Twenty years ago, the world watched as Chinese people stood up for freedom, and the People's Liberation Army responded by sending in tanks and guns. Millions of Chinese took to the streets in 1989 because they wanted a say in the future of their own country. But their dreams were dashed on the night of June 3rd-4th and have never recovered.
Today, young Chinese are quoted as saying they know and care little about events in 1989. This lack of interest is the result of a deliberate effort by the Chinese government to erase memories of June 4th from the public consciousness through a combination of censorship, propaganda, repression and violence. Even privately, most Chinese people no longer discuss what they saw and experienced in 1989; the psychological burden is too much for individuals to carry. People who do speak out, like the Tiananmen Mothers whose children were killed on June 4th, are imprisoned, exiled, threatened or otherwise silenced.
Tiananmen remains a taboo both in the media and in China's new vast cyberspace. Tens of thousands of government censors police the Internet, and webpages that carry any public discussion on this topic are blocked or deleted. Just yesterday, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and a long list of other websites were blocked by the Chinese Great Firewall because of the authorities' growing fear and anxiety over any public discussion of Tiananmen as the 20-year anniversary approaches.
In this environment, a recent gathering in Beijing was truly significant. Organizing themselves only by word of mouth (without the use of cell phones or email to avoid government surveillance), nineteen scholars, editors and lawyers held a seminar discussing 20 years since Tiananmen. The seminar, which took place on May 10, Mother's Day, started with a moment of silence, paying tribute to the Tiananmen Mothers. Cui Weiping (崔卫平), professor at the Beijing Film Academy, started her presentation by asking: "What kind of negative impact has it had on our society for us to keep silent and to conceal the event for two decades? How has it harmed the spirit and morality of this nation? What kind of losses have we suffered in our own work and life? Are we still intending to continue this silence?"
The Chinese government has whitewashed the history of 1989 by turning the country's attention to its rapid economic growth, improved living standards, and rising global status. The truth about Tiananmen has been replaced with deception, indifference and cynicism. As the history of the brutality of June 4th is more deeply repressed, society is becoming more violent. "If we do not change and put limits on such massive violence, how are we able to stop the subsequent lesser violence that takes place on every corner and at any time in the country?" Cui Weiping asked. "That kind of blatant violence once took place on this land of ours, and at the "heart" of this land. The beliefs and demands of innocent young people and a large number of the general public were brutally trampled on. And no justifiable assessment has been made of it so far." Cui Weiping and the millions of others who witnessed 1989 and remember the power of both the protests and the massacre, know that Chinese society cannot progress to its full potential without claiming its past.
The Mother's Day gathering was just such an effort, to tell the truth about what happened and to seek ways to move forward. Other brave individuals have also breached the silence in recent years, including Xiao Han, a lecturer at Beijing's University of Politics and Law who last year discussed his experiences in 1989 with his students in class and wrote about it on his blog. Ye Fu, a writer and successful commercial book publisher recently wrote a series of personal essays on his blog revealing the name of a prominent writer who betrayed him in 1989 and got him imprisoned for his activism. Bloggers and other netizens also increasingly use coded language, images, and other tactics to write about the topic under the radar of Internet censors. China's future needs to be built on this piece of history. If the country is to rebuild its moral foundation, it will depend on people like the Tiananmen Mothers, Cui Weiping, Xiao Han and Ye Fu who have the courage to recount the truth of what happened on the night of June 4th. Others who experienced Tiananmen must talk about it, tell their children, remember their history, and thus defeat their own fear, self-deception and cynicism. As Cui Weiping said, "We either have to endure the weakening and impairment of our spirit and soul caused by the awkward situation until we are atrophied and paralyzed, or we stand up, speak the truth, and take back our dignity as human beings."
Confronting the truth of history requires strength and courage. But the energy it unleashes will be powerful enough to make China a truly humane, just, and open society. Without a basic grounding in the truth about Tiananmen, there is no moral foundation for China's rise. Today, even the United States and Europe seek help from China to resolve the economic crisis and global warming. But if a government cannot come to terms with its own history and make peace with its own people, how can the world trust the myth of its "peaceful rise"?
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This narrative is both too simplistic and sensationa
Yes, truth should be told eventually
Pretty much so that Chinese goverment acts like a baldhead monk holding an umbrera on a sunny day, 無法無天, a lawless , a tyrannical regime, a bloody communist country that will be overthrown wheever the second "June 4" is mature.
Sooner or later, the Communist China will have no choice but face the truth. there are millions of Chinese students, businessme
Except repeat tired and bankrupt liberal slogans,
see http://www
First of all, the Chinese media covered all the unrest in China in the spring of '89, which started in Tibet, on March 10th, spread to Xian, and spread like wildfire thru China, landing in Beijing only because Hu died, and some people in their late twenties and early thirties laid a wreath there.
I was able to watch all of it on TV every day. There are NO chinese who didn't know about this. In Shanghai people all over the city boarded up their apartments
Smash Small Bottle! Speed up the New Democracy!
Unfortunat
All of this was shown on China TV.
Demonstrat
Do not delude yourself that China is whitwashin
The Chinese do know this. I know, I was there.
Tell the truth and show others how it is done.
a materialis
soon the yuan will be the new world currency, and the chinese will be the new consumer of the global economy, as their middle class grows to replace america's. the world elite will see it through, as their only concern is profits. china will continue to buy our resources, our corporatio
the chinese people are the means to an end for the communist govt.
we have witnessed it here, as americans gave up their rights, manipulate
good luck with your activism.
Then leave off your narrow minded criterion of evaluating what United States is.
Obama's support for new secrecy powers
http://www
Greenwald: "What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people? (This) is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactiv
Rachel Maddow and Jonathan Turley on the obstructio
http://www
Protecting abusers
http://www
Indefinite "preventat
http://www
Yes, the protests in the Square had to be ended, but the methods of the government were clearly not a police tactic, but a military one, with the full intentions to put the fear in all citizens to never challange the government again, just be complient sheep.
He explained that the people who could come stand next to us with the little lapel pins were from the governemen
So for Xiao and the other posters on this site-- how do we raise the issue in this coutry-- stop shopping at Walmart?
The issue is well familiar to Westerners
Google the term and get 1,660,000 hit.
Almost any article on Chinese has an obligatory "but Tienanmen square" reference. Regardless of the subject of the article.
If you want to boycott Chinese products start with everything in your house, computer, car, cell phone, books, clothes.
Also don't forget to boycott your mortgage loan and credit cards, because Chinese are carrying a large portion of American debt.
lollll...a
Easy to criticize, very difficult to govern.
Coincident
But Chinese people HAVE moved forward. Are you keeping up with them?
If discussion and debate are supressed here, how can you expect China to do otherwise?
for your informatio
The Myth of Tiananmen with eyewitness
http://www
The Myth of Tiananmen Sq Massacre
http://tia
Birth of a Massacre Myth
http://sea
NSA Document determined that it was an accident not premeditat
http://www
The significan
What happened is a tragedy, but it is China that is being demeaned.
http://www
Chai Ling calling for the over throw of the Chinese Gov and calling for blood shed so they can get attention
http://www
After viewing the first video, be sure to click on the "more info" in the grey box on the upper right side of the page. After reading it, click on the links near the bottom. It is right there, folks.
Now, most of the students were caught up in the demonstrat
My students all complained about the quality of their food at college and crowded dorms.
But on a more general point, I think the Western media are obsessed with Tiananmen in a way that is unhelpful.
The history has been oversimpli
I expand on this here, if anyone in interested
http://gar