{"id":14934,"date":"2011-11-14T23:35:11","date_gmt":"2011-11-15T04:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/?p=14934"},"modified":"2011-11-14T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2011-11-15T04:35:11","slug":"rowan-williams-confuses-the-steps-of-st-pauls-with-tiananmen-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/rowan-williams-confuses-the-steps-of-st-pauls-with-tiananmen-square\/","title":{"rendered":"Rowan Williams confuses the steps of St. Paul\u2019s with Tiananmen Square"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 1989 millions of people gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest their totalitarian government and demand democracy. China\u2019s military responded with guns and tanks killing hundreds of people in what became known as the Massacre in Tiananmen Square. Local hospitals filled with the wounded and dying and these images became iconic:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9-nXT8lSnPQ\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The occupiers of the steps of St. Paul\u2019s took advantage of the fact that they already live in a democracy to broadcast their outrage at the recently discovered abomination that some people are paid a lot and others aren\u2019t. Not only was no-one was shot at by police, but sympathetic clergy persuaded the <em>police<\/em> to leave, providing a tacit invitation for the protesters to stay \u2013 which they did.<\/p>\n<p>There is as much similarity between these two events as there is between the first world war and a teddy bears&#8217; picnic. That\u2019s not the way Rowan Williams <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/uk\/2011\/nov\/15\/archbishop-defends-st-pauls-clergy?newsfeed=true\" target=\"_blank\">sees it<\/a>, though:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>He added that St Paul&#8217;s had become &#8220;a theatre&#8221; in which conflicts were played out and urban landscapes were often the scenes of defining, dramatic moments in history, citing Tiananmen Square, Cairo and Athens as examples.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The only conflict being played out in the <em>theatre <\/em>of St. Paul\u2019s is the one between muddled clergy who can\u2019t decide whether it\u2019s better to promote social justice by letting the step squatters stay, or whether prophetic social justice making is served more <em>deeply<\/em> by collecting the \u00a320,000 daily from visitors who are slightly more well heeled than the churls presently impeding their entrance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1989 millions of people gathered in Tiananmen Square to protest their totalitarian government and demand democracy. China\u2019s military responded with guns and tanks killing hundreds of people in what became known as the Massacre in Tiananmen Square. Local hospitals &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/rowan-williams-confuses-the-steps-of-st-pauls-with-tiananmen-square\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241],"tags":[1167,2241,1538],"class_list":["post-14934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-occupy","tag-occupy-st-pauls","tag-rowan-williams","tag-tiananmen-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14934\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anglicansamizdat.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}