From Those Days Seem To Return With Increasing Persistence.

To Become Self-aware, People Must Be Allowed To Hear A Plurality Of Opinions And Then Make Up Their Own Minds. They Must Be Allowed To Say, Write And Publish Whatever They Want. Freedom Of Expression Is The Most Basic, But Fundamental, Right. Without It, Human Beings Are Reduced To Automatons.

Red Dust Was About The Late 1980s; It Was A Time Of Burgeoning Hopes And Opening Up And People Searching For New Ways.

Beijing Coma Took Me 10 Years To Finish.