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160 Comments
- inactive, on 06/03/2009, -3/+57This picture still brings chills up my spine. http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-06/4727176 ... I can only imagine the kind of courage it takes for one man to stand up for democracy like this.
- MensFitness, on 06/03/2009, -2/+42It's hard to believe it's been 20 years
- judicar, on 06/04/2009, -1/+28Most people miss the real importance of this image. It's not just about a solitary man facing down a line of tanks. The other important part is that the tanks don't just run him over, if you've ever seen the video they try to drive around him but he jumps in front of them. It never occurs to them to just mow him down and move on.
The moral is that it's easy to dehumanize a large group of people and not see them as humans, but it's another story when it's just a single solitary person. If that had been a group of students waving flags I guarantee you those tanks wouldn't have thought twice about plowing right through them.
They label him as being an anti-government protester but he wasn't. If you watch the video he's just walking across the street with a white bag (groceries?), this didn't happen at Tinanmen Square. - morningmatters, on 06/04/2009, -2/+25China has done an incredible job to censor this event. Most of the older people in China have heard about this event, but never seen the pictures. There are certainly propagandas flying in every direction, but all that would not be enabled without the help of corporations.
There is no question that web companies like yahoo and google are helping China to censor. All of this talk of Democracy requires free press. This rises an interesting dilemma: Can capitalistic companies do the "right thing"? Should companies act political to what it perceives to be moral at the expense of profits, or would that be unethical to the company's shareholders who invested their hard earned money in these companies in hopes of greater returns? - keysjom, on 06/03/2009, -3/+23I wonder if China will ban the Diggs..
- Ze1da, on 06/04/2009, -0/+13I can see it. I'm in Shanghai.
- Devine122, on 06/04/2009, -3/+16I'm all for Tank Man, but couldn't you have linked to the first picture?
- jytsai, on 06/04/2009, -2/+15According to the Frontline "Tank Man" documentary:
Immediately prior to the Tiananmen Incident, a first group of troops were sent in to disperse the protesters. However, the troops were trapped by the mass of people, and were persuaded/forced to withdraw back to military bases outside of the city.
The protesters "won" that encounter. This caused the party leadership to lose face; had this been allowed to stand, the regime, whose power was backed up solely on the military, would inevitably collapse. This is why they sent in a second group of soldiers with tanks with the order: The square MUST be cleared by 6 am (presumably with unpleasant consequences for mid level officers if they failed to achieve this objective).
Watch the entire Frontline documentary online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tankman/ - amcnair, on 06/04/2009, -3/+15@Solkre: Yeah, except France. And the Soviet Union. And China. And Mexico. And Cuba. And.. oh, ***** it, you're just an idiot.
- cyoder, on 06/04/2009, -3/+13I suppose we can say whatever we want about the Chinese here, since we can be sure very few of them in mainland China will actually see this.
- JMCtg, on 06/04/2009, -0/+10Actually, nobody knows for sure what happened to him. Some point out that when he was dragged into the crowd by two men, it was more like a protective way of pulling him out, rather than the brutal dragging the Chinese police were accustomed to.
It's possible that he melted into the crowd safely before the police were able to react, but nobody knows for sure ;) - EggAndMuffin, on 06/04/2009, -0/+10I watched clips from Tiananmen Square Incidents today (Hong Kong),
one of them shows the guy standing in front of those 3 driving tanks.
The tank stopped.
After a while it moved to the right and tried to go around the man,
but he moved and stood in front of the tank again.
The last few seconds of the clip was him climbing onto the tank.
I've seen this picture so many times but never knew what happend next.
I don't know if the clip is available on the internet, but I just thought I'd share that with you.
Today was a heavy day for us Chinese.
edit: I know my comment can be unreliable simply for unabling to provide link to the video. But with my own eyes today i SAW the clip myself. For for ME, that's one 'question' solved. I just wish the truth on Tiananmen Square Incident can be revealed in my lifetime. - Duskraven, on 06/04/2009, -2/+11I hope you just forgot the "/s" on the end of your post.
The Tiananmen square massacre was politically motivated by a government threatend by its people protesting for democracy.
Religious belief had no part. - KingKobe1, on 06/04/2009, -1/+10Don't you mean the opposite?
