Thursday, June 4, 2009

Tiananmen Square

Today marks the 20th anniversary of student protests against government repression at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. For many people this event can be summed up in one statement: tank man. Even though I was in elementary school at the time and did not completely understand what all the fuss was about, the image of someone willfully being run over by a tank was enough to realize that something was wrong. Of course, the Chinese government denies that anyone was hurt during the protests.The enusing two decades have seen some interesting changes. While China has embraced captilism, they continue to maintain strict Communist rule over their citizens aided by technology. Case in point: a quick search on Google for ‘tiananmen square’ turns up several photos of tank man and other protest-related images. However, using the same search on google.cn (Google China), one cannot find any references to the “June 4th inicident”, rather an almost blank screen due to ‘site maintenance’. And when questioned about the events of June 4th, Chinese students who are roughly my age had no idea what they were being asked about. Somewhere George Orwell is turning over in his grave.

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