Jun 8, 2011 10:37 AM
Revisiting the Tiananmen Square Incident: A Distorted Image from Both Sides of the Lens
http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal51/china1.pdf
Albert Chang
Overview
On June 4th, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) employed military force to suppress a student-led demonstration that had been gathering strength in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square since April 15th, 1989. As a result, the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square Movement resonated
across the world as an egregious act, with countries and humanitarian groups openly castigating the CCP’s actions.
In the United States in particular, a wide range of sources started to appear shortly after the event, dedicated to exposing the details of the Tiananmen Square Incident. However, these journalistic reports, books and eyewitness accounts are all tied together by a common thread of inconsistency, presenting conflicting accounts of the military crackdown in two main areas:
the number of casualties and whether the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) killed students inside the square (as opposed to only those blocking the army’s path on the main roads leading to the square).
In searching for factual answers that are not plagued by clouds of doubt, the questions ultimately arise:
Does the specific number and location of deaths change anything about the event or how we should feel about it?
Why is it important to deal with controversial details and
why is it, if we indeed ought to concern ourselves with details, important that we deal with these specific issues of number and location?
I would posit that such an investigation is important for three distinct reasons.
First, accepting a casualty number that is drastically smaller than the true number is immeasurably significant to those who actually perished on that June morning and to those who still mourn for them. Not being counted in the history books is ultimately equivalent to being denied an existence, thus forever eradicating her from history.
Second, under-reporting the death toll gives the Tiananmen Square Incident an air of uncertainty, ingraining in the historical record a sense of ambiguity. As a result, the event seems vague, its shape incomplete, and its impact lacking full gravity because of the influences of misinformation. A definite number lifts the Tiananmen Square Incident out of the category of the merely alleged, making the event concrete and providing objective evidence on which the Chinese and American public can solidify their desires for reconciliation, rooted not in contested myth but in factual information.
And third, an indefinite number risks over-reporting the death toll.
full text : http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal51/china1.pdf
