The History of the Tiananmen Square Massacre - in 3 Minutes (Video)

Thank you.

I wish I had been able to view it, but it requires Active-X controls.

Thanks! Check out this film about Tiananmen 1989.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/view/

I remember it was head-line news here in Australia. At the time my eldest son was in Hospital with head injuries. He recovered, your vidio bings back the horrors that could happen else where when the young rebel against the rulers, whether you regard as just or unjust. Might is right, when they can use guns. Ordinary Australian Citizens are disarmed..we are a meek lot...barely a protest & there is plenty to protest about, we just don't discuss it with with outsiders.

One of the sadest moments in my lifetime.

I still have great hope for China though. The Chinese are a mighty resilient people. And this struggle has only begun.

Don't worry, ACB, it'll happen. We just need to wait a little, and not try and force it.

And keep talking about it...like you are doing.

My worry is that by the time people can talk about it freely in China, there will be no living survivers left to tell their stories, and people will just see it in the same way that they see the great masacres of centuries ago.

That's definitely a danger, but is that really that bad?

Look at Korea and it's Pro-Japanese Collaborator's list? That's still causing a storm. Would you want the children of children to have to pay for the mistakes of their parents?

I just wanted to add something, but I don't know how to edit my posts.

Look at what happened after WWII. Thousands of people executed in the streets, in front of kangaroo courts, by French, Chinese, Korean, Russian, etc. people who were out for revenge.

While I agree that history is something we should never forget, I also think that sometimes it might be better to let things lie for a while so that we don't compound our error.

In my experience, if you let attrocities lie, and those who comitted them go unpunished, you tend to repeate them.

Just look at what is happening with the rural land riots. Each time, Beijing just sends the troops in. It might not exactly be mass murder, but it's a smaller version of the same thing.

If officials knew that they would be held accountable, then they might be more willing to settle things amicably.

That's true. But how do you go about making them accountable without the deaths of millions?

Newshound:

I'm not entierly certain what you mean.

Sorry. It was a bit vague.

I just meant that it's difficult to "make people accountable" for things like this without some sort of revolution. Even in democracies, the supposed haven for freedom and accountability, the bad guys (the rich ones anyway) pretty much get away with everything.

There have been bloodless revolutions. But I think there are too many different groups in China, all of which will be fighting for a piece of the national pie, for a revolution to ever be bloodless. And just because of the density of the population, if there was a revolt, it might be catastrophic.

this is a sad way to resolve things

The longer you leave it, the more that this will go on.

If China had cracked down on things a decade ago, you wouldn't have nearly this many incidents today.

China can do this without a revolution. All that is required is for Beijing to police itself better. Justice doesn't have to come through violence, it can come through the rule of law.

If China cracks down on what? The democratic movement? The influx of western culture? Any way you look at it, if China (meaning the government) cracks down any more, there won't be much of a China left. There are too many angry people, and eventually, they'll be able to band together.

If the PRC government wants to remain communist, they're going to have to allow freedom of speech and communication. If they do, a lot of the rumblings will die down, because all people really want is to work, eat, and be able to have fun once in a while. Once the news of the atrocities comes out, if they punish the people responsible, that also will blow over.

If they continue on this route, I believe that revolution is inevitable, and that is upsetting.

er, right....

Actual I just meant cracking down on corruption.

Much of the unrest in China right now is over illegal land seizures where corrupt officials have confiscated farm land for industrial development in exchange for money, or where corrupt officials have taken money to ignore pollution that is destroying farm land and waterways.

If Beijing were ot crack down on these corrupt officials, it would end a lot of the protests.

Give farmers their livelyhood back today, worry about democracy tommorow.

I'm always too serious, sorry about that. :-)

I agree completely. I don't even think democracy is necessary, just accountability.

There will be no accountability without democracy and freedom.

World history says otherwise.

Democracy is just another way of ruling the people. A dictator can maintain a tight ship and ensure those under him are held accountable, just as well as a democratically elected leader can.

Hong kong was never a democracy (it had leader who was apointed by the British Empire), but it has a strong legal system that kept corruption down and public accoutability up. If the Governer of Hong Kong was found taking a bribe, he'd go to jail.

Equally, Italy's outgoing leader was so corrupt that he practically offered himself bribes. He even brougt in laws granting himself imunity from prosecution because he was the leader.

Democracy is not just another way. Democracy and freedom are basic human rights and, at the same time, the only way to ensure leaders accountability (real accountability). Even if a dictator could ensure those under him are held accountable it wouldn't be possible to make the dictator accountable (as Tiananmen perfectly shows). More, in a dictatorship potential accountability will always be arbitrary, due to the absence of rule of law. Even if what you say about Italy were right, remember that prime minister was voted out. Democracy, you know.

