33 Years Later: Remembering Tiananmen Square
Letters from O'Brien #13
Dear Mr Smith
Recently, on June Fourth, people around the world were reminded of the 1989 Tianamen Square massacre. On that day 33 years ago, young men and women took to the streets to voice the discontent. They were tired of authoritarianism which had accompanied them since childhood. Holding up signs and banners, the students called for an end of dictatorial control over the people, for liberty, and for freedom. Although it didn’t make the news in the same manner as it should have, it was acknowledged by many in the West.
For the young Chinese, it was a time of hope with the potential for change. Growing up in the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, the students believed that China had the potential for change. In fact, the 1980s marked a period of positive change in China, as policies allowed for more and more freedoms. Religious restrictions were partially loosened, and the Uyghur population was slowly allowed to reopen their mosques. For this reason, many Uyghurs stood with the students. The hope for the students was true freedom, and a future in which the government would not crush the individual.
These hopes and dreams would come to an abrupt halt on June Fourth 1989, when the amassed CCP military in the city was given orders to move in and suppress the protest. Firing on their own citizens, the military killed or imprisoned anyone who dared take part in these protests. It was an incredibly strong and threatening message to anyone who believed they could stand up to the Chinese Communist Party.
While China has seen massive success economically and militarily since 1989 their population remained completely under the boot of an oppressive government. Beginning the early 1990s, a brutal crackdowns on religion was executed to nullified any ideological threat to the party. Such actions have continued though to today with the CCP forcibly sterilising Uyghur women, taking away their children, locking up men, and coercing other nations to deport Uyghurs currently living abroad (a standout example was a Chinese Uyghur living in Dubai, who was arrested, held at an airport, and illegally sent back at the behest of the Chinese government).
SUPPRESSING MEMORY
The previous three decades have seen a comprehensive rewriting of China’s ugly history. Suppression, confusing counter-narratives, justifications, and other narrative editing techniques have been used to ultimately wipe the true story from the public’s memory, and it appears to have worked. Among China’s massive population, few it seems have a coherent understanding of what happened in the past.
It is not only mainland China where this suppression of memory is felt. Since the 2019 protest, the people of Hong Kong have slowly drifted further and further into the CCP authored myth of their past. Likewise, the nations who are becoming increasingly economically tied to China are also encouraged to agree, or at the very least not to make a big deal about past unfortunate… “episodes”. There is also little doubt that if Taiwan ever fell under CCP control this same revision of history would take hold.
From Chinese citizens flat out denying the existence of such a massacre in 1989, to claiming that it was a western fabrication, the overarching trend appears to be a slow reduction of history. For the Chinese to even think anything different is a thought crime against the CCP. Even in the West there is no shortage of Communist and radical socialists who will tell you that China - despite pushing and funding the very ideas that are destroying our Western nations - are actually the good guys, and thus the massacre was nothing more than a CIA fabrication. As is typical of totalitarian propaganda campaigns, the CCP are deep into eliminating the truth and editing out the inconvenient truths.
LESSONS NOT LEARNT
The Tiananmen Square massacre should have sent a resounding message around the world; that such authoritarianism ultimately ends with the extinction of personal rights, even the right to life. But what did the West do in response? Ultimately, nothing. Which, in hindsight, isn’t so surprising as Communist repression seems to be the only form of repression that goes unpunished these days. And no wonder, given the tentacles of influence the CCP has had in our institutions for years. An influence I believe has accelerated the encroachments on our rights and individual liberties - ‘public servants’ work against our best interests, operate outside of the law, and attempt to push us towards a future which no one wants, and which is looking very much like Chinese communism.
The past two years have seen Western leaders making increasingly illogical and anti-democratic decisions in order to secure increased power and control. The increasing restrictions on individual autonomy, giving the state more control, is now frighteningly normalised. Any attempt to protest against such things are met with threats and arrests, much in the same manner as the Tianamen Square crackdown.
Although I have never been able to figure out the exact reason that our leaders in the West have so willfully adopted the communist tactics of coercion - often with great political risk - there is no doubt that they now share more in common with the CCP than ever before. There is also little doubt in my mind that the Chinese have been significant architects of much of the tyranny we have been experiencing(and if not architects then at least the inspiration). When Canadian PM Justin Trudeau publicly states that he admires China’s dictatorship, and has consistently pushed for PLA troops to train in Canada, it seems obvious to me who’s really pulling the strings.
We should never have let the communists get away with the oppression they’ve been wielding, but seemingly it doesn’t matter to our leadership as they hold the the same political Marxian ideas. Anything China does - including imprisoning and murdering the Uyghur population - is merely an “unfortunate trait” of the nation, not a clear violation of basic human rights. Similarly we are provoked to rage against Putin and the Ukraine conflict, without a clear understanding of the human rights violations on all sides of that conflict. An all too powerful technocracy firewalls the truth and weaves a narrative palatable to our leadership.
As one commentator I was reading has put it; China cannot and will not be appeased. They continue to slowly encroach on the freedoms of surrounding nations and international policy and economics with seemingly no end in sight. For the CCP, regulatory instruments for the international rule of law are nothing more than obstacles that must be overcome, and harnessing the influence of the largest organisations on the planet is mostly complete.
