No doubt June 4th is a special day in modern Chinese history. This week's Thursday was the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown on 5 weeks of protests in Beijing that ended in massacre.
The CCP government used force against unarmed civilians. Some people say that it is not entirely correct to call those protests "pro-democracy" since there was no coherent agenda to unite all of the protesters. What is undeniable though is that the young people of Beijing (university students were at the “helm” of events, including and very prominently students from the university in which I study), with a big support from workers, teachers and many others, wanted change, so if not "pro-democracy", I think the events can be called “pro-change”. Reports say that during those few weeks of protests in Beijing and other cities and towns of China there were hudreds of thousands if not millions of people who joined the anti-government protests. It is not clear how many, but at least a few hundred people were killed on the eve of June 4th 1989.
The "anti-revolutionary political hooliganism" (the way the Party still calls the events) was crushed with bloodshed.
20 years later a lot has changed in China and Chinese society. Mostly material change. Actually in many aspects China now is the synonym of change. But in my view and understanding the rapid change around is more or less only on the surface. (Some deeper and conceavably far-reaching changes are also taking place, but I remain very sceptical of their value.)
But most importantly, one thing HAS NOT changed. The same (and only) ruling Party that ordered the army to crush the protests is still in power. The portrait of Chairman Mao is still overlooking one of the ugliest and depressing squares in the World - Tiananmen Squire.
With a "carrot and stick" policy 20 years on since it ordered massacre towards its own unarmed civilians The Party has managed not only to stay in power (something unimaginable in a democracy), but also manages to convince the masses that ONLY under the guidance of The Party China can "progress and prosper". So 20 years from the pro-change protests, many important things have not changed. China IS still an authoritarian contry where security and stability overwrite almost every basic human right. No dissent or varying view is allowed.
20 years ago the government/Party ordered the Peoples Army's (!)tanks to roll over unarmed civilans, but Beijingers today look as if suffering from a severe case of amnesia.
As if nothing has happened. Life goes on.
On Thursday, the 20th anniversary of the "Tiananmen events" I was curious to see what kind of measures will the CCP take for Tiananmen on this sensitive anniversary day, so I decided to go and see the square on that day. I suggested it to a Chinese classmate and we decided to go in the afternoon, and a classmate of his came along with us. So the 3 of us took the subway heading for the center of Beijing. We got of one stop before Qian Men (which is the nearest subway stop on line 2, but we assumed will be closed). So we got off at He Ping Men and walked for a while towards the square. That day was exceptionally hot, before and at noon the sun was scorching, but when we started off from the university the sky was cloudy and it looked like rain.
Walking on we saw policemen watching and patrolling the streets, although it was one stop away from the square itself. As we approached we saw security increasing and by the time we got in sight of Tiananmen we saw heavy security presence, plainclothes policemen, guards and policemen in uniform all over the place.
I have read that the previous two days the Square was cordoned off and no visitors were allowed, but I also read Thursday morning in Western media that on June 4th the Square is open and that there is an impressive number of plain-clothes policemen, guards, uniformed policemen all over the squire.
We and all visitors to the sprawling plaza in central Beijing were stopped at checkpoints (underground passways leading to the square which otherwise is cordoned off by short steel fences) and were searched. Obviously, foreigners (such as me), were singled out and bags were also hand searched (apart from X-Rayed). The policeman who was standing after the X-Ray machine was busy with a bunch of other foreigners so he didn’t notice me, when I slipped and followed after my Chinese friends. I overheard him asking (both in Chinese and English) the foreigners if they were journalists. Later I saw foreigners turned away at checkpoints and media reports confirm that foreign television crews and photographers were firmly turned away, which I can confirm to be true, since apart from me there were only a few other foreigners on the square at that time.
When we went up on the square what struck us immediately were the tourist busses parked behind Mao’s mausoleum, something otherwise uncommon. Also a large part of the tourists were wearing badges with the national emblem of China, a fact that looked suspicious to me. Many others (I presume, plainclothes policemen, wearing badges with the national flag, were walking around looking almost intently on us.
Uniformed and plainclothes officers, easily identifiable by their similar shirts, seemingly outnumbered tourists.
Actually we stood out in a way. Me wearing a black blouse, black skirt and black sandals (deliberately, see Wear White Day post), my friend and classmate-of-sorts L.X. wearing a white T-shirt with the name of our university, and his classmate also wearing a white T-shirt and slippers. Obviously we stood-out, hm, especially me in my black "attire".
Later on there was a strange drizzle from which we hid in one of the north underpasses, and then we came back again on the square. Obviously, because we stood at one place for a while we caught the attention of security, and when we decided we should start moving an uniform policeman waived at us to approach him, showed us his police badge (I guess that was for my sake, because his attitude was "textbook") and wanted to see the identification of my two Chinese friends. After they gave him their students cards, he asked them (not addressing me): “And this person is…?”, meaning me...I immediately said (in Chinese) that I’m a classmate and I also presented my student card ID. The policeman then asked my friend to open his backpack and see its contents. There was a laptop and a copy of my graduation thesis which a gave him a couple of hours before. Then the policemen asked us what we were doing on Tiananmen. My friend’s classmate said we were having a meal at a nearby restaurant (a lie) and just came for a walk. Convinced or not, he murmured that our university is a “good university” and let us go. We decided we have stayed long enough on the square (meanwhile I have (deliberately) taken my picture in front of Mao’s mausoleum and in-between two uniform guards in front of the Heroes Monument, in both occasions making the victory sign with my hand. A symbolic gesture, my very humble way of protest) so we headed for the northern underpass exit. Thus our visit to Tiananmen Square, "The Gate of Heavenly Peace",ended.
Heading for a subway entrance we continued on foot for a while on Changan Avenue, "The Avenue of Long Tranquility", hm, another name that is contradictory to historical and actual events. On this same avenue (the main street in the center of Beijing) 20 years ago the army tanks approached to crush the protests...
Even if someone wanted to protest there were enough measures to make this protest either impossible or in the best, short-lived.
In fact most of the people we saw on the squire that day were either undercover or outright security, or were provincial middle age tourists. One of the stark difference with 20 years ago was that, apart from the 3 of us maybe there were no other students on the square.
And this fact says much, I think.
Even these 2 Chinese guys came to Tiananmen because I came up with the idea. I do not believe that they would have done so without my suggestion…
So all of this makes me think very deeply about things.
Is it decades of brainwashing, is it fear, is it innate utilitarianism, or is it being generally apolitical that makes young and/or educated people of today so selfishly apathetic to the obvious flaws in Chinese society? The stark differences between poor and rich, the absence of law and order, the corruption, the moral and ethical decay, the violation of basic rights, the authoritarian system that suffocates ANY different view, etc, etc.…How come NONE of those very obvious problems doesn’t raise any protests?! Why?!
What is the price for staying silent?!
news feeds:
Police Swarm Tiananmen Square to Bar Protests
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/world/asia/05beijing.html
China security tight in Tiananmen
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090604/ts_nm/us_china_tiananmen_17
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With this post I really wanted to embed the picture of the "tank man", one of the most famous reportage photos in the world, but I couln't...Blogspot is still blocked and posting (especially embedding images) is really not easy...
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