Tiananmen Square

[SultanOfSurreal]

Twenty years ago some unarmed students attempting to protest were mowed down by army police.

In China... few born since even know the events occured.

Websites are blocked and the Square is blocked off to prevent any chance of protests.

What is the Chinese position on homosexuality? It may become our position in our lifetime, particularly if the gun control and anti military advocates get their way.

shut up

[xelabale]

I agree that China is controlled, that it is scary, that it's government is wrong and witholds basic human rights. I am cautiously optimistic for the future though. Plenty of Chinese leave China, experience the world. Plenty of Westerners enter China. English is widely taught, even in far-away provinces, and this trend is accelerating. China is changing. It has adapted to market forces, it will adapt to the information age.
We may find that Chinese people do not want the culture of the individual, the Western values, the same political system. We may find we have to adapt and change, as well as China.

[PLAYER57832]

the people who allow the government to do what they will without objection.

The protests against the methods of the government in China began in April 1989 and took place all over the country, not just Tiananmen Square. Protesters were brutally attacked by troops redeployed from distant provinces at many locations and Tiananmen Square was the final chapter in stamping out the disenting voices. More than thirty people remain in prison to this day for their participation in these demonstrations.

I can still remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when local TV came on with the "breaking news" story that tanks had entered the square. The details of exactly what happened that day remain sketchy and the actual fate of all the people who occupied the square may never be revealed.

When the Tank Man put down his bag of groceries and stepped out in front of that column of oncoming tanks... the entire planet stopped what they were doing and took notice of current events in China.

I was not trying to minimize the events. My point is that in China, today, those events are being quickly and effectively whisked away.

An aquaintance of mine was an exchange student in China then. Her parents called and told her to "get out NOW!". She told them they were just being silly. However, when she mentioned something to one of here Chinese friends, they got pale and quickly told her that her parents were probably correct, that they would not hear about if if anything like that had happened. The state department ordered all the US students home the next day, I believe. Some were not even allowed to pack.

[PLAYER57832]

... Also like the US but to a much greater extent the people are kept ignorant. Here it is done with third-rate public schools, reality TV and fantasy football. There it is done with internet filters, scary-as-hell cops everywhere, the People's News and meaningless obsession with western fads.

The difference is TV and fantasy football are choices. Perhaps stupid ones, but choices. In China, the government controls what you see.

If we have controls, it is in far more subtle forms... lack of funding for libraries ..oops I see you did mention poor schools. Also, putting journalism to the free market system.

... I cannot counter your "These are choices" argument because of course they are. But is it so difficult to believe that those in positions protected by the ignorance of the public might very well believe that it will be only a minority that seeks to know and understand? And might they be right? Like so many animals, following, moving with the herd/flock/pack along the easiest course.

I heard an interview the other day, sadly not available for free, with Robert McChesney. He poses an interesting counter to this. He suggests that the only way for us to have a truly free press is to take it OUT of the free market and instead to fund at least 3 divergeant points of view equally. He suggested that this is actually what the founding fathers did initially.

I cannot reiterate the entire discussion, but it did make sens.

... What does government have to gain from a truly educated and informed public? Compare that to what it stands to lose.

That depends on who the government really is. If the government is a few powerful people, then having an educated mass is a threat, except that you have to allow for some technical education if you wish to gain technologically.

However, our government is and always has been of the people. Having a decent and freely available education AND access to information outside of the education system are key to that happening. Right now, our media is controlled by corporations who's ultimate goal is profit (other than, to some extent, PBS and such.. however they are not entirely immune).

... We both know Americans are ignorant as hell, embarassingly so. I believe that is the plan.

True.
and there is a reason why "no child left behind" has been dubbed "every child left behind".

... But back on the China theme... While in China I could not access many of the websites I normally visited while in the US, Japan, Taiwan. Most US news sites were unavailable - I missed Drudge. Your beloved NPR was not available, and that struck me as odd. Streaming radio was impossible.

... In Guangdong (and most certainly many other cities) there are large buildings dedicated soley to the monitoring of internet viewership and the blocking of potentially dangerous sites. In China there is a ridiculously cute cartoon character (as so many east Asians love) in a police uniform who pops up on the screen to ask you if you are certain you want to be searching for whatever it is you might have just run through Google. It's spooky.

...

I am not sure why NPR missing would be odd. I believe that would be among the first to be censored.

