Tadamon
Yesterday, June 4 was the 33 year anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of hundreds of peaceful protesters. All records of this infamous massacre has been scrubbed from the Chinese internet. All commemorations of the Tiananmen massacre have been expressly forbidden in China. Except in Hong Kong, that was until now. For the last two years commemoration of the Tiananmen Square massacre of peaceful protesters by the Chinese Authorities have been severely restricted by the Hong Kong police as a Covid-19 control measure. Now ‘all’ commemoration of the Tiananmen Massacre has been banned by the Hong Kong police for “Social Order” reasons. The Hong Kong police threatened that anyone who breaks the ban could be imprisoned for up to 5 years.
All around the world state violence including mass murder and genocide of civilian populations is becoming normalised. Everywhere around the world, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Palestine, Ukraine, everywhere the mass murder of civilians is being carried out, it is being normalised, sanitised, hidden, denied and forgotten.
Repressive regimes are on the rise, spreading their influence and power, silencing the voices that try to expose and recount their crimes. These repressive regimes use harsh sentences, sometimes even murder, as in the case of Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, to hide their crimes. Sometimes these regimes spread fake narratives and lies to deny and cover up their murders and genocide.
But sometimes, often by dribs and drabs, some of the many deaths that don’t count, are uncovered and counted in a way that can’t be denied.
Fight the darkness!
Pat O’Dea is a unionist and human rights activist.
A compelling commentary that would make a best-selling book and a riveting Netflix series. But are we, as consumers of media, being seduced by its gruesomeness into acceptance of its premise, in just the same way that its villain was seduced by this faux femme fatale?
Laying aside its inconsistencies, for instance that a notorious death squad charged with being brutal to keep people cowed, would then go to great lengths to hide its activities from them, but film it, doesn’t make sense.
The definition of propaganda is seduction to an idea and, given that the majority of our people seem convinced, for instance, that Russia is the villain in the conflict in Ukraine, our media has been successful in seducing us to that belief. That doesn’t make that belief true. It just makes us persuaded of its truth, in the same way the Guardian story about the Damascus demon does.
Really?
You think this is fake?
Do the Chinese police officers murdered by American-sponsored rioters who overturned their cars and burnt them alive before the People’s Armed Police and PLA moved in en masse count as human beings?
Or should we only honor the imaginary thousands of victims the Americans invented after their colour revolution attempt failed?
It’s all very ironic, because even the internal US cables from the time, leaked by WikiLeaks, demonstrate that there never was a ‘Tiananmen Square massacre’. It was always invented.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html
So there was no massacre but you are apparently quite convinced that loads of Chinese officers were killed by rioters? What do you base that if every source is wrong?
I never forgot the photos of the man who jumped onto the tank… very brave we all said.
Few years back I stood in Tianamen, its a flat square kilometer, nowhere to hide. Faced with a tank the only rational thing to do is jump onto it before it runs you over.
Rabaa Square Eygpt 2013 , massacre of pro democracy protester.Think we will hear anything about that on it’s aniversary.I think not.
Rabaa Square Eygpt 2013 , massacre of pro democracy protesters.Think we will hear anything about that on it’s aniversary.I think not.
Tiananmen Square erased and conveniently forgotten.
People like Mark, Chinese turned NZ citizen, rewrite history to blame the protestors.
A very interesting comment. My 23andMe shows 99.5% European, 44.5% British and Irish. Is that good enough for me to refute lies with no basis in fact?
I assume that Pat is working from the principles of international solidarity and universal human rights. Abuses can be found in any jurisdiction, and Pat is non-partisan to the extent that he is prepared to call out the State of Israel and by implication at least The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as well as the Peoples Republic of China and the Russian Federation.
However it troubles me that precisely while Pat is actively targeting the Russian Federation and the PRC with his opprobrium, the Realm of New Zealand is joining in a US led military confrontation with those two states. In effect Pat is urging the mass of New Zealanders to throw in their lot with the New Zealand government and the United States of America and its Five Eyes and NATO partners. He is implying that certain states (Russia and China) are the source of the problem while other states (the US, Ukraine, the Realm of New Zealand and so on) are the solution.
That is a grievous political error. Take one example. A Russian soldier has rightly been convicted of war crimes in a Ukrainian court for shooting dead a civilian who was using a mobile phone. Yet it was standard practice for the Anzac forces in Afghanistan to kill civilians found with cellphones in rural areas even if they were not using their phones at the time they were killed. There is video evidence of this practice being carried out by Australian troops, but when your own people do it it is no longer considered a war crime, it is regarded as a tactical necessity. There is also video evidence of Ukrainian forces killing Russian prisoners. I could go on and on, but the point I am making is that by aligning oneself with certain states and against other states Pat will very quickly lose the moral high ground on which he has chosen to make his stand.
As for Tienanmen, I am sure that there would have been voices in China saying “Move them on – Now!” so that the people of Beijing could “resume normal life” without being obstructed by protesters and so that dignity could be restored to the seat of government. You will get my drift. Let us sort our own problems out before we take on the role of saviour to the people of China, Russia or Ukraine.
I would suggest some simple rules for dealing with conflicts of the kind:
No foreign military alliances.
No military operations beyond the limits of our whenua and moana.
If there are any among our people who think they know enough about a foreign conflict to judge the rights and wrongs of the particular case, and if their conscience impels them to offer assistance to one side or the other, then let them do that as individuals. But we should not allow the state join in or in any way facilitate the killing in the name of tangata motu katoa.
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