Never Forget

Sometimes the first line of resistance to authoritarianism is being able to remember and never forget.

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

Today is the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Thirty-three years ago, peaceful pro-democracy protestors, mainly college students, occupied Beijing’s Tiananmen Square for weeks, demanding political freedom and reform. The Chinese Communist Party ordered the People’s Liberation Army to clear Tiananmen Square and get rid of protestors “by any means necessary.” Thus the massacre began under cover of a dark night on June 3rd and lasted till the morning of June 4th.

Eyewitnesses reported PLA soldiers firing indiscriminately at protestors. PLA tanks mowed down "doctors and nurses from the Peking Union Hospital medical school who were still in their white smocks and caps trying to treat injured protestors."

The Chinese government never released any official death toll afterward. It continues to claim no murder was ever taken place, and the June 4th Massacre was a lie manufactured by the CIA. Beijing also insists those on the square were not pea…