Taht said, what worries me are the huge numbers of people here who get their news solely from CBN or who consider Fox to be an unbiased source. Then you have what might not be true censorship, but which winds up with the same result .. people who won't spend more than 1-2 minutes on any topic, who won't go beyond the internet to find information, etc. And still think they are "well informed".

The thing is that some subjects are very well covered, so one can think all these are great sources. However, you notice a definite absence of certain kinds of information. I am not sure it is strictly intentional, but the bias is there.

[targetman377]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

[SultanOfSurreal]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

holy jesus this guy

[xelabale]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

They stand as symbols of youth against repression. We are talking about them 20 years after it happened and you think they achieved nothing? One day they will be celebrated and honoured, but that day is not yet. That image is one of the most powerful of the 20th century. People in China don't have access to this information, it is up to you Targetman, and me, and everyone else who does know about it to give them that, to spread the knowledge. Then you will see what those students achieved.

[Nobunaga]

... My beef, with regard to China, is with our (US) government and media.

... So many stories to be told, but nearly all are ignored. We hear about US presidents / secretaries of state being in China, "addressing human rights issues"... but these people aren't serious. The American people are probably ignorant of 99% of what goes on over there. The only stories about China that show us poverty or misery are always somehow linked back and made the fault of the US (or other Western nations). We'll see stories in our media about Chinese kids being exposed to massive levels of mercury as they work in some dump dissassembling televisions and computers which came from the US. Our fault of course, not China's.

... Stories that don't make CNN, FOX, ABC, etc... include horrors of the AIDS epidemic spreading through rural China as blood is purchased for later sale from poor farmers and their families, purchased for pennies.

... How about those ten men and women walking down a road in Tibet, machine gunned by military police who later kicked the bodies and made jokes? (this video was on YouTube for about 3 days before it vanished).

... Are we going to hear about the organ (livers, etc..) factories in China, also known as prisons? The death penalty in China has increased dramatically with the increase in demand for vital organs by those who cannot get them in their home countries. ... Interesting but macabre sub-story here, anybody here ever see one of those anatomical displays where people (dead) with their skin removed are set up in poses watching television, playing tennis or just chopped up? It's marketed as "educational". Every one of those bodies was a Chinese prisoner at one time, carefully executed so as not to damage the goods, then sold to this side show. "Bodies: The Exhibition" it's called.

... If this were any other nation with the status and power of China, these would be big stories for the media and would certainly be worth political consideration...

... <edit> A google search for Chinese campaign contributions to US politicians sheds some light on this "mystery".

[PLAYER57832]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

They stand as symbols of youth against repression. We are talking about them 20 years after it happened and you think they achieved nothing? One day they will be celebrated and honoured, but that day is not yet. That image is one of the most powerful of the 20th century. People in China don't have access to this information, it is up to you Targetman, and me, and everyone else who does know about it to give them that, to spread the knowledge. Then you will see what those students achieved.

In honesty, I have to say that I have mixed feelings here.

As a parent of a college student, I cannot help but think of him in the place of that student standing before the tank. I do look at China and do see that while he stands as a symbol here, in China, where the protest was lodged and was to have changed things, nothing really happened. Well, things did happen, but not what the protestors envisioned or wanted. (it is very complicated). I cannot help but imagine that his parents want nothing more than to reverse time so they could "talk some sense" into him.

Just "making a point" is not necessarily the same as making an effective point. Stephen Covey brings up this point well in several of his books, most particularly 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That protest happened without ay real planning, almost spontaneously. I cannot help but wonder if if instead of launching into this demonstration, if instead they had worked together, then perhaps they could have come up with something that would have had more of a lasting effect in China. and perhaps without the loss of all those lives. (official estimates are that just over 200 died, but many feel that the true number could well be in the thousands)

That said, it happened. I realize that, in a sense, even questioning the effect is to diminish the sacrafice of those students. This is why I clarify that in a big part, I am speaking as a parent of boys roughly the ages of some of those students. Still, my mother talks of a poem they were required to learn in school, as a sort of "patriotic" example. It was about a boy who was told to stand on the deck "no matter what, until he is told to go, by his father the captain, and so he does as the ship burns around him. In the end, the boy dies and it turns out that his father had been hit on the head by debris. I read that poem and frankly saw only stupidity. Sometimes the line between the stupid and the brave is pretty slim indeed.

But, if there is one thing we can do, it is to make sure that Tianamen Square is not forgotten. We can do this without saying that standing in front of a tank was necessarily the best thing to do. We can study and talk about why it happened and what the students were trying to accomplish and the pointless actions of the Chinese government in response.

