tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post5566479561672562160..comments2024-01-08T19:49:13.932+00:00Comments on Froogville: Lest we forgetFrooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-66348191903811623442009-02-08T08:32:00.000+00:002009-02-08T08:32:00.000+00:00Apparently, some people attribute the callously di...Apparently, some people attribute the callously dismissive "Never killed" quote to Jiang Zemin.<BR/><BR/>I wonder if the source I saw crediting it to Zhu was mistaken, or whether they both said something like this. It wouldn't surprise me if this were a standard line trotted out by several of the leaders when quizzed by the media about the incident.<BR/><BR/>I've also subsequently heard stories that the bystanders who were thought by some to have been helping the Tank Man to get away were in fact plain-clothes policemen (i.e., he was arrested immediately at the scene, and may have been executed within a few days).<BR/><BR/>I hope that isn't true. It seems a little unlikely to me. I don't remember that being mentioned in any contemporary news reports, and it seems impossible it would not have been if that were the case. Also, my recollection is that there was quite a substantial crowd nearby (just off to the bottom left of the frame, I think), and that would surely have made it very difficult for an arrest to be made.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-7111696947059747862008-06-08T06:55:00.000+00:002008-06-08T06:55:00.000+00:00I have seen the top picture many times and maybe a...I have seen the top picture many times and maybe a version that is slightly further panned out but never the second one you found. Of course one needs to see the close up one to understand the pictures power but that line of tanks is quite breath taking. <BR/><BR/>A sad day indeed and for a proud country not one which will be easily acknowledged. <BR/><BR/>Well written.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-5384588517815553542008-06-07T19:09:00.000+00:002008-06-07T19:09:00.000+00:00Thanks for that post, and for including the second...Thanks for that post, and for including the second picture, which is definitely worth a thousand words, probably more. Well done.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-30046108911234811862008-06-07T07:05:00.000+00:002008-06-07T07:05:00.000+00:00By "racist culturalism" I mean if a Eruopean count...By "racist culturalism" I mean if a Eruopean country had behaved in said fashion (which they all have in the past) they would not have been hosting the Olympics. The most brutal type of racism in some ways is lowered expectations. <BR/><BR/>What happened was intolerable. The saddest thing is for multiple reasons, it has been tolerated, and forgotten.<BR/><BR/>And now I am sat here watching "Oh What A Lovely War" which I always do when I feel the slightest bit jingoistic. It's a great fucking cure.The British Cowboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00439277300657927816noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-31349720693257118692008-06-07T02:44:00.000+00:002008-06-07T02:44:00.000+00:00I also now recall that when I was running the Amne...I also now recall that when I was running the Amnesty International group in my first teaching job (we had a long of Hong Kong Chinese kids in the school, so it had touched us especially closely), we wrote a letter of support for a Chinese guy - I can't now remember his name, I'm afraid (I wonder if I can access the Amnesty site to check on the status of past cases) - who'd been arrested the following year. He was a civil servant in a provincial city somewhere who had lowered the flag on his local government office building on the 1st Anniversary. I wonder if Ding Zilin and the other bereaved parents here in Beijing ever heard about that.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-19848692816761578352008-06-07T02:37:00.000+00:002008-06-07T02:37:00.000+00:00Or 'racist culturalism'?? What exactly did you me...Or 'racist culturalism'?? What exactly did you mean by that, Cowboy? Do you mean people in the States view it as an example of "unspeakable Oriental cruelty", pigeonholing it with the Nanjing Massacre and the Burma Railway and so on; or that they say things like "only the dastardly Chinese would be capable of such an outrage"? Hmmm - it's not like it's unheard of for troops to fire on civilians in America, or for the British police to mount cavalry charges against striking miners. The 1989 crackdown here was on a whole different scale; but I tend to think it's a characteristic of totalitarian governments to be willing and capable of executing such ruthless acts of repression. I fear there may also be a vein of unfeelingness, a withering of human compassion, a ruthless pragmatism in Chinese culture that makes this kind of thing more readily thinkable than in some other countries - but that's a very big and difficult question.<BR/><BR/>Stories are legion over here of young EFL teachers, <I>particularly</I> from America (and some of whom ought to be just about old enough to remember), apparently never having heard of the incident.<BR/><BR/>I may post some more about memories and perceptions of the event here in China. Outside of Hong Kong (where there is an annual vigil), I fear it is largely forgotten. The memory persists more strongly here in Beijing, because there are so many people who actually witnessed the events firsthand. But, of course, many of them are now dead or getting rather elderly. And the 1980s population has been swamped by the influx of newcomers since, a minority now in their own city. <BR/><BR/>I wrote this on Wednesday morning, but hesitated to put it up at first. Partly because I'd got rather too teared up in writing it; and partly because I didn't want to get the blog blocked again. It seems that guarantees of pre-Olympic "media openness" really do count for something, after all. But by the end of this year, it will be a very different story.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211251.post-31694669098605482742008-06-06T14:10:00.000+00:002008-06-06T14:10:00.000+00:00I cannot believe it was 1989. There are people goi...I cannot believe it was 1989. There are people going to college who weren't born when it happened. Damn I feel old.<BR/><BR/>It was such a defining moment for som many of us, and much of the response seems to demonstrate a helthy dose of cultural racism.The British Cowboyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00439277300657927816noreply@blogger.com