Week 5: Tank Man

First off, let me say how much I enjoy Frontline. They always do an excellent job, and this docmentary was no exception.

I was struck by the images from Tiananmen Square; I had never before realized the extent of the massacre there in June of 1989. However, what astounded me more was the resilience of the students and workers in the movement, and their willingness to risk their lives continuously in the face of violence out of true sincerity to their cause. That kind of determination seems rare, though it may be that it is simplay all too often repressed around the wordl wherever it arises.

The two Chinas that have developed lead me back to the Kurlantzick article, and my feeling that the Communist government has abandoned communist ideology for the sake of economic progress, while simultaneously weeding out any dissent towards the Communist state, despite the fact that the capitalist drive coupled with political oppression has created an authoritarian kind of state that seems to be doing very little in the way of representing the needs of the proletariat, and the masses, while promoting the unequal distribution of wealth and the spread of greed. It seems counterintuitive, but I feel like I must be missing something, there must be more to it that what I am interpreting. Still, it is strange to see workers suffer so greatly under a Communist state, while wealthy businessmen and corrupt officials reign. It perturbs me.

It is interesting how an identity has been created for this Tank Man, whether people believe it or not. The idea that mystery and solitary definance are what make the story so enticing is fascinating. I suppose it is our (human?) obsession with hope, and rather than grab onto the plethora of clips and photographs that show the massive uprising and widespread violence and resistance, people are generally more drawn to the single man against the tank. Perhaps it is the fact that, despite the vast numbers of protesters, the struggle between the people and the state can be captured in the idea of a David and a Goliath, a small and insignifican tank man up against the giant military machine. This imagery suits the purposes of the actual power struggle with greater accuracy, it seems. Yet in China, David did not triumph over Goliath, a truth that has been marred by the economic growth, but exacerbated by the concurrent growth in quieter dissent, which has been consistently silenced by the Government - not for the people, but against them - and aided by Western profit-seeking corporations like Yahoo!

I am ashamed to have a Yahoo! mail account when I read information such as this, and yet it further reminds me that my life is made much simpler by my buying into these corporations, and therein lies the dilemna: for those of us, from China to the US, who wish to fight the dominant paradigm, we must make sacrifices, some small, others massive, to do so. It is its own market with risks and opportunity costs to consider. Whether I use Yahoo! is not really the question, but whether I choose to express my dissent is, and the form of such dissent is important. In China, huge sacrifices may have to be made by people who choose to hack into censored material, on Yahoo! or elsewhere. I am beyond privileged to be able to live without such considerations facing me daily. I can easliy decide not to use Yahoo! mail, and to instead research which companies do not have any (known) links to repressive censorship or corruption, and the only way I am affected is that my address book will have to be informed of my decision.

I try to live without taking things for granted, but I willingly admit that the Internet and the freedoms I enjoy in utilizing it is something I have taken for granted, and when confronted with cnesorship of the kind imposed in China, I am deeply ashamed of my dependence and expectant attitude toward the "freedom of information." Could I ever make the kind of sacrifices so many do in China in order to get access to half of the sources which are availale to me? Would I ever be brave enough to try to stop a tank? To run towards soldiers with guns rather than away from them out of sheer desperation and determination? While I crave the sort of passion those acts require, I am frightened by the notion that I would ever face anything like that. My naivete is unvelied, and I am shamefully aware of my privilege, in a way that only has been clear to me once before, in Ghana. There are parts of me which are conflicted by this story of the Tank Man, and in this study of China in general, and I am unsure how to reconcile my thoughts.