Remembering the victims of June 4, 1989 massacre in China

June 4, 2013 marked the twentyfourth anniversary of the massacre of countless students and youth at Beijing’s famous Tiananmen Square. There have been the usual protests and candle-light vigils in Hong Kong with the participation of numerous people but, as has been underscored in The Globe and Mail, while the annual demonstration in the self-administered enclave under Chinese sovereignty “is the most vivid display of the continuing passions over the 1989 crackdown on student protests in Beijing”, the name and date of the event have been “stricken off by censors on mainland China”. Incidentally, the crowd at Hong Kong’s central Victoria Park this year “was estimated by the police at 54,000 people, although organisers put the turnout at 150,000”.

While remembering the June 4, 1989 massacre by the Deng Xiaoping leadership of China and offering our sincere homage to the abiding memory of the victims of that crackdown, we are reproducing two paragraphs from N.C.’s article “China: Who’s Counter-revolutionary?” that appeared in Mainstream’s July 8, 1989 issue:

Truly, it is the counter-revolution that has taken over in China today, seeking to crush the free spirit of human endeavour. Those who stood up for democracy in that (Tiananmen) Square are the true revolutionaries and those who sought to silence their voice are the real counter-revolutionaries. Posterity will bear this out as it has done in Hungary and Poland.

The wheel has to turn in China—may be tomorrow, or the day after.

(“China: Who’s Counter-revolutionary?” by N.C., Mainstream, July 8, 1989)