"I think politically, we didn’t quite achieve what we pursued..."

this was a big deal, even back at the outrigger. like solidarity & the berlin wall before it, there seemed to be, for a few days anyway, so much hope. the idea that the next & last major repressive regime might come tumbling down was invigorating. it was hard to imagine they'd shut it down w/the whole world watching. what did we know? these guys massacre buddhist monks. they were not going down so easily.

what this did is shut the country down for a few years but, ultimately, open it to understanding its uneasy place in the new world order. china was dragged kicking & screaming into the global economy & for good reason: capitalism is more insidious than the swine flu or even hiv. tiananmen opened the chinese body politic to the infection of the west. it really is just a matter of time before it all does come tumbling down. it's not clear, however, what new entity will take its place & if they'll continue to cover western debts.

the number of deaths that occurred vary from source to source. although the numbers really do matter in terms of families & survivors, kent state("four dead in ohio") taught us that it's more about the why then about the numbers. tiananmen stands as one of the great acts of true civil disobedience. ultimately, it really did change the world. it should always be remembered for better or worse.


"Between April 15 and June 4, 1989, students, intellectuals and activists engaged in a series of demonstrations against the Chinese Communist Party. Although the protests took place all over the country, they centered on Tiananmen Square in Beijing, where the subsequent crackdown by authorities caused a vast number of civilian deaths and injuries. According to official PRC figures, the casualty toll was within the range of 200 and 300. Other sources differ, however: Chinese student associations put the number closer to 2,000-3,000.

Although the protests of 1989 were not part of a single movement and varied in intensity, they shared a common demand for broader political freedoms. This theme is bound to resonate during the anniversary of the massacre in 2009, as many still make claims for the current Chinese state to ease repression of its citizens."