One Anonymous Man


I thought about this today while watching coverage of Chinese President Hu Jintao being heckled at a press conference...

1989. The waning days of the Cold War. Eastern Europe finally peeking out from behind the iron curtain as nation after nation rode a groundswell of internal dissent that toppled or severely weakened the communist governments. The push for more freedom for the people spread from country to country. Live on TV.

And it spread to an unlikely place: China. I believe the students there were emboldened enough by what was happening in Europe to make their move (they also coincided with the death of a former reformist Secretary General). Thousands of university students occupied Tiananmen Square in Beijing in late April in a peaceful protest. They wanted to make their demands for more freedom of the press, and many other social and economic reforms, heard.

Over the next six weeks the students were joined by thousands of other people from various groups with various agendas. They all shared a common dissatisfaction with the Chinese government's repressive ways. The protest was swelling to a size that dwarfed previous attempts at organized resistance in the 1970's.

And it was all peaceful. They organized squads of cleaners to keep the square clean...they built a replica of the Statue of Liberty...parents brought their children to witness an unprecedented gathering.

The state decided to take action. Martial law was declared at the end of May and the People's Army began to advance on the Square. But the people simply walked into the streets off the square in masses so thick that the army trucks couldn't move. They gave food, water and flowers to the soldiers. Parents held their children up to the trucks to talk to the troops. And they stopped them cold in the street with nothing more than sheer mass of their presence.

The army withdrew.

But that victory proved to be a horrible catalyst for what came next. The state was embarrassed. And they ordered that the square be cleared at all costs by June 4th. They sent in tanks and state security troops this time. A massive amount.

And in they went. The people tried to put up barricades. They were run over. They tried to run away. They were shot. They massacred unarmed people, they fired indiscriminately into masses of fleeing civilians. It's been reported that the event was so shocking in its violence towards the people that some army units in other parts of Beijing threw down their weapons and torched their vehicles and refused to participate.

The reports of how many people were killed vary wildly. The Chinese Red Cross claim 2, 600 dead and 30,000 injured.

The next day, June 5, the People's army was consolidating its hold on the area. A column of tanks was moving down The Avenue of Eternal Peace (bitter irony) when a lone man suddenly darted into the middle of the boulevard and stood in front of the tanks and blocked their path. They tried to go around...he sidestepped and blocked. Over and over. He even jumped onto the lead tank and began yelling at the men inside. He held up the column for a good half hour before onlookers finally pulled him out of the way for safety.

Think about it. Just the day before....tanks had crushed men, women, children to death with wild abandon on these streets. And this one man had had enough. His rage was such that he abandoned care for his own safety to confront the power of the state. Those tanks could have crushed him to death without a second thought. Several sources report him shouting to the tank crews "Why are you here? You have caused nothing but misery!" He wasn't an activist...he wasn't a fanatic. His identity is unknown...but it's widely believed he was just an ordinary citizen of Beijing. He was carrying shopping bags, probably on his way home from work.

I don't know how rational his thought process was. But he gambled here. He gambled on the humanity of the men inside the tanks. And he won.

I remember watching these events unfold on Armed Forces Network and CNN and being shocked. I felt like crying. That anonymous man...his anger was my anger. I still feel incredibly inspired by that kind of bravery and righteous anger...that willingness to stand up in the face of oppression and violence and adversity and say "No more."

Flash forward to me watching television today, President Bush and President Hu:

"Hu had barely begun his speech when a woman began pleading with Bush to stop the Chinese president from persecuting the Falun Gong' , a banned religious movement that accuses the Chinese government of torturing and killing its followers.

Bush quietly encouraged his guest to resume talking — "You're OK," he said — as the woman's shouts continued even as Secret Service agents removed her. Hoping to defuse any tensions over the embarrassing incident, Bush later opened the leaders' Oval Office meetings with a personal apology.

"This was unfortunate. I'm sorry it happened," the president told his guest,...

...The Secret Service identified the protester as Wenyi Wang, 47. Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin said she had been charged with disorderly conduct and that a charge of intimidating or disrupting foreign officials also was being considered."

I had to wonder what was going through Hu's mind. Was he wishing this was his nation so he could order up some tanks and troops and have them roll over her? Or was he homesick and nostalgic when he saw someone voicing protest hustled away and arrested by security forces?