TIANANMEN SQUARE MASSACRE

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, in China known by some people as the June 4th Incident.

When I met my friend Hao (23), who is a Chinese national working in Bangkok, I soon told him I was a free Tibet-activist. He didn’t understand why I thought Tibet was occupied by China. Tibet was a part of China and has always been a part of China, he claimed.
I told him the Sino-Tibeto history the way I knew it, and he got upset, he didn’t want to discuss this issue.
In Bangkok we often watch BBC World and CNN and he is able to see documentaries covering human rights issues in China. He gets upset. Why do westerners always try to put China in a bad light?
In Bangkok we can also receive Chinese television. Everything on CCTV on China is positive. Happy people living in a beautiful country. My friend thinks censorship is a good thing, because people get depressed if they see reality, if they see negativity.
He doesn’t want to hear about The Cultural Revolution, The Great Leap Forward that lead to the Great Famine that killed tens of millions of Chinese. He doesn’t want to hear that the People’s Liberation Army liberated Tibet from the Dalai Lama and killed more than 100.000 people in the process and another 1 million who perished during the Cultural Revolution and Great Famine. He doesn’t want to hear about Tiananmen Square.
China is good.
“Then why do you live in Bangkok?”
He just shrugged his shoulders.

I told him in Bangkok he can go on the internet and access any website he wants, including mine. I told him that both my website as well as my 4 weblogs are blocked in China and have been for years. Only with special byproxy servers and a lot of effort, people can access my website and weblog pages. Only one person from Mainland China was able to do so on 23 May. I told him China considers me a terrorist

I often wonder why many Chinese don’t want to hear the truth, especially when it concerns their own country and people. I always wondered why most people prefer to be in denial and remain ignorant. Hao and I never dicussed Chinese history ever again, nor my work and beliefs.

Today, students do not recognise the scene on the pictures of the famous Tank Man who stopped an entire tank column on the morning of June 5 near Tiananmen Square. They just don’t have any idea. When they Google Tiananmen Square in China, they only see beautiful photos that fit well in a tourist brochure. They are kept ignorant about the generation before them who fought for freedom of speech and democracy.
My friend Hao, once a university student himself has now access to every information on China he desires. But he desires not to know.

Also see Tank Man on my blog http://www.cutsleevecomrades.blogspot.com/, a scene from my book Comrades of the Cut Sleeve in which I describe the June 4 Incident and particularly the event that unfolded on Chang An Avenue on the morning of June 5.