The Day Democracy Died...Almost

The Washington Post (here) and New York Times (here) published reflections of Chinese citizens as to how their lives were affected by the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which occurred 20 years ago today (the remembrance by Times’ columnist and one-time Beijing bureau chief Nicholas Kristof was, I thought, particularly good).

What strikes me as I read all of this is that many of those sharing their thoughts and experiences who are now about 60 years of age or older seem to chide the protestors for “rocking the boat,” while those very young (elementary school age to high school) have no recollection of the events of that day at all (and by the way, the crackdown extended throughout Beijing, not just in the Square).

The age group falling between those loose parameters seems to include those who truly paid the price for their protest in years of imprisonment, to say nothing of denial of jobs, benefits including health care, and various other ways that The State seems determined to persecute them until the end of their days.

All of this is particularly poignant given that the memoirs of Zhao Ziyang, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party, were released a month ago, in which he states that “the decision to impose martial law around Beijing in May 1989 was illegal and that the party's leaders could easily have negotiated a peaceful solution to the unrest.”

However, since we’re talking about the utterly closed society of China, perhaps the oldest civilization on earth, we can all be assured that there will be no investigation into the murderous conduct of that country’s leadership up to and including the tragic day we note here.

(Also, at the time of Zhao’s death, the results of a poll of U.S. high school students was released in which one in three of those polled said that press freedoms “went too far,” with others saying the government should approve news stories before we read them; this only proves that, aside from those of “a tender age” in China telling everyone don’t worry, be happy more or less, some of us in this country of comparable years can be a bit callow also.)

And in a coincidence that I consider to be more than a little odd, CNN tells us here that actor David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok, Thailand hotel room; I say that because one of his most famous roles was that of Kwai Chang Caine, the Shaolin Temple priest in the 1970s TV series Kung Fu. The story in brief: Caine travelled the Old West in search of his half brother while “on the run” from a Chinese warload whose son Caine had killed (Caine responded to the son's killing of one of Caine's Temple masters).

Product of “Baby Boom” T.V. generation that I am, I can tell you that that show represented my introduction into Chinese culture, such as it was. However (for the purposes of disclosure), I should tell you that I have no other personal insights to offer on that subject aside from courses in school, but only whatever observations I have and analysis I can provide from news reports. I have never travelled to China, and I cannot see that happening any time in the future.

As Wikipedia tells us about the show, it delved into what some might consider now to be a bit of a schlocky brand of self-reflection on the part of Caine, through which he was able to help other characters on the show see inside themselves as well. And one of the many lines in that spirit offered by the show is as follows:

"To suppress a truth is to give it force beyond endurance."

And it is my heartfelt wish that those who either cannot recall the Tiananmen Square massacre because of that country’s frighteningly effective efforts to eradicate its memory, or those who forsake it in favor basking in the glow of China’s vast new wealth, commit that line to memory once and for all.

Update: Kudos to Kin Cheung in particular here.