PLEASE NOTE: This post will probably not be accessible from computers inside the People's Republic of China.Today marks the 20th anniversary of the day Australians opened their morning newspapers to read that several weeks of peaceful pro-democracy (and anti-corruption) vigil and protest by thousands of Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, had ended in a brutal and bloody slaughter of many hundreds of the unarmed students by the Chinese Army, as well as many residents of surrounding streets who tried to stop the troops from attacking. Yet, after twenty years, the silence on this subject in China itself remains as stony as the day after it happened. A new generation of youthful Chinese has grown up, many of them knowing nothing of what happened to their student forebears in 1989, having never been told...as if it had never happened...
There has been a full day of coverage of the anniversary through many outlets here in Australia, including several reports from the ABC, each with its own perspective to offer on the events of 20 years ago, as well as how they affect and relate to the present in China:
You can listen to Radio National Breakfast's retrospective report on the events of June 4th, 1989, in an mp3 download of two parts, here and here. This report includes the famously emotional comments on the event by our then-Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.
Radio National's AM programme covered the anniversary this way in this morning's edition.
At lunchtime, The World Today, again on Radio National, covered the anniversary extensively, including this chilling flashback from Peter Cave, speaking again to Stephen McDonnell, and finally talking to Professor David Kelly in Beijing, attempting to put 4/6/1989 into some historical perspective and trying to bring its concerns up to date.
This afternoon, our current Prime Minister weighed in with his opinion.
The relevance of all of this to our set text and our current unit of work should be self evident.
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