[PLAYER57832]

... Are we going to hear about the organ (livers, etc..) factories in China, also known as prisons? The death penalty in China has increased dramatically with the increase in demand for vital organs by those who cannot get them in their home countries. ... Interesting but macabre sub-story here, anybody here ever see one of those anatomical displays where people (dead) with their skin removed are set up in poses watching television, playing tennis or just chopped up? It's marketed as "educational". Every one of those bodies was a Chinese prisoner at one time, carefully executed so as not to damage the goods, then sold to this side show. "Bodies: The Exhibition" it's called.

In fairness, the origin of the bodies is just not known.

[Nobunaga]

... In fairness, the show is run by a German, von Hagen, who purchases the copses from Chinese prisons. The bodies are then treated in a factory built for the purpose.

Last month, media reports from von Hagens' native Germany asserted that at least two of the corpses, both Chinese, had bullet holes in their skulls...

... von Hagen, China, bodies ... google that if you want to know. But I have discovered that they are not all Chinese, the bodies, just the cheap ones.

...

[Neoteny]

I think the exhibit is actually in town right now (or was recently). I'd considered going to see it, since it's relevant to my interests, but the overall sketchiness of the exhibit was a major turn-off.

[PLAYER57832]

... In fairness, the show is run by a German, von Hagen, who purchases the copses from Chinese prisons. The bodies are then treated in a factory built for the purpose.

Last month, media reports from von Hagens' native Germany asserted that at least two of the corpses, both Chinese, had bullet holes in their skulls...

... von Hagen, China, bodies ... google that if you want to know. But I have discovered that they are not all Chinese, the bodies, just the cheap ones.

...

Officially, the Chinese have said the bodies were abandoned or unclaimed. Of course, they would say that of prisoner's bodies. Some bodies apparently do have records, but the Chinese ones are simply impossible to verify, so all we have is speculation.

[targetman377]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

They stand as symbols of youth against repression. We are talking about them 20 years after it happened and you think they achieved nothing? One day they will be celebrated and honoured, but that day is not yet. That image is one of the most powerful of the 20th century. People in China don't have access to this information, it is up to you Targetman, and me, and everyone else who does know about it to give them that, to spread the knowledge. Then you will see what those students achieved.

In honesty, I have to say that I have mixed feelings here.

As a parent of a college student, I cannot help but think of him in the place of that student standing before the tank. I do look at China and do see that while he stands as a symbol here, in China, where the protest was lodged and was to have changed things, nothing really happened. Well, things did happen, but not what the protestors envisioned or wanted. (it is very complicated). I cannot help but imagine that his parents want nothing more than to reverse time so they could "talk some sense" into him.

Just "making a point" is not necessarily the same as making an effective point. Stephen Covey brings up this point well in several of his books, most particularly 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. That protest happened without ay real planning, almost spontaneously. I cannot help but wonder if if instead of launching into this demonstration, if instead they had worked together, then perhaps they could have come up with something that would have had more of a lasting effect in China. and perhaps without the loss of all those lives. (official estimates are that just over 200 died, but many feel that the true number could well be in the thousands)

That said, it happened. I realize that, in a sense, even questioning the effect is to diminish the sacrafice of those students. This is why I clarify that in a big part, I am speaking as a parent of boys roughly the ages of some of those students. Still, my mother talks of a poem they were required to learn in school, as a sort of "patriotic" example. It was about a boy who was told to stand on the deck "no matter what, until he is told to go, by his father the captain, and so he does as the ship burns around him. In the end, the boy dies and it turns out that his father had been hit on the head by debris. I read that poem and frankly saw only stupidity. Sometimes the line between the stupid and the brave is pretty slim indeed.

But, if there is one thing we can do, it is to make sure that Tianamen Square is not forgotten. We can do this without saying that standing in front of a tank was necessarily the best thing to do. We can study and talk about why it happened and what the students were trying to accomplish and the pointless actions of the Chinese government in response.

i agree with you total i do feel sorry for them i really do but i feel that if they want to make a bigger diffrance than one should planl. and yes china does not follow the same human rights that we do and i would love to change that. but i can not it is up to the people of china to improve there own situation. just like we did in the revolution. were there is abouse of power there will always be someone there to stand up when the abouse becomes bad enough and the induviduals can not take it.

[SultanOfSurreal]

... In fairness, the show is run by a German, von Hagen, who purchases the copses from Chinese prisons. The bodies are then treated in a factory built for the purpose.

