And here is a view from the other side -- one of the soldiers told to clear the square, even if it meant firing into the crowd.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tiananmen Square -- Twenty Years on
The massacre of students at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989 is all but forgotten. Goes to show that if you give people enough to eat and a comfortable life, they won't worry about all these pesky revolutionary ideas like freedom of speech, democracy and all mumbo jumbo. Indifference is the word here. At the Chronicle Review, a walk through the last twenty years since Tiananmen happened.
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3 comments:
"...if you give people enough to eat and a comfortable life, they won't worry about all these revolutionary (reactionary?) ideas like freedom of speech, democracy and all mumbo jumbo."
Pardon me, I'm a little dull.
Do you mean that China did not give it's people enough to eat, or a comfortable life, therefore, the people had to worry about revolutionary ideas like freedom of speech, or are you being sarcastic?
Yes, of course. The level of prosperity in the 80s and now are vastly different.
If you had just read the link I gave, it would be clear what I meant...here (among others) is an example from there
""They say, 'China is much better now than before. Our daily lives are much better than they once were.'" Even other professors, he says, have moved on. "They talk about buying a house, buying a car, going abroad on vacation, putting their kids in this or that school. No one discusses politics." He pauses, searching for an explanation. "It's not that they're afraid. It's that they're not interested." "
I think prosperity breeds a certain indifference to revolutionary movements. Another example is Singapore - there is no sign there that people are even interested in fighting for a full-fledged representative democracy.
Not sure I agree. The Jewish community in the US is quite well-fed but they haven't forgotten WW2 camps. They worry. I think you are drawing a hasty connection.
Perhaps the influence of some of your co-bloggers, who would "solve" Institute vs. University issues with high talk alone, strings attached but no experimentally verifiable results.
OLO, you are more worthy.
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