Blood, confusion, death; young, hopeful, shouts of expectation; bold dreams of determination; then bewilderment and oppression. "Tragic" was redefined June 4, 1989 when government troops opened fire on student protesters in Tian An Men Square in Beijing. "Tian An Men," means "a gateway to heavenly peace." It was that for countless students....
Eight years later, there is no peace. There are no banners in the square. The voices of the martyrs are silent. Today is a cold, rainy day in Pittsburgh, half a world away. Robert Forst in his poem "Out, Out" speaks of forgetting over time the deaths of those that once so affected you. I will not forget. I have an obligation to those I met, to my own humanity, to generations unborn, to remember...
"No one may speak for the dead; no one may interpret their dreams and visions. I have tried to fight those who forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.... We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormenting, never the tormented." - Elie Wiesel, from this 1986 Nobel Peace Prize Speech.
My story begins in Singapore. In April, a politician in China named Hu Yao Bang was buried and his memorial triggered a mass movement. He had been giving a speech to the party when he lost his temper and yelled, "We have failed the people and the nation." Then as the politburo watched aghast, Hu collapsed with a heart attack and was rushed to a hospital. When he died, students proclaimed Hu the "soul of China" and streamed into the streets. Massive demonstrations erupted. Hunger strikes began. It was amazing to watch defiance grow in the soil of hope. I had to be there. I arranged my ticket for Beijing. I checked into a hotel nearest to the square. That evening I found myself among the students. From May 25th to June 3rd, I listened and learned and cried with those that I met there.
When I arrived, martial law had already been imposed. Soldiers were confronted by students. Many soldiers wept of shouted words of encouragement to their compatriots. They withdrew, but the threat of military action still hung heavy over the place. Students were sad and uncertain about what would happen next. They encamped by the thousands in tents and buses, filling the square and making it look like a shantytown.
On May 30th, we saw a woman who captured our hearts. I was enthralled watching students raise her proud visage. She was "Zhi You Nu Shen," "The Goddess of Freedom." This thirty foot statue of plaster and Styrofoam was the gift of the students of the Central Arts Academy. Her face and blowing hair bore the distinctive look of a heroine. Her gown and a torch resembled an angelic Statue of Liberty. She faced Mao's portrait on the wall of the Forbidden City as if to challenge or to appeal to him. Li Peng's government was enraged and ordered her removal.
Up to 40,000 students were gathered in the square at any given time. They came from all over China. They forged a community awash in red and golden banners and filled the square with songs and shouts, laughter and tears. Under the hot sun many students slept, read books, and waited. I scanned wall posters and listened to impassioned speeches. Intellectuals, teachers, writers, farmers and factory workers joined the protests for a better life. Hunger strikers received medical treatment. Posters, displaying tears and drops of blood as symbols of dedication to the movement, were paraded through the streets.
For hours, I talked with the students. One young man recited for me the Declaration of Independence and said his heroes were Lincoln, Ghandhi and Sun Yat Sen. A girl from Wuhan said she had used her entire life savings to come to this place. "XiaoHu", a student, said she would not leave until freedom came. I asked her if she was afraid. She said yes. Another woman told me she would leave on Monday, June 5th and return to her mother. I wonder if she ever returned home.
One June 1st, I was told that I needed to leave the Beijing Hotel and move someplace further away from the square. Ominous portents abounded. The government set up loudspeakers around the square with the incessant taped message that the students must leave the area. "Everyone must clear the streets! Leave the square! Stay at home and safeguard your lives!"
I was awakened late that night with the sound of troops mobilizing outside of my hotel. On June 2nd, I was questioned by what was probably a plain-clothes policeman. That night it was very balmy in the square. Something was brewing. I saw a scuffle; the police took a few people away. Some students told me the troops were coming and that they were deciding whether or not they should stay. I went back to my hotel about eleven.
On June 3rd, I was roused from my sleep by a heavy knock on the door. It was the police. They informed me that I had to leave the hotel immediately. It was about 5 am. They would wait for me. Two hours later I boarded a train for Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia.
The train was jammed with foreigners. There were some VIPs from the U.S. Embassy on board. All of us huddled around radios to hear the BBC reports of events in Beijing. The first news was impossible to believe. Soldiers, five abreast, had marched down Chang An Avenue and then opened fire on the students. Later in the afternoon there were more accounts of trouble west of the "Great Hall of the People." Tear gas had been used. Fighting raged.
The killing began in earnest about 11 pm. Troops armed with AK-47 assault rifles moved toward the protesters in armored vehicles firing as they advanced. The carnage increased until dawn. Tanks rumbled through the streets and then flattened the Goddess of Freedom. Machine gun fire rattled in front of the Forbidden city. Students and residents responded with crude Molotov cocktails. An orgy of violence. Nearby hospitals were awash in blood. At makeshift morgues, people were stunned and wept. Orange flames and flickering shadows were the end of a generation's hopes for justice and freedom. The last of the students left the square by about 5 am on June 4th.
Listening to the radio, we tried to figure out what was going on. The Chinese government first said that 4,000 had been killed. The next "official" report was that 400 had died; only 36 of those were students. The next announcement was that only 12 people had died. Today, we know that at least 400 (to as many as a thousand) students, soldiers and on-lookers were killed.
Now it is history. But I still hear them. I am still horrified. I am still angry and I am still crying. Part of me was born and part of me died in Tian An Men square in 1989. I don't know what it all means because the story is unfinished. We are all still with them in the Square. Do you see them? Or have you forgotten? The living die by their silence; the dead rise phoenix-like from the fire of their pure love for justice. We are their debtors. They wait for us. All China waits. Their day will come. It must.