June 4, 1989

When I went to study in the Szechuan province of China in 1991, the political climate was still buzzing in the aftermath of the June 4 upheavals. I was an exchange student at the Southwest China Teachers University in the village of Beibei, not far from the thriving metropolis of Chongqing. For my Chinese friends, required work sessions in Marxist-Leninist thought were in full effect on weekends. The most candid political conversations occurred in hushed tones late at night in dark cafes, where I heard first-hand stories about those heady days in the summer of 1989; stories of traveling by train to join the Happening in Beijing, camping out in ragged conditions right in Tiananmen Square, staying up all night drinking and singing and falling in love and arguing and crying and dreaming; stories of the eventual exhaustion and hunger which descended upon the protest camp, and the fracturing of the student leadership under pressure from all sides, and the crackdown, and the aftermath. They were stories which made my 19-year-old heart surge with revolutionary fervor. Indeed, that brash fervor, in combination with my close contact with Tibetan activists (including my then-girlfriend), ended up arousing the concern of local officials, who told me to put a lid on my activities if I wanted to remain in the country. I agreed to their demands, then proceeded to do what I wanted anyway, though with a few added precautions. All these years later, that fervor is still coursing through my veins, though hopefully it's been joined by a touch of wisdom too.

Few Americans care to understand what happened in China during the summer of 1989, or to deconstruct the propaganda about the "Tiananmen Square massacre" which has become mythologized and distorted in the Western imagination, like so much of what people think they know about China. For most people here in the US, it's just another political bludgeon for standard hypocritical human rights brow-beating. Thus, the iconic image above means entirely different things to different people. To many in the West, it flatly encapsulates the melodramatic dictatorial evilness of Communist China. To many in China, it evokes the tumultuous student-worker movement which uncomfortably rocked the country in 1989; to some, it demonstrates the government's restraint in dealing with naive, confrontational troublemakers who could have been easily overwhelmed if the government had chosen to do so; to others, it signifies a strange political hiccup which appeared out of nowhere and disappeared just as suddenly, but which in some ways set in motion almost two decades of stable economic growth and the steady rise of China to its proper status as a world superpower. For me, the image summons the complexity of my relationship with China, as a progressive activist, as a media critic, as a Chinese American whose parents live in Beijing; but perhaps more importantly, it symbolizes the courage to stand up to the power of the machine, everywhere in the world, but especially right in one's own country. Whenever we speak out against imperialism, corporatism, militarism, we're that guy standing in front of those tanks. But we're not alone.

Comments

[nezua]

ah, that was fucking fantastic. thank you.

[Kai]

Thank you, 'mano. :)

[Changeseeker]

Thank you for posting this, Kai. I love this photo. I had just moved from one state to another when the events in the Tiananmen Square occurred. I was ridiculously busy and surrounded by boxes, but I sat on the floor in front of the television for hours at a time, sometimes with tears running down my face. I wanted so badly to know that it was not going to turn out the way I knew it had to turn out.

But this is not my favorite photo of that situation. On my wall in my office, I have a photo that appeared in an Amnesty International calendar. It shows a man with an absolutely jubilant grin on his face, naked to the waist, being held up in the air by another man and holding his arms raised high with his fingers throwing peace symbols toward the sky. We're not alone. Yes. Never have been. And never will be.

[Kai]

Changeseeker, yeah I'm familiar with that other photo you describe, it's also iconic and powerfully uplifting.

You're right, things did pretty much have to turn out the way they did, and everyone knew it. One influential student leader, who was working closely with the Western press, actually explicitly wanted to generate a bloodbath in order to "wake up the people". Many believe she started the rumors that tanks were flattening people in Tiananmen Square (which never happened, though the PLA did open fire with live ammunition in the streets surrounding the square). Most student leaders called off the protests well before June 4 and went home with the feeling of having successfully made a strong statement. And they had. There were protests not only in Beijing but in many towns around China. It shook the government leadership to the core and caused a major shift in official thinking. The old men realized they had to do more to spread some gravy and keep people happy, otherwise things might get seriously ugly. In my opinion, the past two decades of economic growth and gradual liberalization can be partly attributed to that chaotic summer.

See, people in the US don't understand that in China, the government is deadly serious about its fears of popular uprisings, because unlike sedated Americans, Chinese folks mean business when they talk about revolution. China has the sheer numbers to get organized and overthrow a government; it's happened several times in the past century and countless times in the past five millenia of Chinese history; plus there was the whole Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a national trauma which still lingers in the collective consciousness. In contrast, Americans believe there was one revolution a couple centuries ago and that was it, that's all we need, now we get to choose between two political parties and watch reality TV and that's called liberty. American liberals and progressives like to talk big about fighting for what's right, but how many would be willing to build encampments and barricades on Pennsylvania Avenue and completely shut down Washington DC for over a month in order to, say, stop a war?

That's what those students and workers did in 1989. They had a list of demands, they drew up a petition, they took a disruptive stand and refused to allow business to go on as usual until that petition was properly addressed. They shut down the country's political and economic capitol and occupied the symbolic heart of the nation. Can you imagine how the US government would respond to such militancy? Actually, strike that, we don't have to imagine. It's called CointelPro. It's called Operation Condor. It's called Gitmo. It's called extraordinary rendition. It's called the prison industrial complex. Indeed, if a group of US citizens were to take up action anywhere near that bold, I'm pretty sure most American liberals would start moaning something like, "Though I might be tempted to sympathize with your cause, I find your confrontational tactics and unpatriotic rhetoric counter-productive."

All this, and more, is what stirs in me when I look at the image I posted. As you can see, it's kinda complicated. ;-) Anyway, thanks for your comment!

Peace.

[nezua]

Indeed, if a group of US citizens were to take up action anywhere near that bold, I'm pretty sure most American liberals would start moaning something like, "Though I might be tempted to sympathize with your cause, I find your confrontational tactics and unpatriotic rhetoric counter-productive."

laughing. out the fuck loud. today's "progressives." fah.

[Changeseeker]

"American liberals and progressives like to talk big about fighting for what's right, but how many would be willing to build encampments and barricades on Pennsylvania Avenue and completely shut down Washington DC for over a month in order to, say, stop a war?"

Hell! You can't get most "progressives" to get up off the couch (from watching reality tv) to show up for a two-hour protest. And don't even think about a "planning session" that might actually imply long term commitment. There's a revolution going on here, but it appears to be primarily in cyberspace. Which is why The Powers That Be are working overtime right now to figure out a way to nip that in the bud. Phat chance. And they know it. There's a reason they have brand new maximum security prisons standing empty in every state of the union and underground in some of them. Do either of you remember the code name for that system? One of my students tipped me, but I've forgotten what it was.

[Bach-us]

ADX? Supermax?