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Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

nytimes.com

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Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#71

Post by roywiggins »

clamprecht wrote: post #28
vtange wrote: post #10

There's inevitably going to be people trying to justify the tragedy here by suggesting America is no better, pointing to instances such as the Kent State Shootings (Vietnam War protest). For those people I'd like to point out that unlike China, America doesn't actively try to hide the negative sides of its history to the extent China does. I can read about the Kent State shootings all I want, along with the My Lai Ma…

We can read about Kent State shootings. But what can't we read about? What ugly stuff happened in the US that we don't talk about?

We don't have systematic censorship like China does, by any means, but we do choose not to teach and write down certain things, and so they end up nearly forgotten. The Tulsa race riot was excised from official histories, never talked about, and so it faded into a little-known episode of history, until activists brought it to wider attention at the end of the 20th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_riot

> the city settled into an uneasy peace, and decades of virtual silence about the events were held. It was not recognized in the Tulsa Tribune feature of "Fifteen Years Ago Today" or "Twenty-five Years Ago Today"... The first academic account was a master's thesis written in 1946 by Loren L. Gill, a veteran of World War II. But it did not then receive circulation beyond the University of Tulsa... [In 1996] the chamber of commerce decided to commemorate the riot, but when they read the account and saw photos gathered by Ed Wheeler... they refused to publish it. He took it to both major newspapers, which refused to handle it. His article was finally published in Impact Magazine, a new publication aimed at a black audience, but most of white Tulsa never knew about it."

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#72

Post by nradov »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. The 2013 Chinese moon probe landing was literally reported in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNN. What more do you want?

I guess for something that eventful to be more common knowledge. You can find articles from 2016, 2017 even "announcing" the images, but as far as the general public cares, USA was the only country on the moon. Again, this is my personal bias and I live in the Mid-west so it may be different elsewhere

Various countries have been sending unmanned probes to the moon since 1959. It's not eventful just because China managed to repeat what the Soviet Union and USA did decades ago. It's great that the Chinese accomplished it and they should be proud of their efforts, but so what.

You can't force ordinary people to care about every single space exploration mission. It doesn't impact their lives.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#73

Post by simonh »

JabavuAdams wrote: post #18
ekianjo wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tian an Men protests were peaceful and non-violent. Why do you need to suppress them using guns and tanks? That's the perfect opportunity to embrace progressive regime change/evolution instead of gunning people down.

So were the initial Syrian protests. The problem is, as a head of state, you're responsible for the whole populace. You don't know where it will end. It could literally end in the breakup and destruction of your country, never mind something as trivial as regime change. EDIT> Or are you saying that peaceful protest could be met with some perhaps token concessions. Then if the protesters get violent, the state is just…

Syria became mess not because there were peaceful protests, but because the extreme violence and oppression visited down by the government tore the country apart. You are holding the peaceful protesters responsible for the consequences of violent state repression. Perhaps you might want to rethink where the blame for that repression lies. Personally, I don't think it lies with the protesters.

Imagine an alternate timeline in which the Syrian government opened up dialogue with the protesters and negotiated a new constitutional convention. There is no reason they could not have chosen to do that. But here you are advocating the kind of extreme response that in Tiananmen 'only' lead to decades of despotic rule but which in Syria culminated in nerve gas attacks in civilian areas.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#74

Post by meee »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #7

Kind of a personal story, but my fiancé is from Beijing. She found out about Tiananmen square about a year ago. She only knew that she shouldn't ask about the Tiananmen incident growing up and that it was a bad thing that happened. She has been in the states for several years now and when she found out what really happened with our even blurry images and stories we have now it really changed her perspective on things…

I saw this video a few years back of a Chinese filmmaker asking others, on June 4th, if they know what day it is. The answers show how such an enormous open secret can be kept from your fiancé's generation.

https://vimeo.com/44078865 (action starts about 1 minute in)

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#75

Post by tobltobs »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. The 2013 Chinese moon probe landing was literally reported in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNN. What more do you want?

