Word: movement
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Since student groups such as the Progressive Students Labor Movement (PSLM) began protesting the University's possible links to companies which used sweatshop labor, there have been two major demands. The first was met two months ago, when the "Rally For Justice" produced a statement from the administration advocating full disclosure of the locations of factories that manufacture Harvard apparel...
Instead, by urging students and workers to persist in a hunger strike and by preventing the government from welcoming Soviet leader Gorbachev on Tiananmen Square, the leaders of the protest humiliated and alienated Chinese leaders. The movement turned a paternalistic government into an authoritarian regime...
Ironically, the pro-democracy protest succeeded in turning the people against the government and the government against the people. Was the escalation of tension between the government and the people a tactical mistake? If so, should the student movement accept part of the responsibility for the tragic outcome...
Wang Dan absolves the movement from such responsibility by saying the motivations of the student protestors made their actions patriotic. I honor his patriotic motivations, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Could his good intentions atone for the lives of soldiers assaulted, murdered and burned on the streets by mobs? Could Wang's motivations alone compensate for the downfall of government moderates after June 4, and heal the trauma in the minds left by the incident? Furthermore, did Wang's idealism represent the ambitions of students who were dying from the hunger strike or colleagues...
These are some questions the leaders of the pro-democracy movement must answer honestly...