Twenty-three years ago today the Chinese People’s Liberation Army massacred protesters at Tiananmen Square.
As a foreign correspondent, I stayed in the square until nearly 1 a.m. on June 4, then retreated to my balcony on the 14th floor of the Beijing Hotel.
That vantage point gave me a clear view of the north end of the square as the tanks rolled in. I was also within range — something I didn’t realize until a fellow journalist pointed out the bullet lodged in the concrete above our heads. Hours later, I witnessed the young man confronting the tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
In hindsight, the violence of 1989 could have been avoided simply by waiting out the students. After six and a half weeks, they had started drifting back to campus. Many had grown tired of the heat, the hunger strike and the makeshift toilets (in commandeered municipal buses).
Bloodshed, however, became inevitable as Chinese authorities made misstep after misstep. I think about this as I watch the bungling in Quebec where the student protests against tuition hikes are now 112 days and counting. Weather, ennui and endless consultation are among the authorities’ best tactical weapons. Unfortunately, in both Beijing and Quebec, egos got in the way.
The Chinese government should have smothered the protesters with meetings, something at which it excels. Instead, the pro-democracy protests captured the attention of a nation — and a pre-Internet world — because the international media were in town covering the historic summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping.
Li Peng, the premier, couldn’t stomach the insolence of youth. At the single encounter, which was televised live (another misstep), a student leader wagged a finger at him and scolded, “We don’t have much time to listen to you. Thousands of hunger strikers are waiting.” A few days later, an enraged Li Peng declared martial law.
In Quebec, time was on Premier Jean Charest’s side. The longer the protesters clogged traffic, the lower their public support, especially when some participants began breaking windows and smoke-bombing the subways. But then the Quebec government made a huge miscalculation: it broke off desultory talks to ram through emergency legislation.
Bill 78 is nowhere equivalent to the Tiananmen Massacre that left hundreds, probably thousands dead. But in a western democracy, legislation that curtails the right to protest is an irrational and intemperate use of power.
Now 70 community groups are challenging the law in court. Celebrities like Arcade Fire and mockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore have expressed support. Camila Vallejo, a charismatic student leader in Chile who has the Pinera government on the run (and whom the New York Times has called the “world’s most glamorous revolutionary”) has lent her aura to Quebec’s students. Even the United Nations is taking an interest.
One problem with draconian laws is governments have to enforce them, or look stupid. So the Chinese leaders called in the tanks. In Montreal, the police made mass arrests, but have since backed off. Now protesters nightly bang pots and pans in a noisy but non-violent evocation of a famous Chilean tradition.
Time is no longer on Charest’s side. This Sunday is Montreal’s Grand Prix Formula One race, an event that kicks off the city’s tourist season each year. The natural brutality of the Canadian winter took its toll on the Occupy Movement. The summer humidity would have wilted the Quebec protests, too.
Instead, Bill 78 galvanized the students and gave them a bigger cause. Meanwhile, that other bill, for police overtime, swells.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: JAN WONG
As a foreign correspondent, I stayed in the square until nearly 1 a.m. on June 4, then retreated to my balcony on the 14th floor of the Beijing Hotel.
That vantage point gave me a clear view of the north end of the square as the tanks rolled in. I was also within range — something I didn’t realize until a fellow journalist pointed out the bullet lodged in the concrete above our heads. Hours later, I witnessed the young man confronting the tanks on the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
In hindsight, the violence of 1989 could have been avoided simply by waiting out the students. After six and a half weeks, they had started drifting back to campus. Many had grown tired of the heat, the hunger strike and the makeshift toilets (in commandeered municipal buses).
Bloodshed, however, became inevitable as Chinese authorities made misstep after misstep. I think about this as I watch the bungling in Quebec where the student protests against tuition hikes are now 112 days and counting. Weather, ennui and endless consultation are among the authorities’ best tactical weapons. Unfortunately, in both Beijing and Quebec, egos got in the way.
The Chinese government should have smothered the protesters with meetings, something at which it excels. Instead, the pro-democracy protests captured the attention of a nation — and a pre-Internet world — because the international media were in town covering the historic summit between Mikhail Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping.
Li Peng, the premier, couldn’t stomach the insolence of youth. At the single encounter, which was televised live (another misstep), a student leader wagged a finger at him and scolded, “We don’t have much time to listen to you. Thousands of hunger strikers are waiting.” A few days later, an enraged Li Peng declared martial law.
In Quebec, time was on Premier Jean Charest’s side. The longer the protesters clogged traffic, the lower their public support, especially when some participants began breaking windows and smoke-bombing the subways. But then the Quebec government made a huge miscalculation: it broke off desultory talks to ram through emergency legislation.
Bill 78 is nowhere equivalent to the Tiananmen Massacre that left hundreds, probably thousands dead. But in a western democracy, legislation that curtails the right to protest is an irrational and intemperate use of power.
Now 70 community groups are challenging the law in court. Celebrities like Arcade Fire and mockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore have expressed support. Camila Vallejo, a charismatic student leader in Chile who has the Pinera government on the run (and whom the New York Times has called the “world’s most glamorous revolutionary”) has lent her aura to Quebec’s students. Even the United Nations is taking an interest.
One problem with draconian laws is governments have to enforce them, or look stupid. So the Chinese leaders called in the tanks. In Montreal, the police made mass arrests, but have since backed off. Now protesters nightly bang pots and pans in a noisy but non-violent evocation of a famous Chilean tradition.
Time is no longer on Charest’s side. This Sunday is Montreal’s Grand Prix Formula One race, an event that kicks off the city’s tourist season each year. The natural brutality of the Canadian winter took its toll on the Occupy Movement. The summer humidity would have wilted the Quebec protests, too.
Instead, Bill 78 galvanized the students and gave them a bigger cause. Meanwhile, that other bill, for police overtime, swells.
Original Article
Source: the chronicle herald
Author: JAN WONG
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