Past and Future: Tian’anmen

by advocateofentropy

25 years ago the world was seething from change and everywhere some new formation, organisation appeared: commemorating the near end of the cold war and trying to make the world a little better; piece by piece. In some regions of the world those movements didn’t have many friends, because they also protested against the old regimes and gridlocked politics.
Surprisingly in countries like Russia or regions like East Europe these “revolutions” and actions mostly took place in total calm and (nearly) without violence. But not in communist China. No no! Here, on the Tian’anmen (Place of Heavenly Peace) and the whole rest of Beijing, mostly students stood against everything, they thought was wrong. As it happened to be, they didn’t just occupy the place, like today’s “protesters” (cuz seriously: what do you think can be accomplished with sitting in a park for twenty weeks?), but they wanted that Michail Gorbatschow (russian president at that time) would see their mysery and help the thousands of brave studtens and workers who were trying to change something in their homeland, when he would visit Beijing. But China’s bigheads decided otherwise and quelled the “rebellion” with brutal force…

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This article shows some pictures taken around the 4th of June and shows how these places look today. In some pictures, I think, pure irony speaks for itself.

© REUTERS

What one can not see is the fact that on the Tian’anmen itself not a single person died. Naturally that’s because all the international media and the biggest press was there to report from Gorbatschow’s visit and so the cinese leaders knew they could not kill anyone there. So they brought their tanks forth, but didn’t act it out; at least there. In the rest of whole Beijing and China an estimated few hundrerd to thousand people were killed by their regime, just because they wanted to speak their mind.
Thoughout history there are many examples of how especially students and workers have shown braveness and a sane lack of respect for authorities.
For example the Lützower Jäger (Lützow’s Hunters or The Black Flock, named after Baron Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm of Lützow), a volunteer Korps of mainly students and young academics, who didn’t really fight that well, but they were stubborn as hell and in their black uniforms they had quite the psychological advantage. They fought around 1813 in the European Coalition Wars against Napoleon Bonaparte and their black uniforms, red lapels and golden buttons were the inspiration for the modern german federal flag.
Not to forget the student protests in the U.S. around the 50s and 70s where not only hundreds of thousands were of same opinion and stood up for their rights and to end all wars … but also quiet a few protesters were killed or detained by the government.
Please, in these days, look into the world and remeber that YOU are an important part of it. Only together we can change. Don’t think that today anything is different from 150 or 25 years ago. If the authorities see themselves surrounded by arguments and “fiendish” people, who want them to be gone, they still can and will act very quick on the (non-/lethal) trigger, believe me.

Stay Alert and F*** the Politicians, yours Advocate of Entropy.