E, I disagree. Dictatorships can have lots of law, as long as the dictators themselves are also held accountable.

Democracy is okay, sure. But under the guise of "the will of the people" just as many crappy things have been done.

See Adolf Hitler and the Japanese Empire for good examples of that. They were democracies.

Newshound, sorry but I think you don't know what you're talking about. First of all, of course dictatorships have a legal system but it's an arbitrary one because repressive and because not legitimated by people. Second, only a fool could seriously say that Hitler regime and Fascist Japan were democracies. If you meant that Hitler was appointed after elections, of course. He used democracy to destroy it.

E, don't be sorry, maybe I don't. I'll freely admit that.

First, dictatorships ARE arbitrary, but not necessarily repressive. There is plenty of historical precedent for this, you can find a lot online.

Second, this fool has read a lot of history books, in English, German, and Japanese. This fool has also spoken to not only western veterans of WWII, but Japanese, German, Austrian, and Korean.

All had the same thing to say. The people of those nations were whole-heartedly behind the actions of their governments. They were voted in by the people, run by the people, and therefore legitimized by the people.

They regret their actions now, but they were behind them before. Or at least, the majority was. Is a dictator voted in by democracy means any less democratic?

Just because something is "legitimized" by "the people" doesn't mean it is okay. The converse is also true. Not jumping to conclusions about systems you don't understand is the lesson here.

Sorry again, but you're confusing a lot of different concepts. Vote (free vote) is a basic element of democracy but it doesn't exhaust the concept of democracy. Democracy is vote, respect of human rights and basic freedoms, rule of law, leaders accountability etc etc... When a man or a party achieves power through democratic elections and then eliminates opposition and establishes an authoritarian rule, democracy dies. But you can't blame the victim for being murdered, you should blame the executioner. The fact that democracy can be suppressed by an authoritarian coup is a big reason to defend democracy, not to attack it. To say that, because democracy could be suppressed by authoritarian methods, the solution is to back dictatorship is a bit silly, don't you think?

E,

Excellent job of quoting the dictionary, but you didn't address the point. I'm neither confused nor silly, I'm just considering all possibilities. Something you'd be better off doing as well instead of just quoting the Democratic Party Line.

Society evolves. Eventually. Democracy may not always be the only answer. I didn't just randomly choose this viewpoint, it comes from quite a lot of consideration.

And on second thought, you're right. I may be silly, but I'm certainly not confused.

Peraphs you should go through the dictionary as well...

Just to throw my 2 cents worth into the ring.

I believe that democracy should be the goal of society, but I see it as simply being a method for choosing who runs your country, and as being wholy seperate from the issue of a just and free society.

You can have a good system without a good leader, or a good leader and a bad system.

You can have a dictator who oversees a country with a strong and fair legal code and who ensures that the people have freedom of speech.

This was the case in Hong Kong up until the Chinese handover. Hong Kong had an impartial civil service that worked for the good of the people and an independent legal system that was as free from corruption as its western counterparts. Freedom of the press was assured, as were human rights.

However, the leader was an unemocraticly selected foreigner with almost no knowledge of the Asian way of life.

This proves that democracy is not essential for a civil society to be free.

Equally, there are many democratically elected leaders who are elected into corrupt systems, like in Africa and Latin America, and many leader who are elected but who then refuse to go and become dictators.

For example, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was elected and he inherited a (comparitievely) free and fair legal system and press, but he became a dictator and destroyed them.

The term freedom and fairness are also highly subjective.

For example, Ameirca and Britain are both democracies. The US president is elected directly by the people and this is considered the only fair and democratic way to do this. However the British leader is not selected by the people. He is selected by members of the dominant political party (which is selected by a multi party electoral system), and you can only join that party if you pay an anual fee.

Another example is that America and Japan both have independent judicieries, yet America considers Japan's system to be unfair because Japan outlawed trial by jury in 1943 and has only just brought in legislation to bring it back in a limited form (and not due for full introduction for a while yet). However, many Japnaese consider the Ameircan system to be unfair because juries can be tricked or fooled by smart lawyers or crying 'victims'.

Similarly, EU nations often consider both the Ameircan and Japanese legal systems to be backwards because they still have the death penalty. Which Europe outlawed for being a cruel and unusual form of punishment.

Another example is free speech. Both America and Germany say that they have free speech, yet in America Hate Speech is legal, which Jews say is unfair because it means that the Nazi can say whatever tey want, but it is illegal in Germany for the Nazi, which the Nazi say is unfair.

First. "Elected" leaders in corrupt systems are not "democratically elected leaders". Lukashenko and Mugabe were "elected" but nobody can serioulsy call them "democratically elected leader". The same for Ahmadinejad. In these countries "elections" are unfair because manipulated or because unpleasant opposition candidates aren't allowed to participate. They "vote" but they don't have a democracy. Second. A non-elected leader who grants civil freedoms and human rights is not a dictator. I can't find many examples in history but, buying your Hong Kong example (before the handover), of course it wasn't a democracy but nobody would seriously call it a dictatorship.