- Ze1da, on 06/04/2009, -0/+9Not yet. I can even still see the LA Times article, wonder how long that will last.
- amcnair, on 06/04/2009, -1/+10I agree, but the other message to me is the fleeting nature of humanity. He made his silent protest, he was immortalized in photographs and video... and then he was gone. The tanks kept rolling. It was a lovely moment, but the reality is that the monsters still won.
- amcnair, on 06/04/2009, -2/+10No one knows for sure. He was hustled off by the police shortly after the photo was taken, and it is assumed he was executed, but the western media doesn't even know who he was, much less what happened to him.
- judicar, on 06/04/2009, -0/+8Actually this happened at the height of the violence.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4313282.st ... - Mookeh, on 06/04/2009, -0/+8When I went to China (Lanzhou) I could visit Digg no problem. :)
- oldhick, on 06/04/2009, -0/+8"atheist nations"? I didn't realize a government could have a relationship with God. Usually that's an indivdual experience. Also, I know their are plenty of Christians in China. There are Muslims as well and I would assume that their are plenty of people who practice other faiths as well there.
- amcnair, on 06/04/2009, -0/+7Incorrect. This was the day after the massacre.
- TigerStar337, on 06/04/2009, -2/+9Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite.
Do you remember the Kent State Massacre? 4 protesters were killed and 16 people injured...shot by National Guard troops. Next year on May 4th will be the 40 year anniversary. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings
Ron Paul says "While we certainly do not condone government suppression of individual rights and liberties wherever they may occur, why are we not investigating these abuses closer to home and within our jurisdiction? It seems the House is not interested in investigating allegations that US government officials and employees approved and practiced torture against detainees. Where is the Congressional investigation of the US-operated “secret prisons” overseas? What about the administration’s assertion of the right to detain individuals indefinitely without trial? It may be easier to point out the abuses and shortcomings of governments overseas than to address government abuses here at home, but we have the constitutional obligation to exercise our oversight authority in such matters. I strongly believe that addressing these current issues would be a better use of our time than once again condemning China for an event that took place some 20 years ago."
Americans must live in fear. Fear the Chinese and Russians. Al-qaeda is out to get you, and so are the Socialist. Don't forget about the Iranians and North Koreans. It is crazy. The real threat is the USA government where civil liberties and human rights are being eroded on a steady basis. The government controls it's people using jingoism and fear. - PandaBearShenyu, on 06/04/2009, -0/+6I'm in Beijing right now.
Well... I guess that counts as a few, apparently everyone else here has been censored. - QiJiGuang, on 06/03/2009, -22/+28If the government was going to shoot me down like a varmint simply for asking for more democracy, I would rather shoot back, instead of cowering helplessly in my last minutes and let them humiliate me before killing me.
NEVER EVER GIVE UP YOUR GUNS! - zeebo, on 06/04/2009, -1/+7Do leader deification cults really count as atheist?
- morningmatters, on 06/04/2009, -1/+7Digg in many ways reaffirms why self-censorship works. Your post explained in part why the soldiers reacted in the extreme ways they did .Yet because of personal political beliefs people dugg you down (the pictures of the burning vehicles and students kicking the corpse of the soldier which the students killed hardly paints the students as peaceful as some would have liked), and instead dugg up the typical knee-jerk response. People in general like to reaffirm what they would like to believe, rather than the truth which is often not black and white.
A similar thing is happening to the Chinese and their preferences of viewing this event, except that the Chinese would rather take the side of the government. - inactive, on 06/04/2009, -0/+5if you are going to digg me down, at least explain your position.
No wait, your top of the story is, hate on religion people, promote atheism, show stupid cat, should i go on...
Digg is full of idiots now. - hosj321, on 06/04/2009, -3/+8Can't believe this kinda of ***** is still happening... http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2009/06 ...
- sindex, on 06/04/2009, -0/+5Digg doesn't like music that mentions Tiananmen Square. Whether it's by a talented musician like Roger Waters or a pop metal band like SoaD.
- PandaBearShenyu, on 06/04/2009, -4/+9There are two sides of the story to Tiananmen Square, too bad many kids in North America are just shown the tank pic, told that the guy got ran over by the evil people, and be done with it.
