Archives for June 2006

The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Conventions that explicitly bans “humiliating and degrading treatment,” according to knowledgeable military officials, a step that would mark a further shift away from strict adherence to international human rights standards. (full article at the Baltimore Sun)

Technorati : geneva convention, politics

Today is the Anniversary of Tiananmen Square. Tiananmen square what? How can a square have an anniversary? For at least another generation people can no longer think of the square anymore, but the massacre that put an abrupt end to two months of protests. I forgot about it, and so did the media, it’s hardly mentioned in the news. For me Paul Kedrosky’s post was the reminder.

Back then I knew relatively little of what was going on. 1989 was the year when communism fell country by country in Eastern Europe, and I was moving to Vienna to start my super-intensive SAP training which kept me at class all day, and over my books night – in a country whose language I did not speak. The first anniversary found me in Singapore, and I remember how shocked I was to hear the country’s Father, Lee Kuan Yew, blame television reporting and western media in general for the deaths near Tiananmen Square. I don’t have a quote from that speech, but here’s one from the Straits Times, Aug 17, 2004: “If I have to shoot 200,000 students to save China from another 100 years of disorder, so be it.” Hm…

Originally I only saw still photos of the famous Tank Man. Thanks to Youtube, now I can see how this lonely man stood up against lethal force.

(Should the embedded player not work, here’s the link to the video)

He was no doubt a hero. But did he prepare to be a hero? He has what appears to be shopping bags in his hands. He may have been just a “regular guy” who couldn’t believe what was happening, and believed he could talk sense to the soldiers. In fact he could. I’d love to know what went through the tank commander’s mind. He was, after all ordered to “restore order” and crush the “rebels” – crushing this lonely little man would have meant nothing compared to the acts he likely committed later on that very same day. Did he know he was being filmed? Or was he simply impressed by the heroism of the lonely man?

This scene reminded me of another one, and thanks to Youtube it only took seconds to find this film shot 33 years before Tiananmen, in Budapest, Hungary:

(Again, should the embedded player not work, here’s the link to the video)

The 1956 Revolution was crushed by the Russian tanks – but before the Russians, there were Hungarian tanks that the communist government sent to “restore order”. They took up their positions, just like the Chinese, then people started to talk to them, just like the Tank Man, and finally most of them joined the demonstrators. Unlike in China, the Communist Party’s stronghold on the people weakened by the day – until the Russians arrived with overwhelming force. Yet it took them 6 days to suppress the revolution.

For the next 33 years the events were referred to as the “counter-revolution”, and officially ignored. People never accepted this term, so they referred to the “1956 events” or simply “1956”. Just like Tiananmen. It’s somewhat symbolic that in Hungary October 23rd, the day of the Revolution became a national holiday in 1989, the year of Tiananmen. I can only hope the day comes when China openly celebrates Tiananmen as a National Holiday.

Update (6/4):  Tiananman Square in 3 Minutes by Angry Chinese Blogger:

Tags: China, Freedom, Tank Man, Tiananmen, Tiananmen Massacre, asian values, counter-revolution, democracy, heroism, oppression, 1956, 1956 Revolution, Hungarian Revolution, communism, politics, zoliblog