Where Historical Memory Remains: The Tiananmen Square Massacre
When memory itself becomes a method of defiance
This is a repost of a blog from last year’s Tiananmen Square Massacre remembrance day with some minor tweaks. Reposting the memory of an old post regarding Tiananmen is ironically, fitting.
For those who can no longer commemorate the martyrs brutally murdered in the Tiananmen Square Massacre, historical fact runs solely through memory; memories that are, in fact, illegal. Any action that leads to a recollection of memory is also illegal. The very goal of those leading the 8964 censorship in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is to make survivors so afraid of their historical memory that they begin to question their families, friends, and self’s accounts of 8964. The ultimate goal is to make the entire pro-democracy movement – with all of its nuances –merely an unofficial and unsanctioned memory.
In the PRC there is an official history and unofficial history that runs through society, apropos 1989. The very creation of the date “35 May” is a result that inside the PRC, 4 June, 1989 never happened. The long-lived Simpsons image of, “On this site, in 1989, nothing happened,” poignantly highlights the dichotomy of the official and unofficial history. The entire darkness of that image is that many possess enough memory of those events, PRC leadership must go out of its way to erase history; to enforce and create the most heinous form of censorship: self-censorship.
33 years have now passed since the massacre, and in that time a generation has risen inside of the PRC with no knowledge of the massacre. Those with memories have fled, self-censored, or taken from this world with the cruelty of time. In the country which the memory might matter the most, official, mythic, history is becoming the only account. The main importance of keeping the memory of those massacred alive is, in words often spoken, for those who cannot keep the memory alive.
Outside of the PRC there is remarkable consistency and well-documented accounts of the events which led up to 35 May. The event was preceded by a historic visit from the head of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, implicating global news crews and intelligence agencies were stationed in Beijing. The Gorbachev visit aside, impending changes in Community Party leadership (the events which led to the massacre) meant those same intelligence agencies were working overtime to document the movement of leaders, military, and other PLA/CCP/PRC personnel. The actual events inside Tiananmen Square are also documented with written memories, images, and videos from foreigners and Chinese citizens. The detail and consistency these documents provide are an anomaly for historians; precisely the reason unofficial histories are under attack inside Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau.
To remember Tiananmen is to remember for those who, under threat of punishment, cannot remember. For voices silenced and being silenced. There is reason, and evidence, that those inside of the PRC are clueless to the memories of 35 May. Yet, believing this as a universal truth of PRC citizens is a disservice to the agency of those who are still, quietly (sometimes by the very fact of being alive) fighting repression.
The former Eastern European Bloc of the Soviet Union contains decades of unofficial history that remained strong in the face of a mandated, official history; despite what the Soviet Union taught inside of schools and on the radio. After the fall of the Soviet Union many of these countries unveiled documents which venerated the unofficial history.
While it is easy enough to say “unofficial history” this term paints an academic venire on excruciatingly painful memories. For Hungarians those memories were violent-suppression; for the Polish, a World War fighting two countries; for the Ukrainians, systemic slaughter.1 Yet, in the face of mass radio programs, history in school being taught under a Soviet-state narrative, and, “The party is always right,” dogma, unofficial history persisted.2 There is something powerful regarding the nature of unofficial history that, most of all, is remembered precisely because it demands justice.
Idealistically, the same process can be thought to be happening inside the PRC. Small communities and remaining human rights activists have provided small glimmers of light into a rather dark scenario. Much like Soviet-era suppression of historical memory, PRC-suppression of historical memory aims at cultural and social discourse restriction. The Soviet Union was notorious for blocking stage performances that ran afoul from party lines; even attempts to praise the party in performances were occasionally censored and cancelled. The PRC does not have the level of control that the Soviet Union has due to the internet, yet at the same time cultural exhibits are often heavily scrutinised. Discourse inside the Great Fire Wall currently which The Great Translation Movement has begun to translate is rife with ultranationalism and chauvinistic hysterics; not from a grass-root sect of nationalist, but the PRC’s respected professors and politicians.
Beneficial to the survival of memory is if it can be stored somewhere else. East Germans had West Germany, and for three decades, Chinese dissidents had Hong Kong. The most troubling part of 35 May, 2021 was the blatant message that it was time for Hong Kongers to forget the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Instead of mourners gathering together in Victoria Park, thousands of police officers littered the street, ensuring anyone who tried to enter was arrested. The justification was anti-COVID-19 precautions following the social distancing rules under CAP599G. Several hours into the day, the Hong Kong Security Bureau dropped pretences and cited those who gathered may be in violation of the controversial National Security Law. The picture emblematic of the night may have been from Stand News, featuring a police officer blowing out candles due that were, deemed by him, a ‘fire hazard.’ The officer blowing out the candle was representative of the police’s willingness and eagerness to bully historical memory from Hong Kong.
Despite these warnings, hundreds of Hong Kongers arrived, shining phone lights, some posting candles on fences and then walking away, and other walking with toy light wands. Historical memory of Tiananmen and Hong Kong’s own struggles against autocracy through 2019, proved stronger. Those defying authorities’ orders were not only commemorating the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but the idea of a democratic society for Hong Kong and China as a whole. The memories of Tiananmen Square persist because they demand justice for years of suppressing speech and movement while holding up the ideal to be free from repression.
Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy movement sparked in part due to isolated aspects – the extradition bill, failure to deliver on democratic reforms, high-rent, poor social support, and police brutality. The larger historical landscape of Hong Kong’s own anti-colonialism movements contextualises 2019 as an extension of both a century and half of protests in the colony and of the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Mainland China. Many of the colonial structures that protestors struck against during the late 1890’s into the 1920’s, and then into 1967, still stand. British Governor Murray MacLehose (1971-1982) instituted a level of reforms that established proto-democracy institutions that gave Hong Kong’s citizens more room for agency and self-direction. Regardless, it was still a colony. MacLehose’s efforts were also cognisant of the fact PRC supreme leader Deng Xiaoping wished to absolve the colony directly into the PRC. Late into negotiations other British officials held the same concerns, especially after the delegation agreed to the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty to the PRC without solidified resolutions. In function, Hong Kong’s District Councils would be the last bastion of democratic efforts after 1997, and where grassroot movements would spark thereafter. The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, instead of eliminating elements of colonialism, took hold of such colonial features and merely transferred Hong Kong from a British into a Chinese colony.
Yet, in the middle of this colonial shift, the Tiananmen Square Massacre happened. The massacre represented a massive change in Chinese society, marking the end of any freedom in political thought that had arisen after the death of Mao Tse-Tung, and brought in a police-state era rivalling the Cultural Revolution. (The strength secured and the economic growth thereafter have myriad reasons, although this essay will not explore them). For Hong Kong, the massacre changed the outlook of how to move forward with demands of democratic reform after the colony would be returned to the PRC. Therefore, the massacre is so memorialised in Hong Kong; instead of working directly towards a democratic future under the Basic Law, with a PRC regime obliging to promises, pro-democracy leaders in Hong Kong saw they were moving towards an unknown future with rifles pointing at them. Hence, the Basic Law’s chief provision, that of the independence judiciary – where jailed pro-democracy lawyer Benny Tai saw democracy being formed or crushed – is also carried back to this sudden change in force.
On 4 June 1989 in Happy Valley a concert was shortly before PLA forces began moving on Tiananmen Square. 400,000 people attended, raising 3.8 million USD, per an AFP report from the day. The morning after the massacre an estimated 200,000-600,000 protestors gathered in the same location, including Szeto Wah and Martin Lee, both who vowed to stop work on the basic law until PRC Premier Li Peng’s regime was ousted. According to the South China Morning Post protestors chanted “Down with Li Peng, a comrade of Adolf Hitler.” Pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong referred this as the Black Sit-in. The Hong Kong Red Cross received blood donations from over 700 people who wished to send their blood to Beijing for the injured.
A hunger striker on Nathan Road, identified by South China Morning Post as Lam Siu-lok, set fire to a copy of the Basic Law Draft, stating, “The Basic Law is rubbish. I don’t trust the Basic Law. It’s unfair and evil,” before breaking down in sobs. British negotiators joined in condemnations and hesitation in moving forward on negotiating the Basic Law and the 1997 handover. The Hong Kong Standard, a British newspaper, criticised Deng Xiaoping and Li Peng stating, “Can the government and the people of Britain… surrender the Hong Kong Chinese to a government which allows geriatrics to go on a shooting spree when the circumstances suit them?” The same column said of Minister Thatcher, “It would be a sad and regrettable situation if Margaret Thatcher was prepared to let the people of Hong Kong go to bed each night and to settle their children to sleep, not knowing what the future held for them.”
Despite the dismay posed by Chinese and British in Hong Kong, 1997 loomed closer without fixed negotiations that addressed Tiananmen or the police-state that China had become. Operation Yellowbird was possibly the most significant response to the crisis: an MI6, CIA, and citizen-led movement to help dissidents escape from China. Yet, the Thatcher Administration’s plans for Hong Kong rolled on, and Deng Xiaoping’s reforms amidst the police-state were enough to cover the glaring atrocity. Political and economic factors ensured leader’s historical memory ultimately forgot the tragedy of Tiananmen.
Hong Kong’s citizens never forget Tiananmen and since 1997 and every year after the memory of the massacre became a cornerstone for the pro-democracy movement. Hence, the 2019 pro-democracy movement’s context was a multidimensional protest. On one historical scale, the protest was the legacy of Hong Kong’s anticolonialism; on another scale, it was a protest against the encroaching police-state of the PRC on Chinese citizens. The growing police-state inside of China and its dogmatic propaganda, aimed outside of the country, has implicated any elements of the mainland pro-democracy movement have been arrested, are in exile, or have self-censored. The same attacks are now aimed at Hong Kong’s pro-democracy figures. Yet, Hong Kong’s citizens have yet to fully self-censor, as seen on 35 May. There is a bravery amongst those who arrive to protest and refuse to censor their own memory.
In future years the punishments and police-state of Hong Kong will increase, suffocating the city to levels even now unthinkable. The future of any Tiananmen vigil – even creative subtle vigils – is unknown. The public sharing of historical memory may fade from Hong Kong. Thus, this is why remembering Tiananmen Square wherever is seen as a duty. Remembering the massacre is keeping historical memories alive for those who cannot; remembering an ideal of democracy for those who the very thought has been outlawed.
Read: Calamity Again by Anne Applebaum on Russia’s invasion forcing Ukrainians and Ukrainian diaspora to re-live these memories.
For more on this, the most accessible book is Anne Applebaum’s Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956. Other essays, such as James Wertsch, Is it Possible to Teach Beliefs, as Well as Knowledge about History? Also address this issue. The early 2000’s had several pieces published, although they are often found buried in European History journals, regarding the official historical narrative of the ex-Soviet countries and how history should be taught in the new era. Pei-Fen Sung offers a Taiwanese perspective on similar issues in The Journal of Curriculum Studies, in the essay Historical consciousness matters: national identity, historical thinking and the struggle for a democratic education in Taiwan. These are only a small sampling of the discussion on historical memory and its relevant impact.