By
Kerry Jacoby March 10, 2016
In
the late summer of 1989, I was a doctoral student in American studies.
Strangely, there were often many people majoring in American studies
from other countries. I had friends from all over the world – France,
India, South Korea, Iceland, Austria…and China. My Chinese friend, Q (not his real name), went home that summer.
I
was in my office when he returned, watching the small black-and-white
Goodwill-bought television (ask your parents, kids) I had brought in to
make the place I spent most of my time more like the place I wanted to
spend most of my time. The boxes I hauled up the four flights of stairs
(no, we didn't have an elevator; it was an old building) also contained
a 60-cup percolator, a refrigerator box we turned into a closet, a
microwave oven, a hot pot (again, kids, ask your parents), and a
pull-out cot. We kept family-size jars of peanut butter and jelly,
loaves of bread, and Costco-sized boxes of Ramen noodles.
We spent a lot of time there. The people on our floor became very close.
Since it was summer, there were a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while, and Q was one of them.
I didn't even have a chance to say hello as he came through my door before he threw a stack of photos on my desk.
"Here," he said, tersely. "This is what they won't show you. This is what happened there."
I
had been vaguely aware of recent unrest in China; I'd been busy working
on a grant proposal I hoped would fund the rest of my dissertation
work. The TV received three stations (sometimes), and I rarely made
time for news.
I looked at the pictures. And then I looked again. And then I picked them up, and went through them, one by one.
"Tanks," he said.
I stared at him. "But these can't be –"
"People," he said.
I
slowly went through the pictures again, my eyes blurring with
uncontrolled tears. The room seemed to shudder just a bit. I suddenly
felt unmoored from the civilized world.
He
didn't explain it then, but I would later learn the background for the
pictures. Upon the death of a Communist Party leader who had widely
been regarded as a liberal reformer, students took to the streets both
in mourning and to mount a pro-democracy protest. They wanted
government accountability and the same freedoms of speech and press that
we protect in our own First Amendment (because such inalienable rights
belong to all people everywhere). They stayed in the square, in hunger
strikes and peaceful protest. At some points, it was estimated that
there were a million people in the square. At one point, a statue was
raised as the "Goddess of Democracy," designed to resemble our own
statue of liberty. Sympathetic protests by students and non-students
alike popped up in hundreds of Chinese cities.
he protest lasted six weeks and six days.
It ended only after the government of Deng Xiaoping declared martial law. Troops were sent in to quell the dissenters.
Perhaps
you have seen the famous picture of the lone protester known to this
day only as "Tank Man" – the man standing in front of the tank and
refusing to move. That man did in fact stop the tank, and he climbed up
into the turret so he could use the PA system to address the crowd.
But when he went back in front of the tank, he was pulled away, and the
tank continued on its way.
The pictures I saw were of people who didn't stop the tanks. The pictures I saw were of people who were stopped by the tanks – murdered by their government.
The pictures I saw were smuggled out of China. They were unauthorized. They were forbidden.
Because they were the truth.
These
pictures were amateurish. There were no soft-focus lenses, no gauzy
filters – just blood and brain matter and gore and grue.
And there was no looking away.
If you didn't know what it was, you could never have put it together in your head.
But I knew what it was.
It was people.
It
was friends of my friend, who were crying out for reform in one of the
most repressive nations in the world, their protests and their bodies
literally crushed.
Q
and I sat silent, for there was nothing left to say. It was over. It
had happened. Nothing could be done now. It was just a horrible,
horrible fact of history, soon to be forgotten by the wider world, its
former urgency replaced by other events, in other places.
A
year later, in a Playboy interview, here is what Donald Trump said of
the Chinese government's handling of the Tiananmen Square massacre:
When
the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government
almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put
it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our
country is right now perceived as weak … as being spit on by the rest of
the world –
Then the interviewer changed the subject.
So, no, Trump fans, I will not vote for this man. Not in the primary, not in the general.
Obviously the author is a way left Liberal progressive. Trump is not advocating that America act like China he is saying that China's government is tough and that is how they negotiate trade and all other deals. American negotiators must be tougher so we don't end up with bad dels.
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