In 1989, hundreds of thousands of Chinese people held massive protests in favor of Democracy in Beijing's Tienanmen Square.
It was a time of hope, if you recall. Most of the satellites of the Soviet Union had broken away and established fledgling democracies, and even the USSR itself was on its last legs. Later that year, the chief symbol of Communist repression, the Berlin Wall, came down.
The Chinese protesters -- many of them young students -- thought they could have the same effect on their country. We all know what happened after that. The government cracked down quickly, and on June 4, 1989, the authorities cleared the square of protesters.
China has never admitted that anyone died in the crackdown, not even the young man above who so bravely stood up to a row of tanks, but there is much that is not yet known about what happened.
Last fall, my wife and I visited our daughter Pauline in Beijing. We went to Tienanmen Square as tourists; of course there is no sign, no commemoration, of what happened there in 1989. What I remember most is all the street vendors selling Chairman Mao watches and English translations of the Little Red Book.
Clearly, China has changed a great deal in 20 years. There's a great deal of what looks suspiciously like free enterprise. You can buy a knockoff set of Callaway golf clubs for $200, about a tenth of what they would cost here. You can buy DVDs of movies just barely released for about a buck and a half.
There is at least some personal freedom, but not the kind that matters. You can't write anything critical of the government, and free speech is only a rumor. When my wife and I wanted to attend Mass on Sunday, we had to show our passports to prove we weren't Chinese.
China also heavily censors the Internet. If 1.6 billion people ever realized the way the rest of the world lives, their government might have trouble keeping them under control.
That censorship has been stepped up seriously in recent days as the 20th anniversary of Tienanmen Square approaches. Chinese people can't use Facebook or MySpace. They can't visit this Website.
I wish I could say I had come to the attention of the Chinese government, but they ban all the Google Blogger sites.
But just as much of the news of Tienanmen Square in 1989 got out to the world through the use of new technology -- at the time, fax machines -- eventually the Chinese government won't be able to stop the flood of information that's out there.
A change is gonna come.
Posts
2 comments:
Sadly, I think you are wrong. The Chinese government has been very successful in its propaganda campaign against the West and the media. Most Chinese students believe that the West is anti-Chinese and the foreign media purposefully twist or invent stories against China. Most don't know about the events that happened on Tiananmen Square 20 years ago today, and worst, they don't care to know. Even if everything came out right now, the vast majority of people would not care. They have other things to worry about now: getting a good job, buying a car, being modern.
In the choice between civil liberties and money, money has won here, and it'll take an new generation, educated in another way to change that. But that won't happen, the Chinese government is in firm control of the schools.
This is why our discussions on education and media freedom are so important. If you are raised your entire life taught not to think, not to look back at the mistakes others have made before you, then when irrefutable evidence of the past comes before you, you don't care.
It's a depressing day in Beijing today.
Money always trumps civil liberties.
You can't spend with intangibles.
A very, very sad observation of human nature.
Earl
Post a Comment