Remembering Tiananmen

By Edmund Lo, S.J.

June 4 is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. This event is also known as liu si, or “six-four” (6/4) in Chinese, referring to its date. Many university students – while protesting for more democracy – were killed by the military for their efforts. Having spent the majority of my childhood in Hong Kong, I was familiar with, and had always participated in the protests and demonstrations in memory of this tragedy. I was 7 years old when 6/4 happened. One can rightfully ask, “Well, how much can a wee 7-year-old boy understand about democracy and politics?” Not much, in all honesty. Nevertheless, I was old enough to understand that something was seriously twisted and wrong, and that I was protesting for a worthy cause.

Neither geographical distance nor time – a good 23 years – have dampened my interest and concern regarding how 6/4 is being viewed in history. As of this moment, the Chinese government has not made any official comment or critique on 6/4. In the meantime, people in China are forbidden to learn about its details, as all “sensitive” information, comments and critiques that are even remotely linked to the massacre have been censored by the government (it remains to be seen whether this particular article would be similarly categorized). Protests are treated as fire to be quelled, and are always met with arrests. One is discouraged to commemorate what happened or even learn about the truth.

Yet, the protestors continue to voice their displeasure, and they are now joined by young people who were born after 6/4; in other words, the memory of Tiananmen has somehow percolated down into the next generation. In addition, more and more Chinese are trying to learn about 6/4 through a manoeuvre called fan qiang, or “going over the wall” – the Internet firewall erected by the government – to access the information. Persecution and censorship can take away many things in life such as speech and freedom, but it cannot take away one's memory.

This reminds me a very powerful reality: even when it is impossible to grant justice to the perished students, the memory of their deaths will forever be etched in me – and in many of us – as a reality that cannot be effaced. One can be threatened and persecuted, but the tragic reality that is 6/4 can never be taken away from one's memory. There is something concrete that I can do: remember such injustice, and keep it in my memory so to unveil this ugly truth one day. This is a motivation that can withstand persecutions, frustrations and failures.

This reminds me of “Campion’s Brag”, the statement by the Jesuit martyr, St. Edmund Campion. It was written to the Queen of England and her council who were persecuting Catholics in that country:

...touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league – all the Jesuits in the world, whose succession and multitude must overreach all the practice of England – cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us, and never to despair your recovery, while we have a man left to enjoy your Tyburn, or to be racked with your torments, or consumed with your prisons.

The expense is reckoned, the enterprise is begun; it is of God; it cannot be withstood. So the faith was planted: So it must be restored.

As with our faith, the unmasking of injustice is worth testifying to, even to the point of death. Remembering and commemorating may not seem like much, since it neither undoes nor reverses the injustice; but it is the way to keep the fire burning, so that light may shine and prevail in darkness.