I guess for something that eventful to be more common knowledge. You can find articles from 2016, 2017 even "announcing" the images, but as far as the general public cares, USA was the only country on the moon. Again, this is my personal bias and I live in the Mid-west so it may be different elsewhere

Maybe it is just that sending a robot to the moon doesn't count as "having been on the moon", else the EU, US and USSR would "have been on the Mars" already.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#76

Post by paradite »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #20
JabavuAdams wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to take a kind of despicable position. We don't know what would have happened had the protests been allowed to continue. China is a vast country with mostly poor, uneducated people -- especially so in 1989. Look at what happened in Syria. Look at the Arab spring. Is it just to kill hundreds, to prevent the slaughter of hundreds of thousands? If the answer is no, never, I don't see how we can have states at…

What you're saying is that it is better for people to live under authoritarian governments of dictatorships than die fighting for their freedom. It's not a despicable position but it's incredibly short-sighted.

I think it is short-sighted to conclude which one (Chinese system/Western system, albeit exaggerated) is better at this point of time, especially considering the current political, environmental and economical circumstances and trends.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#77

Post by simonh »

ant6n wrote: post #58
k-mcgrady wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is that it is better for people to live under authoritarian governments of dictatorships than die fighting for their freedom. It's not a despicable position but it's incredibly short-sighted.

Is it? In the long term, it's better to be alive than to be dead. Some would prefer a peaceful, long term transition compared to quick, violent civil war -- which may result in a worse overall state. Wars destroy civilizations, sometimes for generations. This is something that Americans generally won't agree with, because their foundational myth is closely tied to the revolutionary war. Conveniently this war was a ve…

There was nothing inevitable about Canadian independence at the time. For a counter example see Tibet, where independence is now pretty much impossible since the country has been packed with a majority of ethnic Chinese thanks to a determined policy of Sinification.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#78

Post by blacksmith_tb »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #67
nradov wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. The 2013 Chinese moon probe landing was literally reported in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and CNN. What more do you want?

I guess for something that eventful to be more common knowledge. You can find articles from 2016, 2017 even "announcing" the images, but as far as the general public cares, USA was the only country on the moon. Again, this is my personal bias and I live in the Mid-west so it may be different elsewhere

The Soviets landed unmanned craft on the moon too[1], not to downplay China's success. I would imagine most people tend to think of the Apollo landings and nothing else, since getting people there and back in one piece is fairly significant.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_landing#Unmanned_landings

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#79

Post by js2 »

SurrealSoul wrote: post #7

Kind of a personal story, but my fiancé is from Beijing. She found out about Tiananmen square about a year ago. She only knew that she shouldn't ask about the Tiananmen incident growing up and that it was a bad thing that happened. She has been in the states for several years now and when she found out what really happened with our even blurry images and stories we have now it really changed her perspective on things…

fyi, fiancée.

Re: Hidden Away for 28 Years, Tiananmen Protest Pictures See Light of Day

#80

Post by aaron-lebo »

likelynew wrote: post #60
williw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How old is she? I was maybe 8 at the time. I was not in Beijing. Even I knew what was happening, the event was broadcasted on TV at the time. It was probably heavily censored, but I knew demonstrations etc were going on in Beijing at the time.

Why the downvotes? How many british people know about Jallianwala Bagh massacre, shooting at a peaceful gathering killing hundreds, that was committed by them in India? How many americans care about the systematic racial genocide in their land? Most people don't care unless the event is very shocking at that time and place. And, if china is still poor, no one in west would have cared for their human rights violation.

You are verging on whataboutism.

There's a big difference. In the US we've been educated about atrocities against natives since youth. We learned about the Trail of Tears. You know about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre if you've watched Gandhi, a piece of Western film and entertainment.

That's incredibly different from the state overwriting or hiding history.

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