quote:
The oppression of the Tiannamen protestors was done by the same authoritarian and repressive government which is still in power.

Tiannamen Square isn't famous in China for being the site of a failed pro-democracy protest in 1988 or whenever it was: its famous because its the centre of Beijing, surrounded by Mao's tomb, the People's Congress (the Chinese equivalent of Capitol Hill and the White House rolled into one) and the Forbidden City (the Emperor of China's palace).
A while ago I saw programme on Chinese youth culture and it was disturbing the degree to which the Tiananmen Square massacre has been white-washed from history.

At first I thought that maybe the people who were interviewed were avoiding discussing it, in case there were reprecussions. But the young people who were interviewed face-to-face and anonimously talked candidly and often controversially about the governments control over their activities and I was left with the impression that they either know very little about Tiananmen or just don't see it as relevant to their current position in Chinese society.

I found amazing that something of this magnitude could be so easily buried.

James Fenton summed it up better than I could in this poem:

quote:
Tiananmen

Tiananmen
Is broad and clean
And you can't tell
Where the dead have been
And you can't tell
What happened then
And you can't speak
Of Tiananmen.

You must not speak.
You must not think.
You must not dip
Your brush in ink.
You must not say
What happened then,
What happened there
in Tiananmen.

The cruel men
Are old and deaf
Ready to kill
But short of breath
And they will die
Like other men
And they'll lie in state
In Tiananmen.

They lie in state.
They lie in style.
Another lie's
Thrown on the pile,
Thrown on the pile
By the cruel men
To cleanse the blood
From Tiananmen.

Truth is a secret.
Keep it dark.
Keep it dark
In your heart of hearts.
Keep it dark
Till you know when
Truth may return
To Tiananmen.

Tiananmen
Is broad and clean
And you can't tell
Where the dead have been
And you can't tell
When they'll come again.
They'll come again
To Tiananmen.

Hong Kong, 15 June 1989