The Tank Man of Tiananmen

For most of the people reading this, the single most enduring image of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 is the video of the lone young man, armed only with what appeared to be a small parcel, facing down a column of tanks (although New Yorkers might have thought he was simply directing them to a parking space).

That's television for you. Its cameras can go anywhere and take two-minutes worth of the most important event on the planet and make you think that it has captured the core of the story.

And of course, that's complete BS.

There are good reasons why that video was so moving twenty years ago and remains so today. I think many of us would like to see ourselves in that young man, even if we won't know what his motivations were (he never has been identified and is presumed to have been executed). The image of a person so courageously risking his life to speak truth to power--literally, in his case--is the ultimate expression of what we believe a democracy is all about. After all, that was what the Minutemen did at Lexington in 1775 and what Martin Luther King did on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. It also represents the principles for which thousands of young Americans surrendered their lives that same week forty-five years before on Omaha Beach in Normandy. It was also for many people the guiding principle behind the presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy, which ended abruptly twenty-one years before, that very same week, in 1968.

But the protests at Tiananmen Square were in reality the kind of complex story that television rarely captures accurately. There were many reasons behind the protests, and contrary to what many people in the West believed, not everyone in the Square was pushing for Western-style democracy or capitalism. Even print journalists had a difficult time grasping the essence of those events. In The Nation, for example, there was a difference of opinion about what it all meant. As events were unfolding Richard Falk wrote in The Nation as the Tiananmen drama was unfolding it was yet another example of how "in country after country 'people power' has demonstrated its potency against entrenched forces of dictatorial rule." But Alexander Cockburn was less sanguine in 1989, pointing out that "real change takes more fuel than mass good will…vested power is not overwhelmed by yellow roses."

It's not surprising that journalists failed to agree; they rarely do about even most obvious situations, but there was an additional reason for such diverse opinions about the protests: few journalists were on the scene to witness the controversial events that brought them to a close. How and why did the government put an end to them? Who were the main targets of the government forces? Did the Army massacre the students? Was there even any massacre at all? Even today, there is disagreement about the answers to these questions. The whole world may have been watching, but there was a lot it didn't see.

There shouldn't be, though. In 1990, on the first anniversary of the end of the protests, The Nation printed a remarkable article by Robin Munro, a researcher for Human Rights Watch in 1989, who was an eyewitness to the protests and the Chinese army's actions that brought them to a close. Munro's riveting account is based on both what he saw and on interviews with others who were at the scene. Together, they give us a complete picture of the events that alternatively thrilled and horrified all those who followed them.

Whether China has changed since 1989 is a question to be argued by people more much more expert than I. But for most people, the image of a single protester facing down a tank is the one thing they will remember. That's not so bad. Events of the last twenty years have shown us that the need to face down power is as vital a lesson as we can have. Even after a political campaign promising change was a success here in America, power seems as entrenched as ever, and as Alex Cockburn correctly pointed out in 1989, those in power don't voluntarily step aside for the masses to take their place.

Of course laying your body on the line is easier said than done. Would I have had the courage of the fellow who tried to stop the tanks? I have no idea, but I've seen that image before, in an old black-and-white photo of a young man disdainfully staring down his Nazi executioner in Warsaw; I saw it in the face of Gloria Richardson, shoving aside the rifle of a National Guardsman as she tried to make her voice heard during civil rights protests in Cambridge, Maryland. They were ordinary people who acted with extraordinary bravery when their souls were tested. In an ideal world, Tank Man is us. At least I certainly hope so.

Have a question about any aspect of The Nation's archives or its history? Drop me a line at jeff.kisseloff@gmail.com To be notified of new posts to this blog, follow me on twitter @jeffisme.

Comments (2)

1. I don't believe the 'Tank Man' had a flag in his hand. I'm pretty sure it was a bag, possibly a shopping bag, which makes the image in my mind even more powerful. He was a representative of the world, not a man waving his country's flag.

   Posted by jago at 06/03/2009 @ 06:11am

2. I believe you're right, and I've made a change. Thanks for pointing it out.

   - jeff

   Posted by tstack at 06/03/2009 @ 08:41am