In light of the resent protest in Egypt many pundits have been making the comparison, albeit uneducated, between the Tahrir protest and Tiananmen protest. Although the fact that government soldiers opened fire on protesters in Beijing has been cited as the primary difference, it runs much deeper than that. Because of these differences I do not believe that the Chinese government is either is either feeling congratulatory or fearful, the circumstances make the two events incomparable.
The fundamental mistake westerns make when analyzing events of the world is that we see everything from the lens of our own history. From a very early age we are trained in the glory of the American Democracy and the great struggle which brought us that greatness. Therefor when we analyze the events of the world we divide the actors in two categories, the evil dictator and the emerging democracy. On the outside both Tiananmen and Tahrir are strikingly similar, underdog citizens trying to over throw the dictator in favor of a Western Liberal style democracy.
However the complexities of the Tiananmen Square Protest make the even entirely different than both the fight for freedom in the United States and the overthrow of the Egyptian dictator. To start with protesters in Tiananmen were not fighting against the communist revolution but with it, at least in their minds. The students had been trained in Maoist thought and styles of mass gathering, which was exactly what they were doing. To them there gathering was an extension of the great revolution, a definite criticism to be sure, but they were hoping to bring back the spirit of the revolution and rebuild China from the devastation of the Mao era. They expected that the party would fully support them and realize the mistakes of the past and join the student in a new mass movement. Indeed many in the party did feel this way and fought within the party for reform. Hardliners prevailed which lead Zhao Ziyang and Wen Jiabao (the current premier) to warn the protesters that the troops were coming. Interestingly the first troops on the seen would not fire because they were from the Beijing area, spoke the same dialect, and were related / friends of the protesters. It took the PLA bussing in solders from the far corners of China to get them to carry out their orders.
The grievances of the protesters were extremely varied and diverse; there was not mass movement to overthrow the communist government as popularized in the west. If anything they only wanted to cash in on the prosperity and democracy (the current Chinese constitution is fairly democratic in theory) promised by the revolution. Most of the concerns of the students did not start as ideological but as economic and real hardships. As like in the rest of the world no one cares about politics unless their food or money is at stake. Just look at our own country, more people vote during a bad economy. People wanted answerers to simple thing like food, money, and jobs. These practical needs turned ideological.
Today Tiananmen Square feels somewhat like the Washington mall in our country. Tourist from all over China posing for pictures in front of the gate and other monuments. The atmosphere is upbeat and people enjoy visiting the hart of their country. What has been the heart of the country for thousands of years.
This is a picture I took in Tiananmen. Chinese tourists mockingly saluting in front the monument to the people’s heroes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbacani/4230840366/in/set-72157624985160801/
No comments:
Post a Comment