But it's simply propaganda, the guy didn't get run over, and the government did try to negotiate with the protesters. But by that time, even the leaders of the protesters in the crowd had started bickering, they were idealistic, radical and mostly students. The negotiators showed no respect to the leaders at the time and basically said they own the streets now. During those few days, many riots occurred and many shops, homes were looted by lawless people who took advantage of the protests. The government finally moved when the streets of Beijing were in danger of falling into anarchy. By this time most of the protesters had already went home, only the most idealistic and radical remained behind. Also, it was the protesters that fired first. They surrounded an armored vehicle, threw a bunch of molotov's cocktail on top of it. After the vehicle was disabled, they jumped on top of it, pried the cover open and beat the soldiers inside to death.
Call me a China mouthpeace, but my childhood friend's dad was a soldier keeping order then, and his whole squadron was surrounded and burned alive by the protesters. No one knows how many soldiers died those few days. How would the current United State's government react to something like this? When millions of people surround the capitol and whitehouse, literally holding the top of the government hostage and refusing to leave until their demands are met, all the while the city is being looted and robbed and slowly falling into chaos.
People who grew up in a democracy often overestimate the power of people to regulate themselves, people can't, and in 99% of the societies, if the government falls, then the country is destroyed before it's rebuilt again. Please learn perspective people, it's my personal belief that China, even today, wouldn't be able to handle democracy as it'll soon fall into complete and utter chaos. - louisut, on 06/04/2009, -1/+6the thriving liberal democracies of taiwan and hk (though to a lesser extent now) would like to disagree
- Abatrour, on 06/04/2009, -0/+5Who control the past control the future.
Who control the present control the past. - LordByr0n, on 06/04/2009, -3/+8To those people like Solkre and Moonkeeper who don't know history... LEARN IT and stop being so god damn ignorant.
- ByteMeAHole, on 06/04/2009, -3/+8This was when freedom was spreading - whereas now, it's on the retreat, even in the US as more and more freedoms disappear and the Chinese type of internet censorship is spreading to more and more countries under the auspices of "protecting our children"...
I am referring to the various black lists that it's illegal to even publish the list of sites that are banned... It's a slippery slope - when one site can be banned, all of them can be... - amcnair, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4@Moonkeeper: The Russian revolution liberated the people from an oppressive Czarist government. Mao led the Chinese revolution to overthrow the warlords that arose after the collapse of the Qing dynasty. The Mexican revolution of 1910 overthrew an autocratic dictator. Castro's Cuban revolution overthrew the dictator Batista.
You can certainly make a case that many of those countries have oppressive governments now, but there is no arguing the fact that all were self-liberated. - MMaster23, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4Check this out: http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid=23002547221 ...
- inactive, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4When I went to China, I was too focused on being a tourist and drinking cheap booze to go on the internet.
- vtbarrera, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4Sorry about that, I really wanted to feature that one as the thumbnail. Here's the feature from the beginning. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f ...
- jytsai, on 06/04/2009, -1/+5Point 1 is what makes this image so powerful. This was one day after; by this point, Beijing was locked down. The day before, thousands had been killed, and tens of thousands were injured. People had been shot. Some had been crushed by tanks. There were security personnel with binoculars covering the area from the rooftops. By this point, everyone was in fear of the military and police. And despite all of this, one lone man was willing to take a stand.
Credit must also be given to the tank driver, the invisible 2nd hero in this image, who repeatedly tried to go around Tank Man, and refused to run him over. Other tank crew had crushed protesters on the previous day; it would have been easy for him to do the same. We can only hope that the crew of that tank didn't get into too much trouble for failing to eliminate Tank Man when they had the chance.
Addendum: The Tank Man wasn't "Wang Wei Lin". That was false attribution that had been propagated. We don't actually know who the Tank Man was, or what happened to him. Also, the image is misleading, because it cropped out much of the scene. There was something like 17 tanks in a row, not just the handful of tanks visible in the photo. - MaxxusFlamus, on 06/04/2009, -1/+5you'd be shot before you even get a chance to pull your trigger.
- toddc612, on 06/04/2009, -1/+5Umm, whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
What on earth does this have to do with religion?
Please, please, PLEASE tell me you're joking..
