The Day Fascism Showed It's True Face
Protesters, mostly students, had occupied Tiananmen Square in then Peking for weeks and weren't going to leave until China accepted democratic reforms. There were other protests elsewhere but most of the attention was on them. Eighteen years ago on June 4 the hard line authoritarians sent the PRC army to massacre and drive out the protesters. Nobody really knows how many people were killed and wounded.
The military situation got to a critical stage in the first few days of June. They had to send in units from distant provinces because local ones were too sympathetic towards the protesters. The soldiers fired indisciminately and innocent bystanders were hit as well. Tanks crushed masses of people. There were skirmishes all night but by the following morning the square was cleared.
posted by nolocontendere at 9:40 PM
3 Comments:
I read in a book review about a westerner's life in China around that time that some democratic front group was simply exploiting the discontent of some African students that were angry because the college rules wouldn't let them have chinese females as visitors in their dorm rooms.
I'm certainly not trying to act as an apologist for the whole tragedy, but from what this guy said, a westerner who was there at the time, it sounds like the democratic front group was simply exaggerating a complex issue that might have been resolved by more peaceful means.
Haven't got the title of the book handy, but if anyone wants it I might be able to dig it out.
Nick Z.
Sounds a tad narrow for such a widespread protest that existed in other cities too, but it could be part of it I guess.
In case anyone is interested, the name of that book is "Chinese Lessons" by John Pomfret. It's all about the time the author spent attending school in China and living in a dorm with a bunch of Chinese students. Sounds like a very colorful story.
Here's a link to the book review:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HJ21Cb01.html
Nick Z.
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