30th Anniversary of Tiananmen Square: I Was There Two Years Later

Today is the 30^th anniversary of  the Tiananmen Square protests. The events of June 4, 1989, continue to haunt the Chinese. Each year as the day approaches, security is stepped up across Beijing and the rest of country and journalists are barred from the vicinity of the square.

I walked through Tiananmen Square freely in 1991, warmly welcomed yet watched.  Part of a globalization of theological education trip some Wartburg seminary professors were one of first groups to visit the square, two years after the massacre. At that time we walked freely.  We could tell our stories.  Today, Tiananmen Square is one of most heavily monitored locations in the world. Security cameras cover every inch of the square, and identification must be provided just to visit.

Much has changed in China since our visit; I remember the swish of bicycles through Beijing, people’s primary mode of transportation. However the growing suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests is not progress.

There has never been a definitive death toll from Tiananmen Square. Disputed estimates range from a few hundred to over 10,000.

The Chinese government, in fact, continues to maintain that no one was actually killed in the square itself, despite the event being best known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre throughout the rest of the world.

The Chinese government's generation-long censorship of the subject appears to have had its intended effect despite the event being known throughout the rest of the world. In planning her book, "The People's Republic of Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited," journalist Louisa Lim asked 100 students at four Beijing university campuses if they recognized the iconic photo of a man staring down a tank taken in the square on June 5, 1989. Only 15 students could identify the picture. Some asked, “What country is that in?”

I invite you to mark this 30^th anniversary with me because there is no remembrance of those who died in Tiananmen Square those days, no statue of the anonymous young man who bravely stood up to tanks, not even a small plaque to note the day. This is a reminder that each country needs to remember own oppression, its wrong-doings, its atrocities, and to teach rather than suppress them. In so doing we will learn how to be a free, really great nation.