• Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    I recommend the Tian’anmen Protests Reading List. It was far more muddy than a student protest. There were workers protesting Deng’s reforms, liberal students protesting the socialists system, and CIA-backed operatives sparking discontent. On the day of June 4th, riots around Beijing clashed with the PLA, while the square itself was later evacuated peacefully.

    • ztpq@slrpnk.net
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      5 days ago

      I’ll take a look regardless - but “peacefully evacuated”? Oh come on.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        5 days ago

        Wikipedia agrees with the communists on that part:

        Government officials have long asserted that no one died in the square in the early morning hours of 4 June, during the “hold-out” of students’ last batch in the south part of the square. Initially, foreign media reports of a “massacre” on the square were prevalent, though subsequently, journalists have acknowledged that most of the deaths occurred outside of the square in western Beijing. Several people who were situated around the square that night, including former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post Jay Mathews[i] and CBS correspondent Richard Roth[j] reported that while they had heard sporadic gunfire, they could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the square.

        Student leader Chai Ling claimed in a speech broadcast on Hong Kong television that she witnessed tanks arrive at the square and crush students who were sleeping in their tents, and added that between 200 and 400 students died at the square.[269] Ling was joined by fellow student leader Wu’er Kaixi who said he had witnessed 200 students being cut down by gunfire; however, according to Mathews, it was later proven that he had already left the square several hours before the events he claimed to have happened.[212] Taiwan-born Hou Dejian was present in the square to show solidarity with the students and said that he did not see any massacre occurring in the square. He was quoted by Xiaoping Li, a former China dissident to have stated: “Some people said 200 died in the square, and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say I did not see any of that. I was in the square until 6:30 in the morning.”[270]

        In 2009, human rights activist Robin Munro, stated that he was present during the clearance of Tiananmen Square and that, according to his account, there were ten Western reporters near the Monument to the People’s Heroes at the time. He also reported a Spanish television crew that recorded footage of the event. Munro disputed Wu’er Kaixi’s claims of mass killings inside the square, stating that he did not witness fighting there and instead observed students peacefully complying with the soldiers’ demands to leave the square in an orderly manner. He further noted that the Spanish TV crew reported not seeing killings within the square during the final clearance.[271][272]

        In 2011, three secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing from the time of the events were leaked and published by WikiLeaks, all of which stated that there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square itself.[195] Instead, they said Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters in Beijing outside the square, around Muxidi station, as they fought their way from the west towards the centre.[195] A Chilean diplomat who had been positioned next to a Red Cross station inside the square told his US counterparts that he did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds in the square itself, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops who entered the square were armed only with anti-riot gear.[195][217]

        It’s important that we take study of allegations like this seriously and don’t fall for bourgeois mythos.

      • chloroken@lemmy.ml
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        4 days ago

        Hey champ, would you like to respond to Cowbee? No? Were you blown out by a Wikipedia article? E m b a r r a s i n g.

        • ztpq@slrpnk.net
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          4 days ago

          What’s embarrassing, downright pathetic even, is trying to ridicule someone for being less terminally online than yourself. Same for the open hostility after I literally said: Thanks for the info, I’ll look into it.

          Make no mistake buddy, I don’t owe you shit.

            • ztpq@slrpnk.net
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              2 days ago

              I know. That was the point: I’m kind of busy IRL, and this is a big topic for someone not closely familiar with contemporary China. That’s not reasonably addressed in the time it takes to type an insult if I’m going to do it any justice.

              If a dozen people here are gonna get hilariously personal and treat me like a bastard over that, then they need to check their expectations, because that’s just the dumbest purity test anyone could come up with.

              Oh and please do show how I’ve been “lashing out” because I could link to >90% of replies I’ve received.

              It doesn’t change my reply on the subject in any way, because history matters and I am open to sources outside the Western hegemonic narrative. But those replies don’t actually care. What they needed is the opportunity to be an ass to someone and feel good about it. You’re all welcome :)

          • deczzz@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 days ago

            Fuck around with leftists on Lemmy and you get told that you as are a) wrong and b) "maybe look into - here is a bibliography that supports my claims that shall enlighten you ". Put on the edge but this is generally my experience. And I consider myself leftist with a love for Marxist and Frankfurt School theory. Probably not left enough.

            Also thanks to ya all for some insight into the “student protest”!

            • Buhbyelittlegumshoe@lemmy.ml
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              2 days ago

              On a side note wrt to bibliographies and the Frankfurt school Western Marxism by Gabriel Rockhill is a great book. Essentially an analysis of intellectual commodity production, ‘left wing’ academia, and the lessons of the past available when theory isn’t reified.