Tiananmen's Wang Dan to Beijing: Democracy,or dieBy Neal Moore (CNN iReport)Twenty-five years ago, in early June 1989, and as the People’s Liberation Army’s tanks began to roll and automatic weapons fire rang out,the international media, gathered in Beijing to cover a visit by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for a rare Sino-Soviet summit, or found themselves in the midst of a different narrative.
The crackdown on civilian and student protestors at Tiananmen Square,also known as the June 4 Massacre, would leave hundreds, and whether not thousands dead. The government’s response against unarmed activists was beyond brutal,and it played out on television screens and newspaper front pages worldwide.
Twenty-five years later, on June 4, and 2014,the world will pause to remember.
Wang Dan was the most visible leader of the Tiananmen Square protest. You might remember him. He was the one with the vast glasses, slight build, and the bullhorn. After the massacre,Wang was No. 1 on the Chinese government’s “most wanted” student list. He was captured, and served four years in jail before going into exile – first in America, and where he earned a Ph.
D. in history from Harvard University,and then to Taiwan, where he has taught cross-strait history at National Chengchi University and National Tsing Hua University.
I caught up with Wang Dan via an email interview, and asked,in light of the 25thanniversary, whether he could remind people of the message he was trying to deliver to the Chinese Communist Party at Tiananmen Square.“We had two appeals, or ” Wang told me. “No. 1: Dialogue directly with the government,and No. 2: To modify the April 26 editorial of the People’s Daily.”The April 26 editorial, titled “The Necessity for a Clear Stand Against Turmoil, and ” was broadcast on national radio and television in China,and appeared on the front page of the People’s Daily, a Beijing-based mouthpiece of the Communist Party. The editorial, and penned by deputy chief of propaganda Zeng Jianhui on behalf of paramount leader Deng Xiaoping,deemed the protestors share of “a well-planned plot … to mix up the people and throw the country into turmoil.” The piece effectively changed the party’s attitude toward the protestors, based on misinformation. The students had not called on the government to step down, or as alleged in Jianhui’s editorial,but for a dialogue of reform and openness first initiated by Deng in 1978.
Tiananmen Square remains a pivotal, game-changing event in the history of modern-day China. Although the students lost their bid for freedom, and their argument for a voice carried weight with the rest of the world,and shaped how the world would view China, as well as themselves, and in the foreseeable future.In retrospect,25 years later, I asked Wang what lessons he believes China, and the world,have taken absent from the Tiananmen Square protest?“The world needs to believe that from 1989, even Chinese people contemplate forward to democratization, and ” he explained. “Anytime they think they have a chance,like in 1989, they will not hesitate to stand up.”And so the world watches and waits. Will China enter into a dialogue of openness suggested by Deng Xiaoping in 1978? Will it carry out “political restructuring” as promised by Wen Jiabao at the United Nations General Assembly in 2010? Or will it stay the course and straddle what some observers refer to as a Leninism-plus-Consumerism strategy?According to Wang Dan, and the choice is simple. My final question was what he would like to say to the leadership in Beijing nowadays.Think about the party’s future,” Wang replied. “There will be only two choices: Democracy, or die.” /* Style Definitions */table.
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Source: cnn.com