HONG KONG: As the 35th anniversary of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre was approaching, a popular historian on China’s recent past, Rowena He was busy flying between the United States, Britain and Canada giving lectures to speak about those who are voiceless. The subject of military troops’ firing at student-led pro-democracy protesters in 1989 leading to hundreds or even thousands dead has remained a taboo in China. As Hong Kong vanishes as an exemplar of commemorative freedom, the annual June 4 vigil that marked its victims for decades also becomes another casualty of the city’s post-2019 crackdown on dissidents.
This is despite her not having recovered from loosing her academic position following last year’s refusal by Hong Kong authorities to renew her visa, which widely regarded as a sign of decline in intellectual freedom in this financial hub. She saw this as part of her obligation irrespective of how tiredful speaking with former protester and activist of Guangzhou City in Southern China during 1989 sounded.
In Hong Kong, we can no longer light up candles. So we would light it anywhere else around the world,” she added.
Due to Beijing’s increased political hard line there were no mass-scale commemorations within its borders whilst overseas commerative events are now becoming more important for keeping memories about Tiananmen crackdown alive. A growing number talks, rallies exhibitions and plays have emerged over the past few years dealing with this aspect in many parts such as America’s US, UK, Canada, Australia and Taiwan .
These activities offer hope and counteract repressive measures aimed at erasing reminders about these incidents; most notably those occurring in Honk Kong. In 2021, three leaders of the group that organized the vigil were charged with subversion by the police under a sweeping national security law passed last year that all but wiped out any public dissenting voices. Later on, members voted to dissolve the group. Moreover, statues of Tiananmen were also pull down from universities.
Last week, Hong Kong police detained seven people for posts on social media calling for commemorations of the Tiananmen crackdown under a new home-grown security law. A Christian newspaper that normally publishes content on this topic ahead of its anniversary had most of its front page blanked out. It said it could only turn words into blank squares and white space to respond to the current situation.
On Tuesday, a carnival by pro-Beijing groups will take over the park where the vigil was once held.
Nevertheless, attempts to silence these remonstrating efforts have failed to erase traumatic memories from the minds of liberal-minded Chinese millennials who grew up in post-Tiananmen Square China when tanks rolled into Beijing’s hart and broke up a weeks long student-led protest movement that had spread into other cities thereby seen as compromising against communist party governance.
She remembers being one 17 years old then among many others who took part in protesting because they loved their country. She stayed awake all night in front of her television after the crackdown happened. When she returned to school, she was forced to recite an official version which stated that there had been nothing but a riot put down by forces in order for her exams to be passed.
“I never killed anyone. But I lived with that survivor’s guilt all those years,” she said at last.
Last year, a New York museum was open in order to preserve the memories of the event on Tiananmen crackdown. Some exhibits include a bloody shirt and a tent used by student protestors.
In 2021, such demonstrations were banned from being held in Hong Kong where an identical museum run by political vigilantes had been closed down.
The museum located in New York attracted about a thousand visitors from Chinese-American community and other American citizens as well as Hongkongers according to Wang Dan who is also the chairperson for the board. To enlarge the range of their audience, they would arrange for temporary exhibitions within U.S. universities, and possibly abroad over time said Wang.
He added that these events are important because mainland Chinese people and Hong Kong residents could access those overseas memorial activities via internet.
“It can have an effect in mainland China since most young people there know how to use VPNs that enable them bypass internet censorship,” he said.
“Within this framework, overseas commemorations enable memory travels allowing them to exist not only for others but future generation” Aline Sierp; professor of European history and Memory studies at Maastricht University – Netherlands
However she further points out “It’s like playing with fire because when you move these memories into other environments it is possible that they may become fragmented or de-contextualized”
Alison Landsberg, memory studies scholar at George Mason University refers that global efforts may help inspire individuals facing other challenges in their quest for democracy elsewhere.
Film and television dramas can keep memories alive for those who were not present during such events says Dr. Alison Landsberg, associate professor of film and media studies at George Mason University.
She said theater productions outside China about Tianamen Square protests which began last year Taiwan have greater chances of making those connections which can reach wider audiences.
Landsberg added: “When you have a dramatic narrative, crackdown you have the capacity to bring the viewer into the story in a kind of intimate way.”
The play as subtly suggested by its title, “May 35th” affected many people who watched it at a London theater last week.
The play was write and directed by Lit Ming-wai a Hong Kong member of diaspora who fled to the United Kingdom after China imposed National Security Law in 2020. It tells the story of an elderly couple wanting to give their son killed in 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests a proper burial.
Ms. Kim Pearce, who is British-born in the 80s explained that she had always been captivated by this tragedy ever since her tender age and even cried upon reading James Fenton’s poem “Tiananmen”. She added that working on this project has only strengthened her relationship with these stories.
Also deeply affected by the play was Sue Thomas (64), a British theatre-goer. “Especially as I’m now a parent which I wasn’t then, so it struck me much more deeply.” She went on to say.
The theater was where he, the intellectual, became one of those who spoke after a play, revealing her problems and why she does her work to the spectators. She did not hesitate to mention that the play actually reminded her of how things were in the past during the last thirty-five years of suffering leaving her tearful and also some loss of contact lenses.
“This production indicates how people have suffered for almost an eternity,” she argued. “If possible, let us make young people appreciate this.”