Last month, media reports from von Hagens' native Germany asserted that at least two of the corpses, both Chinese, had bullet holes in their skulls...

... von Hagen, China, bodies ... google that if you want to know. But I have discovered that they are not all Chinese, the bodies, just the cheap ones.

...

as far as i know the only show like this that has been criticized for improper documentation is "bodies: the exhibition." reading around, it definitely seems a bit shady

similar shows like bodyworlds, etc., though, have corpses mostly from germany and other western countries, all of them 100% documented and from consenting individuals

[Sackett58]

I remember 20 years ago watching from my home as the events unfolded. Watching as CNN was broadcasting until the military came to the door of the hotel and ordered CNN to pull the plug on the broadcast. For the next several hours I felt a sadness for those who stood up for something and what they were to endure.

[Neoteny]

So, I went to the High yesterday, and the exhibit is not there. Neither were the terra-cotta soldiers, so I missed out on them too. :[

Got to see a bunch of stuff from the Louvre, and four paintings of water lilies by Monet, so it wasn't a total loss.

[PLAYER57832]

Probably the question we should ask is what we, now, today, in our various countries, can do to further the causes of justice and fair treatment for all in China.

But I guess, if anyone really had the answer to that one.. they would be a Nobel laureat.

[Nobunaga]

Probably the question we should ask is what we, now, today, in our various countries, can do to further the causes of justice and fair treatment for all in China.

But I guess, if anyone really had the answer to that one.. they would be a Nobel laureat.

... A good start would be not voting for politicians who are taking campaign contributions from China.

...

[xelabale]

I hear what you are saying Player, but that's the point. It was unplanned, the guy had his shopping with him. That's the point. What a demonstration. That guy will be remembered, he is now after 20 years. Did you expect China to change overnight? It is changing, the doors are opening, the dialogue is happening. It's slow, there are many things wrong, but then the US still has Guantanamo to get rid of. The point is, that student and the hundreds of others who died there brought the attention of the world onto China - no longer could they shut their doors to the outside world and ignore it. China just held the Olympic games, unthinkable 20 years ago, and those events contributed to that. The Olympics are a symbolic gesture, but they symbolise progress. It may take another 20, hell another 50 years, but China is changing and human rights will improve there.

None of that should stop us from railing against what is wrong there now and trying to change it quicker, but i believe we can do it with hope.

[radiojake]

Not to be insentive here but why did they do it what did they acomplish? if i was going to give my life for somthing i would make god dam sure that it change would happan after i died these people ovbosly did not make that big of deal if very few people know about they could have lived and done alot more.

Hey are you related to JJM? Because there is something very similar to the way you both articulate and come to conclusions on various discussions...

[oVo]

The point is, that student and the hundreds of others who died there brought the attention of the world onto China - no longer could they shut their doors to the outside world and ignore it. [...] It may take another 20, hell another 50 years, but China is changing and human rights will improve there.

Activists always organize an event in Hong Kong on June 4th, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown. It's the only place on Chinese soil where one can openly discuss it.

But on this, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, an estimated 150,000 attended the candlelight vigil - more than previous years, due to the big anniversary, but also because it was a way to generally protest China's central government.

FRONTLINE: the tank man aired again last week and it not only tells the story of Tiananmen Square, but the surrounding situation in China, both then and in the years that followed. It discusses technology and the complicancy of Microsoft, Cisco Systems, Google and Yahoo in assisting the central government with it's crackdowns against their citizens in the name of Chinese national security... and how they ignored free speech, moral issues etc. to improve their own business positions in China... for mega profits.

After all it was Yahoo that provided the times, dates, locations, IPs and more of bloggers and others who were then arrested, tortured, imprisoned and executed by the Chinese authorities. Anyone who Googles Tiananmen Square or Tank Man is confronted with hundreds of pages of images and stories (exceeding 4,000,000 results for Tainanmen) unless you live in China. In China two pages come up containing images of foreign tourists and basic tour guides etc of the site...
but 6/4 and Tank Man does not exist there.

With a population of over a billion people I agree with xelabale that change is coming to China. It is inevitable and there is only so much the government can do to slow that progress down. What happened twenty years ago at Tiananmen Square will never be forgotten... I believe a day will come when those people are commemorated in an honorable way and their sacrifice as participants in that man-made tragedy will be memorialized to be remembered by all who come after. The truth of that day will be known and the history created that day will always be remembered.