SteyrAUG
06-08-14, 18:11
Something the Chinese would rather the world forget.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/tiananmen_square_2014/bp1.jpg
Warning: Graphic Photos.
http://abettingman.wordpress.com/tag/tiananmen-square-massacre/ (The Tiananmen Square Massacre In Pictures)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-04/un-remembering-the-tiananmen-square-massacre-in-beijing
Today (June 4) marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, which began when the ruling Chinese Communist Party dispatched soldiers and tanks to break up student-led pro-democracy protests in central Beijing. It ended with at least several hundred—probably several thousand—dead.
The national tragedy has been effectively erased from China’s collective memory through careful editing of history textbooks and censorship that blocks foreign websites and books describing the events of June 4, 1989. (In state media, the killings are referred to only as a “political incident.”)
In her excellent new book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia, Louisa Lim, a former Beijing correspondent for NPR, describes an informal poll of Beijing university students in which just 15 out of 100 could identify the famous “Tank Man” photo—the iconic image of a lone protestor trying to block a column of tanks in Beijing.
“Twenty-five years after the massacre, the topic remains taboo here,” noted Helen Gao, a young Chinese writer, in a New York Times op-ed published today. “I try to piece together the events of that spring through underground documentaries, foreign reports and conversations with my parents.” Yet, she adds, not all her peers are so curious. “The party is responsible for distorting my generation’s understanding of history through state education and blocking our access to sensitive information. Yet even those who are well-aware of the state’s meddling make little effort to seek truth and push for change.”
The date June 4 doesn’t register for much of the Chinese public the way red-letter dates such as September 11 register in the U.S. That’s not to say that no one remembers, but China’s heightened security ensured that no protestors or would-be vigil observers entered Tiananmen Square today.
http://inapcache.boston.com/universal/site_graphics/blogs/bigpicture/tiananmen_square_2014/bp1.jpg
Warning: Graphic Photos.
http://abettingman.wordpress.com/tag/tiananmen-square-massacre/ (The Tiananmen Square Massacre In Pictures)
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-06-04/un-remembering-the-tiananmen-square-massacre-in-beijing
Today (June 4) marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, which began when the ruling Chinese Communist Party dispatched soldiers and tanks to break up student-led pro-democracy protests in central Beijing. It ended with at least several hundred—probably several thousand—dead.
The national tragedy has been effectively erased from China’s collective memory through careful editing of history textbooks and censorship that blocks foreign websites and books describing the events of June 4, 1989. (In state media, the killings are referred to only as a “political incident.”)
In her excellent new book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia, Louisa Lim, a former Beijing correspondent for NPR, describes an informal poll of Beijing university students in which just 15 out of 100 could identify the famous “Tank Man” photo—the iconic image of a lone protestor trying to block a column of tanks in Beijing.
“Twenty-five years after the massacre, the topic remains taboo here,” noted Helen Gao, a young Chinese writer, in a New York Times op-ed published today. “I try to piece together the events of that spring through underground documentaries, foreign reports and conversations with my parents.” Yet, she adds, not all her peers are so curious. “The party is responsible for distorting my generation’s understanding of history through state education and blocking our access to sensitive information. Yet even those who are well-aware of the state’s meddling make little effort to seek truth and push for change.”
The date June 4 doesn’t register for much of the Chinese public the way red-letter dates such as September 11 register in the U.S. That’s not to say that no one remembers, but China’s heightened security ensured that no protestors or would-be vigil observers entered Tiananmen Square today.