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Lest we forget. Remembering the Tiananmen Square massacre; one of the greatest travesty on the spirit of democracy and freedom of expression.
by Patrix | on Sunday, June 4th, 2006 at 6:33 pm | 
Governance, History . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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June 5th, 2006 at 8:03 am reply
in case it hasnt been brought to your attention, colophon is extremely helpful :)… how’ve you been?…
June 5th, 2006 at 8:52 am reply
Pat,
I have heard some stories that this picture is not what it seems and this guy was not really blocking the tanks.
But that would be nitpicking.
Yes, lest we forget.
June 5th, 2006 at 3:27 pm reply
Manuscrypts, I’m glad you found that useful and hope it convinced you to get your own WP-powered domain.
Confused, Actually the buzz was what happened next. Did the tanks run him over? Actually, they didn’t. Thankfully they went around him. The picture is very much real and quite evocative, according to me.
June 6th, 2006 at 8:19 am reply
You should watch the Frontline episode titled The Tank Man.
June 6th, 2006 at 2:55 pm reply
Thanks, Anup for that link. Will check it out when I get home.
June 6th, 2006 at 7:44 pm reply
I’d like to offer couple references in addition to PBS Frontline’s “The Tank Man”, where it reported the fact students were allowed to leave peacefully once the troops arrived, and Chinese government did investigate this, and release casualty figure of 240 some dead (incidentally in-line with our own NSA intel estimate.)
An article by Gregory Clark on pack journalism:
http://mparent7777.livejournal.com/7702519.html
“the so-called massacre was in fact a mini civil war as irate Beijing citizens sought to stop initially unarmed soldiers sent to remove students who had been demonstrating freely in the square for weeks. When the soldiers finally reached the square there was no massacre.”
An article by Columbia Journal Review on passive journalism:
http://archives.cjr.org/year/98/5/tiananmen.asp
“as far as can be determined from the available evidence, no one died that night in Tiananmen Square.
…
Hundreds of people, most of them workers and passersby, did die that night, but in a different place and under different circumstances.”
[Just for reference, throwing molotov cocktail at riot police is a crime in US.]