If not, then you need you're head examined. Can you not take "God" out of the equation of human life?
You're an idiot. Go pray or something. - dododohead, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4rehktcs is to some extent right.
My teacher was a Tiananmen square and told me similar things. Its the government's responsibility to be the rational one, and they weren't, but at the same time it was NOT a completely peaceful act. This is not some glorified peace movement that you can make a movie out of. This story is so complex even I am not going to make an argument about it. I know many other who were at Tiananmen and I can say that there are too many things that went on. The government is doing a horrible job at bringing a real truth out but that's not the same thing as meaning they were the absolute cause for everything. I don't get why anyone would be so sure of that other than an elicit emotional response. - sindex, on 06/04/2009, -0/+4Considering the way Tiananmen Square went down, I don't think he does.
- inactive, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3I think this revolution really tanked.
- PandaBearShenyu, on 06/04/2009, -2/+5Also, digg me down all you want, because it just shows your hypocrisy. On the one hand screaming FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY while on the other hand disproving anyone else when they have a different story to tell than you.
- PandaBearShenyu, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3Freedom is a privilege of living in a society. If humans are truly free, then no society can exist as the men would constantly try to rip each other's throats out and rape all the women. Freedom is only employable to the point where civil society can exist.
- jytsai, on 06/04/2009, -0/+3As a general rule, Chinese societies place a much lower priority on political freedom and individual rights.
My parents, who are from Taiwan (certainly not communist by any means), were completely unphased when I explained waterboarding to them, and openly approve of the police torture suspects to extract a confession. (In fact, they subsequently regaled me with disturbing stories of how "effective" this is.)
After the Tianamen Square incident, the Chinese government exploited this aspect of Chinese thinking to maintain power: The government offered economic liberalization and rapid growth to distract the people from political problems, and the population accepted this deal.
This attitude of "well as long as my family is economically secure, I don't care about the political rights of those damn rabblerousers" flies in the face of western ideals, but it's just the way it is. Democracy is simply much lower in priority than economic success for your own family in Chinese society.
Corollary: By buying Made in China goods, we're helping to stabilize the communist regime. It's pretty much impossible to get beyond subsistence farming in the Chinese countryside, and so much of the population emigrates to the factories in the cities to manufacturer cheap crap for export. Without this crutch, there would be a huge population of discontent rural dwellers, and that would collapse the communist regime faster than rhetoric and bargaining, which only serves to harden the nationalistic attitude of the Chinese population.
Too bad it's impossible to live a "made in China" free lifestyle, at least in the US.
Source: Many grad students from China. - JMCtg, on 06/04/2009, -1/+4It was a group of student protesters who had been there for weeks. My guess is clothes, food... who knows? But why in the world does that even matter?
- jytsai, on 06/04/2009, -1/+4We're not digging you down because we disagree with you; we're digging you down because of the inaccuracies in your account. The majority of casualties were sustained by frantic citizens the later in the day, when Tianamen square had already been cleared.
Why were these individuals frantic? Because they had heard about the deaths in the square earlier that morning, and they had family members in attendance who were now missing. (This was before cell phones, so communication was nonexistent.) If you had family members who might be dead or dying within the now sealed off square, would you care about official orders to stay off the street?
Parents trying to locate their children. Wives trying to find their husbands. Hardly dangerous hard line radicals.
Go watch some documentaries. You'll see that this scene occurred repeatedly:
Groups of people approach the troops, demanding passage. The commander of the troops says something along the line of "we won't be responsible for what happens if you don't leave." The crowd refuses to leave. The commander threatens to open fire. The people start running. And finally the troops open fire - while the crowd is fleeing, shooting unarmed citizens in the back.
Then the next group of scared, confused family members shows up, to be gunned down in turn.
I'm sure some soldiers were injured and killed, but that doesn't discount the fact that thousands of unarmed citizens were killed, and tens of thousands were injured. Not only does historical evidence disagree with your account, logic disagrees with you as well; you can't convince me that more than a handful of soldiers were so peaceful that they refused to use their weapons on the citizens when their life was in imminent danger. What's more likely, more armed soldiers died? Or more unarmed citizens died? - papashawn, on 06/04/2009, -2/+5internet tough guy.
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