Yao Ming, professional basketball player for this country's NBA, was honored today as the first to carry the olympic torch in Beijing. He entered Tianimen Square to cheers of fans.
This is not the Tianimen Square that I remember, is it?
The one that once hosted a Statue of Liberty?
The one that still bears the blood of students asking for democratic reforms?
Is this the one that shuddered under the rumble of a PLA tank's treads and was stilled by a single student standing in the way of the tank?
I remember Tianimen Square far differently than the present festive mood. I remember watching from half a world away the brutal devastation as 500 or more protestors were killed by the People's Liberation Army and dissenters were rounded up and imprisoned or purged in a bloodbath of thousands. Living, breathing human beings were crushed under the treads of these tanks. Such a festive China not 20 years away from this unresolved massacre should not be celebrated, but reviled.
I say unresolved because the government has not changed. No one has been imprisoned or even censured for the death and destruction. Blame for the massacre is lost in the bureaucracy of the Chinese government.
When protestors for human rights appear in China during these Olympic games, as they inevitably will, what kind of China will we see? Will it be the same dishonorable China that lost face in 1989, or will it be a China capable of largess and magnanimity toward dissenters? I think we will see the same old backwater thinking that censors political ideas and ideals. How many must stare down a tank before China truly changes itself from a regime ruling by brutal suppresstion to a democratic government, no longer claiming the People's will, but actually ruling by the consent of its people?
Yao Ming should wipe his size 18 shoes off before he comes back to Houston. The blood of June 4th, 1989, still cries from the dust of Tianimen Square.
2 comments:
China has a very long history of incredible patience and even stubborness. In this context it may take China 100 years to realize what it is they have done and are doing. They also take their politics very seriously even though they have so many different religious and political versions of normative behaviour. Trying to force China to repent for its actions and set a new and different course for it's future is paramount to getting the U.S. government to divulge all of its secrets and "behind closed doors agreements", or God telling us what the real deal with dinosaurs is. I do believe though, that according to scripture, when we start to forgive not only people, but also governments and regimes, for their attrocities, we free up the spiritual strongholds and abilities for them to seek forgiveness from God and then forgive themselves. Yes, it was a grave attrocity, but our hatreds can only breed more hatred.
andrew
Hi Steve,
Sorry to bother you about this...but I just tried to register my new e-mail addie and when the pop-up came up for me to type in the varification #s - there were no #s - so I couldn't varify. Just FYI.
Blessings, Kim Wolf<><
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