From: I990002@UNIVSCVM.CSD.SCAROLINA.EDU (Bao Tong)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china
Subject: What made 6.4 a real tragedy?
Date: 15 Apr 92 19:37:40 GMT

This e-mail is posted originally on china-net.

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

It is hot again on this net. ;-)

What made 6.4 a tragedy? I guess the following points may be the part of the
reasons:                                                         ====

1) Most of the participants, i.e. young students, had only vagur ideas about
what could be gained from the demonstration. Dialogue? Step-down?

2) D-organizers were more often than not misleading. For instance, Occupying
TAM Square was a big mistake. Among the military high officers, many of
them showed hesitation to act, but the weeks-long occupation of TAM Square
gave those pro-crackdowners a very good excuse to initiate the "TAM Operation"
to resume the order.

3) The D-campaign lacked the support from workers and other ordinary people.
The initial support from ordinary people was motivated by the inflation and
many scandals of corrupted officials. But they didn't desire of the radical
changes of the system. Instead, they wanted to have a stable price and stable
society. Their interests were quite different from the D-organizers. How to
convince ordinary people that democracy will bring wealth and happiness
rather than unstability was, is, and will be the biggest challenge to the
D-fighters, especially after the collapse of USSR and its little brothers.
After a number of movements in the past decades, Chinese people have been
bored of any movement. It should not be surprising that they are now so
down-to-the-earth and believe nothing but money.

   Another thing which made 6.4 a real tragedy is the "Big Escaping".
When the people heard that most of the D-fighters escaped to US or hided
in US Embassy, how will you expect them to respond? I did not take a poll
so I can't make a conclusion. But the responses of those I know were
complicated. On one hand, they were glad that the authority wouldn't be
able to posecute them. On the other hand, they felt disgusting. Why in hell
should they flee their country like rabbits? Would CCP kill them? People
naturally would compare them with Mandela, Warlesa, and Aquino (spell right?).
If those D-fighters were really commited to their noble cause, they should
have the willingness to suffer. And only through such personal suffering
will people be aroused and encouraged to fight for democracy. I still
remember right before the first anniversary of 6.4, we got some letters from
US, urging us to take some action to protest the evil CCP. We trash them
immediately without second thought. Suppose you are in such a situation:
you are going to graduate and desire to study abroad, but the road is
blocked by the new regulation demanding you to serve the country 5 years, and
moreover, you have to go to grass-root unit and stay for one year; at the
same time, from VOA, you learned that the lucky folks abroad who kept urging
you to act have got Bush's special offer, how will you respond to the
campaign? How will you think about the D-fighters? Those who stayed suffered
while those who fled benefited from the D-movement. Is it ridiculous?
The result of this is that people became numb and suspective to any D-campaign.
They simply don't trust any political stuff.

   Of course, 6.4 also showed how harshly a communist government may crack
down any anti-government movement. CCP lost almost all of its credits.
People won't trust it as before. But even CCP knew it's urgent
to get rehabilitation from the loss and tried hard by speeding up
economic development. Surprisingly, the D-fighters here in US are still
confining themselves in their elite world and seeking dirts from endless
power struggles. They still stick to such a slogan: poor democracy is better
than wealthy communism. With such a principle, I have doubt if they can do
anything better than CCP did.

   Where is the hope of China? Only those who are still in China, I believe.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.china