Tiananmen

My memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre is not particularly vivid.

I was 15 at the time, perhaps a bit preoccupied with my recent discovery of girls and the coming summer break. I was aware of it, even horrified by it to a degree, but it wouldn’t have registered me with me then, as it does now, that the many demanding their freedom there and later in places like Berlin were barely older than I was.

This week marks the 30th anniversary of the horrendous massacre of protestors in Beijing that culminated in Tiananmen Square. When you’re in Tiananmen Square, all of Beijing really, the enormity of the place strikes you. The thousands of protestors demanding their freedom. The full force of the Chinese military on parade. The singular courage of the Tank Man is even more pronounced when you’re in the vast space and brought face-to-face with the insurmountable odds.

There’s little memory of the event here in China. It’s been effectively erased from the record. My young colleagues are aware of it—unlike the generation just after, if this amazing Frontline documentary is to be believed—but the horror does not register. Perhaps it was too long ago. Too far in the past.

Still, today, I can’t help but consider the protestors in Hong Kong. Much has changed in China. In most respects it’s a changed and better place than it was in 1989. But freedom is not a thing of compromise. You either have it or you don’t. It’s a powerful force. I don’t know what will happen there. I can’t fathom anything like what happened in Tiananmen Square. But we live in an unpredictable, often horrific world.