PUSHING BACK
For the sake of the free world, we must be aware that the Chinese threat is the threat of falling into a similar tyrannical system. It seems to me that we are on the brink of this happening. Many of our leaders - despite their best efforts to hide it - have close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, China has slowly taken up the mantle as the ‘capital’ of international communism. Many of our leaders, and culture, seems to be falling into the snare of these poisonous sub-ideologies, such as Critical Theory, Neo-Marxism, and Applied Postmodernism. Many of our governments are already following in the footsteps of the CCP, and their policies put them on the path of falling into their system in the near future.
Just as with so many events in history, the truth of what happened in 1989 may eventually be consumed by a collective amnesia. However, this has not yet happened, the Western world still retains this memory for the others who have been forced to forget. This is one of the reasons why the communist world - including China - hate the United States. Not because of anything it has done, but because it exists, because it has a memory, because it is dissonant to the communist version of history and ideology. I believe there exists a CCP dream of seeing America fall, and from many angles it seems to be going to plan, but I have hope. Hope that there is still a majority of the population who will - if made aware of the truth - stand against this.
As much as we can still hold our own ideas and retain our memories, we should speak out about them, write about them, and act on them in order to keep freedom alive. In China, even being aware and mentioning the truth can have serious negative consequences; including social credit limitations, arrest, and imprisonment. I think we are starting to wake up to the fact that a similar system here would result in the same repression. Unfortunately this seems to be the direction we are accelerating toward.
Let us be increasingly aware, and vocal, of what is going on around us. Although we may not be seeing anything as brutal as what we have seen in communist China (bar the actions of riot police at some of the anti-lockdown/pro-freedom rallies), there is little doubt that our politicians and educators - many of whom swear allegiance to the same Marxist doctrine - are subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, attempting to advance the same repression of thought and action. One must be aware of this, and stand against it while we still can. I realise this is the battle cry of the freedom movement who are doing a good job of rallying people for this very cause – nevertheless I want to shout it some more. We are being corralled by people we did not choose as leaders nor agree to their control over us and like anyone suffering under coercive control we have to shout “stop!”
Most importantly we must keep the truth alive and be aware of attempts to morph it in our minds, in our mouths, and in the public spheres through the manipulation of language and outright coercion. If we do not keep the truth, then a Ministry of Truth will create it for us. If we do not keep the truth, then we can expect the full brutality of communist dictatorships in our own countries. Do not give in. 2+2=4. Ignorance is weakness, and Tianamen really did happen.
Sincerely yours,
O’Brien
☕
Capitalism, socialism, democracy, anarchy, communism, tyranny, dictatorship, they were all experimented on the global populace, and all of them failed eventually, because there will always be those monkeys who want all the bananas.
Tiananmen has been China's moment to break the shackles, and they failed even before growing into a proper revolution. They would have failed anyway like all other revolutions, hijacked by power hungry factions within leading them straight into the next tyranny.
People may think that there is power and safety in numbers, while the reality is exactly the opposite. The real power is in small groups with similar objectives, not in a large mass behaving like dumb livestock.
There are a few issues wit this gradual boiling we are exposed to.
People are still being afraid of losing what they will lose anyway if they continue to cower behind petitions, justice, dignity, truth, human rights, peaceful demonstrations, religious beliefs, all those principles which are now DEAD.
If they eat, they will die of glyphosate sprayed on everything, and all the other chemicals injected into the livestock. Everything they try to raise in their own backyard will be destroyed by your trusty and caring "selected ones", so they may start foraging, but whatever they will find is already poisoned by chemical dumps and fallout from chemtrails.
Drinking water will keep them hydrated, but won't do them much good either.
They spend all their already limited time slaving for their owners, and raising children for their oppressors' sexually depraved pleasures.
When they have had enough of being alive, they can pay a visit to their doctor and they will soon be on their way to meet their maker.
But the thought of killing their killers still frightens them, so perhaps it is their time to die, for weaklings always end up on the dining table.
Everyone suffers by choice, and that choice is to blame everyone else for their own failures, and wait for a mighty saviour which does not exist, like the unfortunate Americans.
Trump is not their saviour. He's their final demise. America does not have politicians, but organised crime syndicates playing the gullible public left-right-left-right in a game so obvious it would be laughable if the amount of power and influence involved would not affect the whole world, where the same ping-pong game is being played since the dawn of mankind...
It is not about overcrowding, pollution, climate, resources.
CO2 is vital for plant life and it is at an all time minimum, the climate is mostly influenced by the Sun and outer space environment, the resources are renewing at a much faster pace than we can consume, and the entire human population living now on this planet could be housed in Texas, with plenty of room to spare.
We are under attack by monsters who are addicted to killing, and unless we respond accordingly, this is the end. That's all.
This is the history that needs to be learned in schools. But since many schools have become indoctrination factories, the home is where our future liberties will be born, grown and nurtured.
The western sinophile narrative was strong even back then. The delusion that the CCP was building a democracy for the betterment of humanity was a warning of the top down narratives to come, which we are living in today.
As history fades, I'm curious if there are reliable sources, in physical print, that fully explain what happened.
As the masses teeter-totter from their required EastAsian to Eurasian two minutes hate, we must preserve the realities of history, or forever be stuck in a fictional feedback loop.