eli5: what is the context and the full story of the man infront of a tank video/picture
In: Other
Do you mean this guy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man?wprov=sfla1
Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
So, on 4 June 1989, huge protests took place in Tiananmen Square, Beijing. The people of China had serious complaints about how the CCP were running China, and were calling for democracy. It was a purely peaceful protest.
Well, the CCP weren’t having it. They sent in the military, including several tanks, to break up the protest. We don’t know exactly how many civilians died at the hands of their own country’s military, but it was in the thousands. This event is now widely known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
On the next day, June 5th, the CCP withdrew from Tiananmen Square. As the tanks were trying to leave, Tank Man (nobody knows his name) walked into the street and intentionally stood in front of the tanks. When they tried to go around him, he walked to the side and blocked them again. This was widely captured by protesters at the event, as a bold act of defiance and protest.
Nobody knows what exactly happened next, because it was not recorded, but Tank Man was assuredly killed by the CCP military for his actions.
The CCP aggressively censor the events of that day, and have worked very hard to try and hide evidence of dissent in China. The Tank Man photos escaped and were disseminated internationally before they could stop it, however. They’re quite striking photographs, and have become a symbol of CCP-resistance sentiment in China, and the world.
Every year, on June 4th, anti-CCP groups use the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and the photos of Tank Man, to highlight the struggle for political reform in China.
I’m not nearly educated enough on this subject to provide an answer beyond a TL;DR…
Chinese gov’t in the 80s encountered anti-government protests organized by university students. The gov’t’s response? Sending in local military operatives & riot control officers and opening fire.
Most pictures like that wouldn’t exist if there weren’t press members in China from other countries at the time. IIRC, a lot of those press members were either killed, or captured & disappeared into China’s state prison system.
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Back in 1989, a lot of people in China protested how the government was running things and wanted change. After several days, China’s army got sent to chase the people out and it turned into a bloodbath. One day, when the tanks were moving out, the tank man stood and blocked the tank column deliberately. Most of the world doesn’t know who he is/was but he became a symbol of the protesters’ determination and defiance.
It’s a western imperialism fantasy about some freedom fighters and regime changing heroes. The tanks were leaving the square. A dude try to stop them from leaving. And yes he survived.
Western mass media and even Twitter banned posts showing dead soldiers body. But only allowed the pictures when the soldiers fought back.
If the Chinese govt killed no protestors as they claim.
Then why censor the photos.
Please stop the Chinese propaganda story. It’s a complete failure on the same level as declaring the earth is flat.
OP. I think everyone else has covered the theory a damn sight better than I could. There’s one piece I’d like to add though. The *peaceful protestors* who were killed, and rest assured there were many regardless of anybody’s understanding, were killed in the most awful of ways. The government was known to have used flamethrowers to an enormous extent. The one that haunts me though is that they used the tanks to repeatedly drive and reverse over people (who may not initially have been dead) until they were sufficiently able to be washed down the drain with hosepipes. Drain. With. Hosepipes.
The CCP sufficiently scared those that survived that they daren’t talk about it. Now they deny it ever existed.
“Tank Man” would certainly have died in the most awful way (and he’d have expected to do so with his visible yet peaceful dissent) but he stood in front of a line of tanks to make sure at least the people there at the time knew how he felt about this. It just so happened that the image was captured by the rest of the world.
May we all be just a fraction as brave.
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Incredible article by the man who shot this photo
http://www.jeffwidener.com/stories/2016/09/tankman/
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