Word: movement
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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WHAT happened last Sunday night was, I imagine, destined to happen at some point in the Chinese pro-democracy movement after the Tiananmen Square Massacre of June...
Wuer Kaixi and Liu Yan came Sunday to remember their friends and fellow protesters who died six months ago or who have been exceuted or arrested since then in the government crackdown on the movement. Liu Binyan was there to express his displeasure that the movement failed to advance the cause of democracy as far as it could have and failed also to leave a legacy of writings and ideas to carry on after the end of the singular Tiananmen Square gathering...
...statements from politicians invariably focused either on memorials to the thousands killed in the massacre or on the president's veto. Lawrence Sullivan spoke of books about the movement and the massacre, of the ongoing need to get resolutions through United Nations commissions and of the need to maintain constant pressure on governments all over the world to influence the leaders of China. In short, not everyone was looking in the same direction...
...guidance and little experience with truly independent choices, she bent to what she felt was expected of her--to live as a memorial to her martyred associates. Now, though, she is studying English and hopes to use what she is learning in the U.S. to strengthen the pro-democracy movement in China. She is beginning to look ahead...
Wuer Kaixi and Liu Binyan both reflected on the movement that temporarily ended on June 4 in Tiananmen Square--Wuer Kaixi to canonize its martyrs, Liu Binyan to castigate its errors. They are both right, and they are both wrong. No one could possibly fault Wuer Kaixi for waiting never to forget those who died, but he was wrong in thinking that the gathering Sunday was "lighthearted." It was forward-looking as well as backward-looking; imaginative as well as reminiscent. I have wept in memorial of Wuer Kaixi's friends, but for the remembrance to have meaning...