Once again. The voting-issue is an essential element, but you can't base the distinction between democracy and dictatorship only on that element. There's a set of factors (some of them I listed before) you have to consider to make a correct evaluation. You can't separate the concept of democracy from the issue of a just and free society if you don't want to fall in sophistry.

There are a great many world leaders who were elected in genuine elections (not rigged) that occoured in corrupt systems.

"Democratically elected" simply means that they recieved more votes than their opposition, and didn't do anything unaceptably underhanded to get those votes.

No ballot box stuffing, no intimidation of voters, no banning of opposition candidates. There are many many examples.

for the record, Mugabe WAS democratically elected the first time. It was only later on that he fixed the election and became a dictator. Which was why I used him as an example.

"The voting-issue is an essential element, but you can't base the distinction between democracy and dictatorship only on that element."

Oh yes you can. Democracy is ONLY the means that a leader comes to power. Having freedom and justice is preferable to not having them, but you can have a democracy where the people have few human rights.

You are right, Hong Kong wasn't a dictatorship, it was a colonial dictatorship. It had rule by foreign political appointment. The people had no right to choose their leader.

If this isn't a dictatorship, what exactly is it?

You treat democracy as if it were an empty shell. But democracy is full of substance. You're talking about it in mere "legalistic", theoretic (and often incorrect) terms, I'm talking about it in political terms.

Anyway, we have been going around the same concepts for a lot of time in this thread. I don't want to repeat myself.

Best.

Democracy in and of itself is an empty shell. There is nothing incorrect about what we've been saying. That't why places like Zimbabwe, Germany, Japan, and Korea can take advantage of it in a bad way.

What you are doing is imbuing democracy with some sort of "holy" substance that it doesn't inherently have.

Look at Korea today. It's a fine example of democracy, yet they still have historical revisionists in power (like Japan and China), they censor the internet and shut down websites that go against the party line, there's a draft, very strict "loyalty laws", etc.. Not really very "democratic" according to your definition.

Just because something is a democracy doesn't mean it's good. Doesn't mean it's bad if it isn't either, it just means there are more ways it can go wrong.

Don't deify political systems. THAT'S what happens just before they go horribly wrong.

Actually, I would say that Japan is the complete opposite of China.

The Japanese government does not partisipate in revisionism, instead it refuses to prevent revisionists from doing what they do, and rather than making up its own version of history, it refuses to intervien and ensure the purity of history.

This allows revisionists to opperate with near impunity, but it also allows writers like 本多勝一 (Honda Katsuichi), and men like 東史郎 (Azuma Shiro) to refute them.

People might be able to publish revisionist text books, but people can also publish true ones.

In fact right now there is only one real revisionist text book in circulation, and that is considered to be a joke in Japan. Only 0.04 percent of schools use it, and even then people don't actually believe it.

As for Korea, during the early days the Korean government wasn't really a democracy, it was a puppet government that took its orders from vested interests, rather than the will of the people.

Even today it is very young, and you cannot expect such a young government to be as free and fair as an old government like America's.

You need a period of stability first. Get things working with freedom in mind, then bring the freedom in. If you start out trying to be free and fair, you often end up with a complete mess like in Africa.

Too many voices, too many conflicting interest. It meant that the strongest people rose to power and became dictators.

Compared to China, Korea is the model of democracy.

Thank you mentioning the fact about the textbooks.

The problem is that as someone posting from Japan it's automatically assumed that I am Anti-Korea and Anti-China. Because of this, when I comment on the things that I see here regarding Japan's whitewashing, regardless of evidence, I'm called biased.

I ain't biased. I think everyone's stupid, including myself. If someone shows me evidence that something is a lie, I change my mind. That's how I started being more on Japan's side, previously I followed the Korean platform.

Anyway, back on topic, I agree. You can't go from dictatorship (20 years ago), to a completely free nation quickly. Ideals and culture have to evolve, and those things can't be forced. That's why Russia is so screwed up.

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Oh joy, nine comentaries spam from Taiwan's goon patrol.

Read it while you can, this message is going bye bye later on.

What's the point of a video like that in English? English speakers are already convinced it happened.

So that foreigners don't forget.

Tiananmen is not taught in schools, and most of them can't be bothered to sit through something unless it is in their language.

What's the point of a video like that in English? English speakers are already convinced it happened.

Would you like me to translate it into Chinese for you?

i think this video was improsation of the government

I'm not certain what "improsation" means. Could you please translate it for me, it's not in my dictionary.

This said, I made the video, not the government. I didn't take the pictures personally but I compiled them and put them to music, so it's my video.