On this Day in History: It was 1989 in China, and an increa..
Added 2024-06-04 18:00:07 +0000 UTCOn this Day in History:
It was 1989 in China, and an increasing number of citizens were beginning to support democracy, particularly students. The Communist government did not like this, particularly the protests that began happening.
In the weeks leading up to June, groups - mainly students - began peacefully protesting, completely unarmed, for governmental reform. The night of June 3rd the government dispatched military troops to break up the thousands of people in Tiananmen Square in central Beijing. This was done with extreme force, going into June 4th and leading to the deaths of an unknown number of people. The number of deaths ranges from several hundred well into the thousands; to this day the Chinese government bans any mention of what is now known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, leaving many of the details of this event unknown.
Protesting has been a way for people to show their disapproval of leaders’ actions for centuries, at least as far back as the Protestant Reformation, and often centers around powerful groups such as governments misusing their power and resources at the detriment of the environment or the masses. Governments often react harshly even to peaceful protests to quash opinions they dislike and to prevent any devolvement into riots. Whether you support protesters’ causes or not, they have the right to protest, and the militant government response shows a lack of respect of that right, similar to (but much less extreme than in) Tiananmen in 1989. What has the government done when no one is recording?
Always remember: people are more important than money, and using citizens’ money to cause harm rather than to support those citizens goes directly against that.
