Over the weekend, I was treated to this comment on a Globe and Mail story about Tiananmen Square:
So that there's a comment literally calling for the expulsion of Chinese from Canada, that claims that all 1.5 billion ethnic Chinese - presumably those abroad, too - are evil savages who "pretend to be decent people" while covering up one of the most iconic tragedies of the 20th century.
I replied and called this person a fucking racist. Cause they are.
My comment was deleted by Facebook. As of today, this person's comment still stands. Another commenter said he shouldn't lump all ethnic Chinese together. Another said "I am Canadian, not Chinese."
The original commenter replied "Nope. Chinese people take control of your govt."
I was fortunate to travel to Beijing last year. It was an opportunity to connect with part of my heritage, to experience a country with radically different cultural, social, and political values than my own.
And it was an experience in seeing firsthand what life is like under an actual police state.
We hear a lot of right-wingers moan about the "police state" of Canada and the US - yes, really - when universities dare to disinvite hack speakers like Lauren Southern or Faith Goldy, or when social media EVER dares to actually ban hate speech proliferators like Alex Jones or Milo Yiannopolous.
The absurdity of comparing these actions to what a police state actually is is self-evident from the moment you actually go to Tiananmen Square.
Accessing the Square these days is difficult at best. You have to take a weirdly circuitous route from the Subway, weaving back in an underground pedestrian passage. The North side of the square is a little bit easier, because the government wants to allow traffic to flow naturally into the Forbidden City - a much less politically sensitive location and sanitized tourist area. Once into the proper passage, you will find two security checkpoints, the first to check you for explosives, weapons, etc., the second to check you for your passport, visa. I'm not sure what the clearance for domestic tourists or locals is to access the square.
In the square itself, you'll find the south side by Zhengyang Gate all but deserted. In a city like Beijing, the second most-populous city in the world, it's eerie, especially considering you're in the literal city centre. It's a testament to the ways in which the government has controlled traffic to expedite the flow of tourists into the Forbidden City and not into the square. Above the square is the inaccessible Mausoleum of Mao, where - depending on who you believe - the genocidal leader of the Cultural Revolution still lies...or at least a wax replica does. No one is permitted entry.
On the North side of the Square, there are more people, but nowhere near the choking masses of most other major tourist attraction like the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. Towering above the plaza is the Monument to the People's Heroes. It is among the steps up to this gigantic, ten-story obelisk that the student protesters of June 1989 made their last stand against the advancing army.
No one is permitted to ascend the steps to the monument itself.
Soldiers stand at the steps to the monument, and are placed at intervals along the Square. Some stand on small platforms, beneath which are placed fire extinguishers - in case a protester lights themselves on fire.
And there are the cameras.
Ever-present, the cameras. As common as lightposts in any North American city, there are cameras all over Beijing. I took a day trip out to a remote site called Guyaju. It's a 2-hour drive out of Beijing proper. There were still cameras.
Try searching for Tiananmen on the internet while you're in China, and you'll be greeted with a Great Firewall of zero results: the censorship engine is in full bore. Even American companies like Google have been caught caving to the almighty Chinese Government; in December 2018 Google reluctantly abandoned plans for a "sanitized" version of their search engine that would compete with local search engine Baidu.
That. That is what an actual Police State is.
It's a massive, terrifying apparatus that has successfully worked to eliminate the generational memory of Tiananmen. The living protesters of today are into their 50's, 60's. Parents of murdered protesters are older. They remember. But the younger generations, those as old as thirty who literally grew up with the massacre at Tiananmen expunged from their knowledge...they do not remember.
It is an absurd, racist, hateful idea to suggest that the Chinese people somehow share a collective brain for what happened in Tiananmen. My own family, born and raised in Canada, has literally no connection to the Chinese government, as do millions upon millions of ethnic Chinese spread out across the globe.
As for those Chinese who have been raised from birth in a China that offered them Capitalism but not Democracy, I do not hold them responsible for their current plight. They have been raised in a literal Police State, their thoughts and actions monitored 24/7 by a government that is also expanding its sphere of influence in world politics, while free democracies abdicate leadership and kowtow to its massive trade empire.
The point of all of this? That dismantling an actual, established Police State is something that's never been done before, certainly not a Police State operating with the level of technology and sophistication that the Chinese government does. But I know that the actual heroes of Tiananmen are the dead, the survivors, the family members, all of whom are Chinese. There are no heroes among the western hypocrites who heap praise on murderers like Deng Xiaopeng for "economic reforms" while offering no actual Democratic Reforms.
Keep your hypocrisies and lack of perspective out of the affairs of people who actually suffer. The only thing you should ever offer the oppressed is a hand up, and the words "What can I do to help?"
