Opinion: Starling On Remembering Tiananmen
[Opinion column written by Jonathan Starling] I was almost exactly ten years old when the events of Tiananmen reached their tragic end, twenty-five years ago.
I have vague recollections of CBS reporting’s from that time, of the iconic ‘tank man’ blocking a column of tanks from advancing on the demonstrators, of the anguished look on the faces of students as live fire rang out in the background. And even then I cannot say if I genuinely recall them or have simply absorbed such memories since via various media.
I was far too young to understand it all then – I was of an age when I divided the world into simple binaries of ‘good’ and ‘evil’, and the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China fit solidly into the realm of ‘evil’, conveniently framed by the late President Reagan’s ‘empire of evil’ narrative.
The violent scenes that day in Beijing seemed to reinforce that view.
Just over a decade later I found myself living in the People’s Republic, in the city of Nanjing, the ancient southern capital of China. This was a fortunate, but unexpected, experience, and in between learning some basic Mandarin and revelling in a foreign culture, I taught English.
During the day I taught primary school students, at night I taught colloquial English to working professionals, followed by a free English class for migrant construction workers from a site opposite the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre.
The younger generations, younger than me, were almost completely oblivious to the events of Tiananmen, while those contemporary with myself knew of it, but shrugged it off as irrelevant. It was only the older generations, young adults at the time, who spoke to me in quick, hushed terms about Tiananmen and the Cultural Revolution that preceded it in 60s-70s.
They spoke of the hope that Tiananmen had for them then, but also their naiveté.
Three Views from 2001
Some were outspoken neoliberal capitalists who had supported the movement as a way to introduce more wide-ranging capitalist reforms than the controlled reforms of Deng Xiaoping. These would tell me that they should’ve been more patient, as today they saw China as a neoliberal paradise, and demonstrations like Tiananmen [or the then growing independent workers movement] as threats to their stability and wealth. These were largely middle-class urbanites.
Older workers however spoke of how they didn’t want capitalism, but more democracy – they wanted to deepen the revolution and have it in substance as well as name. They didn’t want a dictatorship that hid behind the rhetoric of communism/socialism while continuing to exploit them. They regretted that in 1989 they had underestimated the power of the State. They thought the soldiers would join them, not shoot them. They had not been able to communicate to the soldiers what they were demonstrating for, and the soldiers had been fed propaganda from the State.
They argued that this had taught them the importance of solidarity, of decentralisation, rather than being easily isolated by the State. They sought to draw lessons from this for the current independent workers movements then developing.
Living in the middle of the university area of Nanjing I also interacted with ‘intellectuals’, various professors at Nanjing University. They, too, spoke quietly of Tiananmen.
They argued that to them Tiananmen was an attempt for greater liberties – for a free press, for an end to nepotism, for Government transparency – but not for neoliberal reforms or radical democracy. Chinese communism, but with a human face, essentially. They argued that they were naïve in thinking such was possible then – that instead the economy had to develop as per Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Four Modernisations’. But today [early 2000s], the PRC was ready to support those liberal reforms.
The Importance of Remembering
Which of these three generalised views is correct?
I can’t say.
Nor can I say that these are the only views, just that these are the ones I encountered.
Personally, while I support the call for a truly radical democratisation of the Chinese revolution and the independent workers movement there, I think all three are valid explanations of what motivated the Tiananmen Square demonstrators.
What is important though is to ensure that the authorities do not fully wipe this incident clean from the history books. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died in the confusion of twenty-five years ago. Nor were these deaths all in Beijing.
The movement was in every major city, with uprisings in reaction to the massacre in Beijing manifesting themselves in strikes and occupations throughout China, including Nanjing, which were gradually repressed in the weeks after June 4th.
The People’s Republic is today a capitalist dictatorship, and one where the memory of the 89 Democracy Movement has been methodically erased. And yet it remains a spectre haunting Beijing, and continues to inform the independent workers movement, of which the China Labour Bulletin helps chronicle.
The ’89 Democracy Movement failed, but its calls for greater liberal democratic reforms and for radical democracy continue to be relevant. The 2011 Chinese pro-democracy movement demonstrates that the more progressive and radical ideals of ’89 remain alive in the People’s Republic.
In remembering the Tiananmen Square Crackdown we remember that a better world is possible, and that the struggle for greater democracy, transparency and accountability must be continuous and universal – be it in China or nominal liberal democracies like Bermuda.
- Jonathan Starling
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and now we have Prince Charles likening President Putin to Adolf Hitler when he was talking to a Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor in Canada a few days ago.
Putin has not changed,nor will he,the Cold War was NEVER over and Bermuda like anywhere else needs to wake up.
Somehow you manage to paint a protest against Communism that turned into a massacre by a communist government into a capitalist slaughter of heroic workers.
Way to re write history.
Starling please pull your bottom lip over your head and swallow.