#Tankman2018: hero of Tiananmen protest remembered across globe
Chinese citizens
around the world are remembering the lone man, armed with nothing more than two
shopping bags, who stepped in front of a row of tanks moving down the streets
of Beijing in 1989.
Better known as “Tank
Man”, he is one of the most enduring images of China’s violent military
crackdown on democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, known in China as liusi,
or June 4th. On the 29th anniversary
of the Tiananmen crackdown, protesters are reenacting the face-off under
hashtags including #Tankman2018#Tankmen2018, a
campaign started by Chinese artist and cartoonist, Badiucao. According to Badiucao,
Tank Man represents “something lost in China’s young generation now — the
idealism, passion, sense of responsibility, and confidence that an individual
can make a change”, he said. “Tank Man is very relevant today and people should
see it. Society has not changed much since the massacre for the oppression has
never stopped”.
Badiucao gave
instructions for protesters to take a photo of themselves wearing the “classic
outfit” of Tank Man: white shirts, black pants, and black shoes, while holding
two white bags. The artist made designs for the bags including images of Peppa
the Pig and Winnie-the-Pooh, characters censored in China, as well as mi
tu or “rice bunny” a now blocked phrase used by Chinese “#MeToo”
activists.
Zhou Fengsuo, a
Chinese activist who was a student leader during the 1989 protests, posted
photos of himself in Washington.
In the spring of 1989,
Chinese students, workers and other protesters held demonstrations and hunger
strikes calling for democratic reforms. On 4 June, the movement came to a halt
when more than 200,000 soldiers were deployed to end the protest, killing
hundreds if not thousands of civilians. On 5 June, 1989, a man
in a loose white shirt on a street near Tiananmen Square, walked out by a
crosswalk in front of a column of tanks, according to film footage. As the
first tank tried to move around him, he blocked its path. The tank stopped and
he climbed onto it, pounding on the hatchet and appeared to speak to a soldier
inside. When he climbed back down, he continued to block its way until two men
ran over and pulled him out of the street. The moment was broadcast across the
world and he became known as Tank Man.
Chinese authorities
have justified the Tiananmen crackdown by saying the protests were instigated
by “counterrevolutionaries” manipulated by foreign forces who threatened
country’s stability. Mourning the victims and any discussion of the incident
are still severely restricted. Every June, police
maintain a heavier presence around Tiananmen Square and human rights activists
are taken away from the capital. Two men in Hunan province were
detained for holding signs that said “6/4 29th anniversary,” according
to Radio Free Asia. Four men in Sichuan, who made a liquor called bajiuliusi, a
homonym for 89.6.4 and a play on the words for liquor, baijiu, and
the number 89, bajiu, have been detained
since mid-2016and are still awaiting trial.
On Monday, Chinese state media and officials made no mention of the anniversary. Terms related to Tiananmen continued to be censored and WeChat users were barred from sending mobile money amounts of 89.64 or 64.89 yuan. In Hong Kong, activists will hold a candlelight vigil. Hu Xijin, editor of the state-run paper Global Times wrote on Twitter, which is banned in China, “What wasn’t achieved through a movement that year will be even more impossible to be realised by holding whiny commemorations today.”
The US secretary of
state, Mike Pompeo, urged China to “make a full public accounting of those
killed, detained or missing”. “As Liu Xiaobo wrote.... ‘the ghosts of June 4th
have not yet been laid to rest’,” Pompeo said in a statement on Sunday,
referring to the Chinese dissident who had participated in the 1989
demonstrations and died last year while serving an 11-year jail sentence. The fate of Tank Man
remains a mystery. Some historians say he escaped to Taiwan. Others believe
that because he was never heard from again, he probably melted back into
Chinese society.
