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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

#111

Post by justicezyx »

The rich and powerful (note I did not separate government & individuals, increasing these 2 groups are merging together, and seriously, the censorship in this area is way better than things happen in the past) in China have to maintain a great public image. Even if a significant fraction of the population are fully aware of that being superficial, there are definitely larger fraction of people who does believe in the camouflage. Not that such people are ignorant, their life is hard enough to really have the spare time for these stuff.

The reason such history is heavily censored, is precisely for this cause. Such thing will never be freely available, as long as the social structure and political system works in the same way.

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

#112

Post by rsync »

sbarre wrote: post #83
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 definitely agree, and this problem is not limited to what we consider (or considered) repressive regimes.. In 1995 I went to visit college friends in Austin TX (I'm from eastern Canada) and a few of them who had grown up in Buda TX (a small town outside of Austin) told me that until high school (late 80s) they had been told in school by multiple teachers that the US had "won" the Vietnam War. Obviously an anecdote,…

"I definitely agree, and this problem is not limited to what we consider (or considered) repressive regimes.."

I think the very best example of this (major, shocking news event unknown internally by US citizens) is the Iran Air flight 655 incident, wherein a US Navy cruiser shot a civilian airliner out of the sky, killing 290 passengers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

This airplane was flying in Iranian airspace. The Navy cruiser was in Iranian territorial waters.

You don't run into too many people in the US that know about this ...

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

#113

Post by sqeaky »

rsync wrote: post #112
sbarre wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely agree, and this problem is not limited to what we consider (or considered) repressive regimes.. In 1995 I went to visit college friends in Austin TX (I'm from eastern Canada) and a few of them who had grown up in Buda TX (a small town outside of Austin) told me that until high school (late 80s) they had been told in school by multiple teachers that the US had "won" the Vietnam War. Obviously an anecdote,…

"I definitely agree, and this problem is not limited to what we consider (or considered) repressive regimes.." I think the very best example of this (major, shocking news event unknown internally by US citizens) is the Iran Air flight 655 incident, wherein a US Navy cruiser shot a civilian airliner out of the sky, killing 290 passengers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655 This airplane was flying in Ir…

It is hard to know about all of the US incidents abroad that are fucked, because there are so many of them, and we make no attempt to hide them at an institutional level. (Other than those made during already classified operations, but those get out eventually because using classification to cover up mistakes/crimes is generally a much more serious crime)

In school I learned about Japanese internment during WWII, The 3/5ths compromise and the trail of tears, and a dozen other US atrocities. I hear about drone strikes against weddings in the news.

The point is there is no institutional censorship stopping me from learning about this stuff, like there is in China with regards to Tienanmen Square.

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

#114

Post by guiltygatorade »

wyuenho wrote: post #33
vtange wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the worst part about having to move out of country to find out things that were censored/hidden? You'll be inclined to believe foreign nations have a negative bias towards China. At least, that's China's (and Russia's) narrative.

Or extreme emotional devastation that lead to extreme hatred towards the CCP government. Finding out you've been lied to your entire life WILL shock you to the core.

Funny enough for me, neither happened. I left when I was in my early teens but having spent enough time being indoctrinated. I didn't chalk every western report on the CCP to be based on hatred, nor did I develop extreme distaste for the CCP.

I still think Western reporting likes to sprinkle in a few words to demonstrate their distaste for communism and authoritarianism (even when unnecessarily) whenever possible. But above all I think I just learned to be skeptical -- a useful trait for this current election cycle ;)

To be fair I think for the people that are much older who have spent their life dedicated to the proletariat struggle, the truth may be a lot harder to swallow. On the other hand, the older folks aren't blind either. Most will have some idea that there are devious things happening behind the curtain -- but Chinese as a culture has always promoted collective harmony over individuality. So most simply accept the way things are.

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

#115

Post by guiltygatorade »

kaishiro wrote: post #93
wyuenho wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gate of Heavenly Peace is a must watch if you want to fully comprehend how the whole ordeal went down. Highly recommend.

Just a quick side note. Back ~2006 I had the opportunity to travel to China with Carma Hinton, the director of Gate of Heavenly Peace. Amazing woman with an amazing background.

Would've loved to pick her brains on what she learned. I imagine she had interviewed tons of people in the process of making the documentary.

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

#116

Post by calibration263 »

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.

The majority of my US History classes in high school focused on things like the trail of tears, the pullman strikes, Jim crow laws, Vietnam war atrocities, Japanese internment, our policies towards European refugees during WWII, the watergate scandal, the US invasion of panama, the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima... I learned about all of these as part of a standard public school education, just like all my peers. Plus you'd be crazy if you thought US media was bullish about Guantanamo, the missing weapons of mass destruction, NSA civilian spying, drone assassinations...

Regardless wether people care about those things(a lot don't), it's part of our education and media. I think the claim is Chinese history classes in china and their media are a bit more rose colored than ours, which is why people don't know about tiananmen square.

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

#117

Post by Udik »

simonh wrote: post #73
JabavuAdams wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tim…

Curious how the extreme violence of the Chinese response in Tienanmen is responsible for the continuation of the government politics; while the same extreme response in Syria would be responsible for tearing apart the country.

Let me express a doubt about this kind of explanation, that seems more fit to put the blame squarely on the bad guy rather than understanding what happened. When protests turn so easily into a civil war that tears a country apart, it probably means that there are lots of people ready with weapons and military training, and that the government's response maybe hasn't been hard enough to prevent it.

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

#118

Post by kaishiro »

guiltygatorade wrote: post #115
kaishiro wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a quick side note. Back ~2006 I had the opportunity to travel to China with Carma Hinton, the director of Gate of Heavenly Peace. Amazing woman with an amazing background.

Would've loved to pick her brains on what she learned. I imagine she had interviewed tons of people in the process of making the documentary.

Yeah, to add some substance to the largely fluff comment I wrote above (I just woke up and was surprised to see someone mention the film), she actually went to school in China, so she is one of the only Westerner's I've ever met who could speak Mandarin natively. One of the unfortunate things is that she actually lost touch with a lot of her old friends due to the volatility of that era, so she had spent much of her adult life reconnecting with the people she's able to find. Many of them are pseudo dissidents now - like Dai Qing (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Qing), who we were also fortunate enough to meet.

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

#119

Post by Udik »

ant6n wrote: post #63
mahyarm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could apply the same logic to the entire Chinese communist revolution then. If it didn't happen then china might be Taiwan today vs. the polluted authoritarian land it is now. The famine which killed 15-45 million people and did a lot more damage on top of that probably would of never happened. The 'cultural revolution' wouldn't gut their intellectual class and set china back even further.

You are applying the same logic correctly, favoring long term peaceful transitions over short term civil wars. Yours is not a juxtaposition, it's strengthening the argument.

Except that the Tienanmen response might have prevented such a short term civil war. History has shown that China was on the right track, it's very hard to imagine they could have done any better since 1989.

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

#120

Post by Udik »

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…

Funny how Americans are all for fighting for freedom, except when it comes to Palestinians. In that case, it's all "you lost the land, get over it".
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