Posted on 04/23/2009 5:11:13 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Netizens Defy Tiananmen Silencing
2009-04-22
As the 20-year anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown approaches, Chinese netizens find ways to work around government censorship.
HONG KONG—An article criticizing China's deadly 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing has appeared on an official Web site ahead of the incident’s 20-year anniversary, but it was quickly deleted from the public eye.
The article was published Sunday on the Changde Dang Jian Wang Web site, which is hosted by the Communist Party committee in Changde city in China’s southern Hunan province. It was deleted later the same day.
Chinese authorities have forbidden mention of the June 4, 1989 anniversary, and analysts say the appearance and removal of the article suggest a conflict between China’s government and its netizens over what happened 20 years ago, and how to remember it.
The article, titled “The Anecdotes of the 38th Army Commander Xu Qinxian,” recalls how People’s Liberation Army Lt. Gen. Xu Qinxian refused to lead his troops into Beijing on the eve of the crackdown. Xu was given a five-year jail term for refusing to follow orders.
At the end of the article, apparently written 10 years after the Tiananmen incident in 1999, the anonymous writer asks, “Now two five-year periods have already passed, but where is Gen. Xu?”
(Excerpt) Read more at rfa.org ...
I was in Beijing about two years ago, and I walked around Tiananmen Square. I just couldn’t help but think about all the stuff that happened there, especially the 1989 Massacre. I was like, “Man, this is where it happened, and I’m standing right here.” It was a very interesting experience, however it was also sad to remember that the ruthless Chinese Communist Party still rules the country.
“..but it was quickly deleted from the public eye...”
isn’t this becoming the American way??
Some of my relatives were at the first demonstrations there in 1989, which were mainly anti-corruption demonstrations. However, the longer many young people stayed at the square, with little government response, the more they realized change would not take place under a one-party state.
Many older citizens were sypathetic because the kids were non-violent and they expressed many of their own views.
Fast forward to the present, when those same relatives are American citizens, and to quote one of them speaking about her adopted homeland: “It’s not really a good idea when one party controls the government; too much corruption.”
Couldn’t have said it any better.
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