{"id":727,"date":"2014-05-23T16:57:16","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T16:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=727"},"modified":"2014-09-27T15:27:35","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T15:27:35","slug":"murong-xuecuni-too-will-stand-up-for-tiananmen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/murong-xuecuni-too-will-stand-up-for-tiananmen","title":{"rendered":"MURONG XUECUN:I, Too, Will Stand Up for Tiananmen"},"content":{"rendered":"

MAY 22, 2014<\/span><\/p>\n

\"23-iht-edmurongart-master675\"<\/a>
\nCredit Sam Island
\nContinue reading the main story
\nContributing Op-Ed Writer<\/p>\n

By MURONG XUECUN<\/strong><\/p>\n

SYDNEY, Australia \u2014 On May 6 three of my friends were arrested in Beijing on suspicion of \u201cpicking quarrels and provoking trouble.\u201d They are Xu Youyu, a scholar and former researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Prof. Hao Jian of the Beijing Film Academy, and Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent human rights attorney.<\/p>\n

Three days earlier my three friends and a dozen other people had gathered at Hao Jian\u2019s home to discuss the Tiananmen Square crackdown 25 years ago, when a huge number of students and other protesters took to the streets calling for democracy and an end to dictatorial rule and official corruption. The peaceful protests lasted nearly two months, but in the end the government sent troops and tanks, killing several hundred \u2014 possibly several thousand \u2014 unarmed citizens. Hao Jian\u2019s cousin was among the dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I wanted to attend the gathering, but I had to travel to Australia, where I am a writer in residence at Sydney University. One of those present read out an essay I wrote about the Tiananmen crackdown. Hard as it may seem to believe \u2014 I have a law degree, and I myself can hardly believe it \u2014 reciting such an essay at a private gathering can violate China\u2019s laws. By the government\u2019s logic, I too have committed the crime of \u201cpicking quarrels and provoking trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am going to turn myself in.<\/p>\n

For me, the Tiananmen crackdown was the beginning of a gradual awakening. I was only 15 in 1989, a middle school student in a remote mountain hamlet in China\u2019s far northeastern province of Jilin. Everything I knew about the events of that year came entirely from China\u2019s state-run television station, CCTV: The demonstrators were counter-revolutionary rioters. The People\u2019s Liberation Army exercised great restraint and did not open fire, whereas some rioters burned soldiers alive. I believed it all. I was even grateful to the government and the army for rescuing the nation.<\/p>\n

Gradually, the events of 1989 receded from center stage. Everyone was busy earning university degrees or getting rich, as if nothing had ever happened. Even today, the Tiananmen crackdown remains one of the biggest taboos in modern China. Beijing has been attempting to expunge our collective memory through the worship of a soaring economy. But this most traumatic of memories has never truly faded. It continues to live among the people, despite Beijing\u2019s determined efforts to suppress its history.<\/p>\n

Soon after I entered university in 1992, a senior student came to our dormitory, sat down and demanded a cigarette. He then asked if we knew what had happened at the school in 1989. We said we didn\u2019t know. He took a deep drag, then told us solemnly that during the Tiananmen incident students from our school, the China University of Political Science and Law, were the first to take to the streets. They were, he said, the first to coordinate links with protesters from other universities. The first president of the Beijing Students Autonomous Federation was from our school. Our university, he told us, had \u201c19 firsts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since then, I came to understand what really happened in 1989 and its significance to China and the world. The government may have condemned the participants as \u201ccriminals,\u201d but we students considered it a glorious moment. We regard it as a great honor to have had even the slightest connection with the democracy movement.<\/p>\n

My university\u2019s \u201c19 firsts\u201d may not have been entirely accurate, but they became a legend, passed down from one student body to the next. In 1994, when I was the wise senior who visited the new students\u2019 dormitory, I too drew deeply on my cigarette and solemnly intoned: \u201cDuring the Tiananmen incident of 1989 this university had 19 firsts … \u201d<\/p>\n

By then, all traces of blood on Tiananmen Square had been scrubbed clean and the bullet holes cemented over, but in the nooks and crannies of the city the story passed from person to person. Around 2003, a friend bought a documentary about the crackdown in Hong Kong. In no time we all made copies. One day I watched it with some friends in a bar in the southern city of Guangzhou. One scene in particular struck me. A youth lay prone on a broad avenue amid the sound of intermittent gunfire. We thought he was dead, but then he suddenly began crawling in a circle. He did not dare stand up, but he didn\u2019t want to stay where he was, pretending to be dead. Crawling was better than doing nothing. \u201cIf I were there,\u201d said a migrant worker from Sichuan Province who was standing behind us, \u201cI\u2019d have carried him to safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whenever I\u2019m asked about China\u2019s future I recount this anecdote of the migrant worker from Sichuan.<\/p>\n

Now, in the age of the Internet, the government cannot possibly control all information. More and more people hold their own commemorations for the Tiananmen victims. Every year on the 4th of June virtual candles are lit. Photos are circulated online. Government censors put in a lot of overtime as they delete any combination of the numbers 6 and 4, as well as any reference to Tiananmen, the \u201cGate of Heavenly Peace.\u201d Despite censorship, hundreds of thousands of people persist. If they are unable to include \u201c6\/4\u201d in a post they try \u201c5\/35.\u201d If the censors block a post with the number \u201c1989,\u201d they change it to \u201cthe last year of the 1980s\u201d or \u201cthe year before 1990.\u201d Can\u2019t mention \u201ctanks\u201d? Then try \u201ctractors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beijing has been in denial for 25 years, and now President Xi Jinping\u2019s administration appears more paranoid than its predecessors. The gathering in Hao Jian\u2019s home was merely a \u201cJune 4th commemoration.\u201d A similar gathering was held five years ago during President Hu Jintao\u2019s reign, but no one was arrested.<\/p>\n

On the surface the government appears to be stronger than ever, with over 80 million Communist Party members, millions of soldiers, and nearly $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves \u2014 yet it is actually so fragile that its leaders lose sleep when a few scholars meet and talk in a private home.<\/p>\n

After my friends were arrested I announced on the Internet that I would turn myself over to the authorities as soon as I return from Australia in July because I too had participated in \u201cpicking quarrels and provoking trouble.\u201d Most of my friends have warned me to lay low for a while, but I have thought it through: If the situation in China continues to deteriorate, I cannot stand idly by. If I too am arrested, perhaps more Chinese people will awaken to the realities of their situation. My arrest will be my contribution to resisting government efforts to erase the nation\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n

I have seen China change. I have seen the Internet awaken its people. In 1989 one person was brave enough to stand before a column of tanks rolling through Beijing. If the same thing happens again, I am certain hundreds of ordinary citizens will defy the tanks, and if they come under fire, there will be thousands of other citizens with the courage to face the guns and say, \u201cI will carry them to safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murong Xuecun, a novelist and blogger, is the author of \u201cLeave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu\u201d and \u201cDancing Through Red Dust.\u201d This article was translated by The New York Times from the Chinese.<\/p>\n

A version of this op-ed appears in print on May 23, 2014, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: I, Too, Will Stand Up for Tiananmen. Order Reprints|Today’s Paper|Subscribe<\/p>\n

From\u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/23\/opinion\/23iht-edmurong23.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytopinion&_r=1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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