From mid-April to earl June 1989, the world witnessed a massive civic movement in China. It began with students mourning in Tiananmen Square for the death of Hu Yaobang. Hu was the politician who was removed from the position of Communist Party general secretary in 1987 and who advocated liberalization, democratic and anti-corruption values. Within a week, the number of people gathered had increased to 100,000. On May 13 hundreds of students started a hunger strike in the Square. Collectively, all those gathered were protesting the corruption and income inequality that was getting progressively worse. The protesters were mostly students, from schools, colleges, demanding greater freedom, criticizing that they have absolutely no say in their government, or their lives. It was a peaceful protest for a free future, democratic government and to have some say in how their future can be decided.
But in the night of 3rd June, tanks rolled through Beijing with soldiers firing at civilians who blocked their path. The "Supreme" leader of China, Deng Xiaoping, ordered to clear the ground of the protesters from the hospital bed he was admitted due to cancer. The tanks reached Tiananmen Square and soldiers fanned out and fired into the air. By the dawn of 4 June, the students and workers were allowed safe passage out of the Square only after Zhou Duo, a writer and Taiwanese rock star Hou Dejian led successful negotiations with the army. But the damage was done. The Chinese government states that hundreds were killed. Student associations and the Chinese Red Cross say the figure is exceeding 5000, with more than 20,000 injured in a matter of few hours.
"One million Chinese can be considered a small number"-Deng Xiaoping
Soldiers continued firing for the next two days although the protests were quelled, and still, tanks rolled toward Tiananmen Square. On 5 June, TANK MAN appeared (see video). One man armed with nothing more than shopping bags astonishingly stopped a column of tanks. As they ground to a halt before him, he seemed to be waving them away with bags in hand. Following the shock and horror generated by the crushing violence in the killings, in the silence of the aftermath, this lone man’s courageous actions spoke for the people who had been forcibly oppressed.
Twenty one years have passed since the protests. That same year, the world witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since then the Soviet bloc has collapsed and China has developed in ways that might not have been predicted in 1989. In the world’s rush for progress, the memory of Tiananmen Square fades.
What will you think of a country, where the government opens fire at its own citizens, who are helpless, without any fighting material, no weapons, nothing. But the army fired with guns and tanks at its own unarmed citizens. It was a massacre in the heart of China, of the Chinese students by its very own army, on the land which looked like a battlefield. But the bravery of the citizens can be seen from the way they covered and protected international journalists by their own bodies, getting killed in the way, just to help them get the news to the world.
I can't help comparing it with the condition we are having in our country due to naxals. How the army is avoiding getting in the conflict, government trying to get the things in control, with as much humane way as possible. It clearly shows the advantages of a true democracy over socialism. Even when we have armed maoists massacring the people, we have a government who is trying to get the lowest possible death toll on both sides. Truely love India and its democracy.
-By Rahul Bansal
