Today, June 4, 2008, marks the 19th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. On this date in 1989, hundreds (or, by some estimates, thousands) of people were killed in a military crackdown on anti-authoritarian and pro-democracy protesters.
I have an acquaintance from China whose wife (then girlfriend) was at Tiananmen Square just before the massacre occurred. Fortunately, she had left the scene just before the tanks rolled in. After the Tiananmen Square tragedy, they realized that there would be no chance for democratic reforms in China any time soon, so they moved to the U.S.
While we've seen some crackdowns on our own freedoms in recent years (under the Bush administration), we in the U.S. can be thankful that we still have it much better than those who live in repressive totalitarian regimes like the so-called People's Republic of China.
And we need to realize that democracy can be spread not by trying to force it on other countries at the point of a gun (see Bush's Iraq strategy) but rather by setting a positive example for the world through diplomacy and peaceful respect for human rights -- like we used to do in the good old days.
Hi, some facts for your reivew:
ReplyDelete- The Chinese government released official casualty figure of 241.
- Declassified NSA document shows US intelligence estimated casualty of 180-500.
Check Wikipedia for sources.
Um, I did look in Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I found there (first paragraph):
"The reported tolls ranged from 200–300 (PRC government figures), to 300–800 (The New York Times), and to 2,000–3,000 (Chinese student associations and Chinese Red Cross)."