Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊
I'm posting this photo because 35 years later, people in China and Hong Kong can't. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre - Wikipedia

Jun 4, 2024 at 12:43pmWeb
Show threadPeteJun 4, 2024

@brucelawson

I visited Tiananmen Square in 2002. Overwhelmed with sadness, I began weeping. Walking further up beyond Mao's mausoleum, some students approached and asked me why I had been upset. I explained my thoughts were with the students and the opposition that had been crushed. They said the students had been stirred up by external agitators. They invited me to meet with their teacher who would explain all. I declined. A vehicle with armoured police came near and the students disappeared.

Show threadChu 朱Jun 4, 2024

@pete @brucelawson

The narrative in the mainland is basically that they deserved this and it's nothing to be sad about.

I TA'd a communications course and one of the topics of collective memory. I talked about how collective memory is reinforced by society and can just as easily be erased.

I asked if there were any students from China (China is one of my fav punching bags as my family is from HK). I asked "What do you think of when I say Tinanmen square?"

"it's nice. It's really safe for tourists. It's really popular in the summer".

I nodded and solicited more responses.

Then I asked "Anyone from Taiwan or Hong Kong? What do you think of when I say 'Tiananmen Square?'"

The Chinese students were shocked at what was coming out of their classmates' mouths.

China has done an impeccable job of pretending this never happened for the younger kids.

For older people, there's a combination of "outside agitators" as you say, and also a "kill the chicken to warn the monkey". If they didn't do this, how can they control a population of almost 2billion people? It was necessary to deal with these bad actors and it was well deserved.

Show threadxs4me2Jun 4, 2024

@brucelawson

Let us never forget the nature of this regime…

Show threadYogthosJun 4, 2024

@brucelawson weird how you propagandists never post the whole video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU

gotta love how y'all are still seething and coping that their color revolution failed

https://redsails.org/another-view-of-tiananmen/

Man vs. tank in Tiananmen square (1989)

A CNN crew covering the June 5, 1989, protests in Beijing recorded a man stopping a Chinese tank in Tiananmen Square. The story behind the iconic 'Tank Man' ...

YouTube
Show threadVayl Larkin (they/them)Jun 4, 2024
@brucelawson I'm a writer. The first poem I can remember, (not the first poem I wrote, but the first that stands in my mind as anything but "early nonsense"), was about Tiananmen Square. I was 10 and it had been on the news, with a brief clip of the infamous tank video. When I asked my parents what happened to that protester, they told me the truth, and I can still remember the horror I felt. It was so visceral, while I cannot recall the words of the poem, I remember how it felt to write.
Show threadcwtshycwtshJun 4, 2024
@brucelawson
Show threadAaronJun 5, 2024
@cwtshycwtsh @brucelawson None of these images contradict what I've always been taught since the early 90's:

Chinese military opened fire on a peaceful student encampment; students fought back and originally pushed the military out of the square, burning a number of military vehicles in the melee. But ultimately the students were crushed in subsequent assault. Total casualties on both sides disputed/unknown.
Show threadRobert Noticias 🇧🇷🇨🇳Jun 5, 2024
@cwtshycwtsh @brucelawson 😂😂😂😂😂
Show thread人各如谜ver2.1 *know your kinks*Jun 4, 2024
@brucelawson how surprising it is to you that people in China also use Mastodon
Show threadbouriquetJun 4, 2024
@brucelawson How many in the US can name this location? How many can say “Remember the Alamo” but not correctly locate it? Or Pearl Harbor?
Show threadOrca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️Jun 4, 2024
@brucelawson We can, but only here, not on Chinese social media platforms 😓
Also we can't be caught having them on our devices by the coppers or shit is gonna happen.
Show threadenoch_exe_incJun 4, 2024

@brucelawson It’s not a photo. It’s a still image from a video.

I find that, despite information about this event being considerably less censored outside of the Chinese Internet, people are actually, shockingly, *more* ignorant of it—and usually for purely political reasons.

Show threadEric A. MeyerJun 4, 2024
@brucelawson I see the tankies found you. My condolences.
Show threadShark AttakJun 4, 2024
@brucelawson
"You're not allowed to celebrate this"
"This what?"
"Nothing! It didn't happen!"
Show thread$8TrollJun 5, 2024

@brucelawson

I was there during the protests, leaving about a week before the violence. It was a lost opportunity that the world is suffering from to this day.

Show threadPseudo NymJun 5, 2024

@brucelawson

Amazing just how much this has been "memory hole"ed globally.

Show threadjohanna, at the cafe counterJun 5, 2024
@brucelawson that still haunts me. I still wonder what happened to that person.
Show threadskryJun 5, 2024

@Johannab @brucelawson

FWIW I saw a talk in 1999 at POPtech given by a Chinese man who claimed to be the tank man. I can't recall his name.

https://poptech.org/

That talk is probably too ancient to be on their YT channel, but I bet there are a lot of talks there you'd enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/@poptech

PopTech – Explore, inspire, instigate and discover a shared potential

Show threadjohanna, at the cafe counterJun 8, 2024
@skry @brucelawson oh, thank you! I had not heard of this. Also, it’s nice to think he is somewhere and OK after that but how can it ever be verified given the regime at the time
Show threadⒶ🏳️‍🌈 Solar Song Jun 5, 2024
@brucelawson yes, it's forbidden to mention it on social media platforms in China, and it remains a shared trauma/tragedy for the Chinese who still remember it. However, I don't like how the western media portrays it. As a native Chinese, even after reading tons of information from different sources, I still can't get a full picture of it.
Show threadBramVanDrielJun 5, 2024
@brucelawson In a few years time, they won't because nothing is remembered: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/04/business/china-internet-censorship.html
As China’s Internet Disappears, ‘We Lose Parts of Our Collective Memory’

The number of Chinese websites is shrinking and posts are being removed and censored, stoking fears about what happens when history is erased.

The New York Times
Show threadJose EightJun 5, 2024
@brucelawson a privilege, honour and outright obligation to boost your toot
Show threadDusk :anim_teams_cat: Jun 6, 2024
@brucelawson why are you liberals so fucking stupid?
Show threadBruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊Jun 6, 2024
@dusk Just because I'm beautiful, it doesn't mean I'm stupid. Have a lovely day!
Show threadPetri SalmelaJun 6, 2024

@brucelawson
And for us that setting is easily recognizable.

From Finnish comic Fingerpori:
- "The Chinese delegation is coming and the road repair is not finished yet!"
- "I will tell them."
- "Hi, stop there!"
- "Hush you! Go away!"

Show threadaproitzJun 9, 2024

@brucelawson

Show it until the #End of #Time or at least, until #China is a free #democratic #State.

#tiananmen