AMERICA TAKES IT’S “FREEDOM OF SPEECH”, WAY TO MUCH FOR GRANTED

 

 

 

…A very brave, young Chinese protestor in 1989

 

 

In a short 30 seconds, a Washington Post columnist was recently reminded of how important our American freedoms are today.

Once again, I was recently reminded of how important and precious our “Freedom of Speech” is, here in America.  This is the same freedom that allows me to write my weekly articles calling out the Karl Rove’s, Sarah Palin’s and Michele Bachmann’s, as the jerks that they are in today’s American politics.
 

But, so quickly we forget something like what happened back in 1989, 25 years ago, when we watched on TV what became known as the horror of the Chinese, “Cultural Revolution”.  
 

This was where we watched a single, young, Chinese protestor, standing in front of and singularly challenging, a line of Chinese military tanks in the giant Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.  Yes, there was a major massacre of many Chinese protestors by the Chinese military during that very long week, in that same square. 

This protest was similar to those protestors that brought us the Arab Spring in Egypt and the protestors in the Ukraine that brought on their own political change. 

But as compared to those events, in China, the ultra-strong Chinese military government eventually prevailed, not the young Chinese protestors looking for their new version of “Free Speech”.

As was recently written by the Washington Post columnist, Ruth Marcus, it took 25 years later, that a book about China’s Cultural Revolution has now been written by National Public Radio reporter Louisa Lim entitled, “The People’s Republic of Amnesia.”

This whole issue of what happened 25 years ago was all brought to mind when Ms. Marcus was recently visiting China as a guest of the Committee of 100.  This is a US, nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding between China and the United States.  For this “Committee”, the Chinese government has made it clear that the historical Tiananmen topic must remain unmentioned.

This all became abundantly clear in China when a young Chinese man approached Ms. Marcus, looking all around, he covered his mouth with his hand and quietly asked her, “Please, can you tell me, what happened in 1989?”  All this young man had obviously heard were the rumors of that time and he was totally aware of how his government was very adept at keeping these things away from the Chinese public.

Back when the 20^th Tiananmen anniversary had occurred, it was made clear how future Tiananmen anniversaries would be handled.  Five years ago, all Chinese dissidents were detained, foreign newspapers had Chinese pages excised, television screens showing old films went strategically dark and the plug was pulled on any and all Tiananmen Square Internet sites.
 

As Ms. Marcus described, from another point of view, a Mr. Eric Li, a Shanghai-based 46-year-old venture capitalist had watched the 1989 protests from afar, while attending UC Berkeley.  Mr. Li, who later earned a Stanford MBA, expressed to Ms. Marcus his undisguised relief at his government's anniversary crackdown.  Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life, Li now echoes the official view that letting the 1989 protests continue would have jeopardized governmental stability in China. He stated that it would also have imperiled a Chinese economic rise that has lifted hundreds of millions of his Chinese brethren out of extreme poverty.

According to Mr. Li, “I look at what happened” in Egypt and Ukraine “and think, ‘Thank heaven it didn’t succeed here.’ ”

In China, only the bravest Chinese teachers today will even consider mentioning the 1989 event.  And when they do, it is done usually as a cautionary tale of a popular protest that unfolded much too soon for China. Today, the government is even more heavy-handed with dissidents, and the recent bombings in the western provinces have only added an imperative for the government to stifle any and all dissent.

Yet for those that take on the “Great Firewall,” China’s effort to censor the Internet, today it is easily breached by those techno-savvy young Chinese, adept at evading official Internet blockages. For those individuals that are aware of the 1989 event, of their date of 6/4, that 6/4 date is to the aware Chinese, what 9/11 is to the United States.

But the monster Chinese government has done a good job of keeping this event in history as a sub-iconic event.

Today, the general Chinese public, according to the pollsters, are mostly unaware of 6/4 and yet they are still very nationalistic.  They are more worked up over Japan’s old wartime atrocities and the Japanese’s latest territorial incursions.  This is as compared to any issues of personal freedom or unrest over the government’s rampant corruption and the growing problem of China's massive air pollution.

After another few decades, the “Cultural Revolution” and the Tiananmen Square Massacre will belong only to those that can keep it alive by word-of-mouth, or possibly from the capable Chinese Internet technologist, or finally, with smuggled-in, old DVD’s of the event that will be passed from person to person and family to family.

All I can say is “Thank goodness for America’s continued, “Freedom of Speech”.

Copyright G.Ater  2014