A mini poster war has broken out at our university in the last couple of days.
It started with a poster on our Democracy Wall criticizing the student union for its stance on commemorating the June 4 massacre. It basically claimed that the Beijing students killed the soldiers sent to suppress the student uprising - instead of the students being massacred by the soldiers sent to suppress the student’s peaceful protest against corruption and for democracy - as is generally believed outside mainland China.
The poster provoked a flurry of responses, including a copy of the Wen Wei Po on June 5, 1989, protesting against the massacre on its front page. The fact that the Wen Wei Po was, and still is, considered one of the most pro-Communist newspapers in Hong Kong, and even it came out strongly against the massacre is one of the strongest evidences that something was seriously wrong with the government’s actions. Of course, for people like us who lived through those times as adults in relatively free societies, with open access to a variety of sources, there is little doubt that the Beijing students were peacefully protesting against corruption, and demanding more democracy. In the end, however, they were brutally suppressed, with many dying or otherwise suffering terribly in the process.
2 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I like to get a copy. Why was it written in English first? Was it written by a westerner? Ann
It started with a poster on our Democracy Wall criticizing the student union for its stance on commemorating the June 4 massacre. 
It basically claimed that the Beijing students killed the soldiers sent to suppress the student uprising - instead of the students being massacred by the soldiers sent to suppress the student’s peaceful protest against corruption and for democracy - as is generally believed outside mainland China.
The poster provoked a flurry of responses, including a copy of the Wen Wei Po on June 5, 1989, protesting against the massacre on its front page. The fact that the Wen Wei Po was, and still is, considered one of the most pro-Communist newspapers in Hong Kong, and even it came out strongly against the massacre is one of the strongest evidences that something was seriously wrong with the government’s actions. Of course, for people like us who lived through those times as adults in relatively free societies, with open access to a variety of sources, there is little doubt that the Beijing students were peacefully protesting against corruption, and demanding more democracy. In the end, however, they were brutally suppressed, with many dying or otherwise suffering terribly in the process.
2 comments:
I like to get a copy. Why was it written in English first? Was it written by a westerner? Ann
It was actually in Chinese. Please see the photos added just now.
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