I am wary of bringing up China's forthcoming anniversary with any of the Chinese people that I know. As with the other two of the "three T's", it can incite strong emotions and violent opinions. Occasionally you still find people who are fearful of being overheard when they discuss it. But most of the time, I just get the feeling that people are simply not very comfortable talking about it, so I try not to probe or pry.
However, it happened to come up, rather indirectly, last week in one of the cosy discussion forums I've been chairing with a small group of lawyers..... and one of them suddenly told me, "I met my husband on June 3rd, 1989."
He was, she said, a graduate student at BeiDa (Peking University); and she, although she'd finished her Master's a year earlier, was working in some kind of administrative job there. Students had been boycotting classes and lectures for some weeks, as part of the protest movement; so, there was something of a holiday atmosphere on campus, despite the anxieties caused by the imposition of martial law. Indeed, one can imagine that the tension of those days would tend to draw people closer together, and encourage the blooming of romance. And summer evenings in Beijing can be quite balmily blissful. I wouldn't be surprised if many love affairs blossomed in those difficult days.
But, of course, even these happier memories are partly clouded by the wider historical events, by the horror of what was about to start unfolding. My lawyer friend tells me that her new beau, one day to-be husband, had been planning to go down to join the sit-in on the Square that evening. If he hadn't been diverted by the excitement of new love, he might not have lived to have children he could tell this tale to.
8 comments:
Froog! Surely you probed a bit deeper. What were their feelings towards the movement and the government before, in the aftermath, and twenty years on? Did the events impact on her choice of profession?
I mean, once they've chosen to open up the can 6/4 worms it's a free-for-all. Right?
I can't believe the 20th anniversary's coming up.
I agree with Stuart, it would have been interesting to hear what they had to say.
me, too. although i guess that will be a challenge to you.
i only know one of the three Ts. i guess i'm a lousy china scholar.
working on a book about this, though, actually.
Moonie, really! The "forbidden" topics: Tibet, Taiwan, Tiananmen.
She told me as much as she wanted to tell me at that time. It's difficult with other people in the group (and a different agenda/purpose, which I don't want to stray too far from). Perhaps we'll return to the subject in future weeks.
I think she was already set on being a lawyer, but in the commercial field, rather than criminal justice or human rights.
The husband, of course, was 'involved' in the movement, and she was at least sympathetic to it.
Whilst some Beijingers, I think, were disapproving of the movement at the time (though probably a substantial majority could be said to be in support of it), I don't think I've ever met one who was anything other than disgusted at what the government did. Sending tanks into your capital city, and shooting people at random? People felt violated by it, even if they were nowhere near any of the shooting.
I think there's also a deep sense of national shame about it - which is probably one reason why people generally prefer not to talk about it any more.
I think I told you that our twentysomething friends would ask us in whispers what happened because it's not mentioned in their textbooks and they can't get their hand on any info.
oooooh. right. i guess i was trying to think of "anniversaries," of which i came up with one.
It's an anniversary-rich year as well, MR. Whole bunch in March, related to Tibet: beginning of uprising against Chinese rule, declaration (reiteration) of independence, flight of DL. Anniversary of last year's Wenchuan earthquake in a few days. And then, the BIG ONE - the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the People's Republic on 1st October.
Anniversaries around the beginning of the crackdown on FLG too. And then of course June 4th.
America, I feel, still feels a shudder of shame/horror/incomprehension about the Kent State shootings (and that is often referenced by Chinese fenqing types seeking to downplay the '89 crackdown in Beijing), but this was so very much worse. Unleashing your army on an unarmed populace, citywide, in your capital city, and with no adequate control or restraint in the chain of command - just appalling.
I think the number of deaths was probably not as high as is often imagined in the West, not as bad as first feared in some of the contemporary estimates - but it's not really about the statistics. Even one unnecessary death is a tragedy. The outrage here is that very senior people in the government authorised the use of lethal force against the civilian population. And many of the people who were involved in making or implementing that decision are still around in the hierarchy today - which is why it cannot be publicly discussed. There can be no thorough examination of what happened and why until everyone who held a senior CCP position twenty years ago is safely dead or retired. It will be a few more years yet.
Comrade Hu doesn't exactly have clean hands on this, I fear.
In 1989,I was 4. My only memory of that time is a serious sick.
I know something now about that event.I just can't understand why they used PLA equipped with assualt rifles and tanks instead of a police force with baton and gas,like Mao did in 1976.China is not US,it was alsolutely unnecessary to use lethal weapons to solve a "problem" caused by armless students and citizens.
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