Lemmy Shitpost
Welcome to Lemmy Shitpost. Here you can shitpost to your hearts content.
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Also check out:
Partnered Communities:
1.Memes
10.LinuxMemes (Linux themed memes)
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All communities included on the sidebar are to be made in compliance with the instance rules. Striker
They felt the same way the Kent State Students felt before the attack.
That tens of millions of people across the nation were about to be slaughtered, broadcast on tv around the world?
Why are people so laser-focused on this one event that happened over three decades ago?
Because there is a real effort by a government to prevent people millions of people from remembering.
I don't know anyone who is laser focused. But anyway, do you think important historical events exist? If so, what are your top ten of the last half century?
The idea of Tiananmen Square being one of the top ten most important historical events in that time period is wild to me. Just in terms of death toll, the highest estimate mentioned on Wikipedia of 10,000 comes from a US ambassador citing an anonymous "friend," and is many times higher than any other estimate - a more realistic generous estimate is closer to 1,000. Let's compare that to the lowest estimates from the list of genocides page:
- Gaza: 38,000 (ongoing)
- Darfur: 98,000 (ongoing)
- Congo (Effacer le tableau): 60,000 (2003)
- Congo (Massacre of Hutis): 200,000 (1997)
- Rwanda: 491,000 (1994)
- Bosnia: 31,000 (1995)
- Somalia (Isaaq): 50,000 (1989)
- Iraq (Kurds): 50,000 (1989)
- Cambodia: 1,386,000 (1979)
- Indonesia (East Timor): 85,000 (1999)
- Uganda: 100,000 (1978)
The same year that Tiananmen Square happened, two separate genocides were ongoing that, even by the most ridiculously generous comparisons possible, each killed at least 5 times as many people. Searching "Isaaq" on both .world or .ml gives exactly one hit which is a comment listing off a bunch of genocides, like I'm doing now. Entire cities were leveled and hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee the country, but nobody ever talks about it (myself included, until today).
In addition to that list, if we're talking about events in general, then we should also look at the list of interstate wars (again, lowest estimates):
- Persian Gulf War: 29,000 (1991)
- War in Abkhazia: 25,000 (1993)
- First Congo War: 235,000 (1997)
- Kosovo War: 16,000 (1999)
- Eritrian-Ethopian War: 53,000 (2000)
- Second Chechen War: 20,000 (2000)
* These numbers only refer to the initial invasion, not to occupations, which killed hundreds of thousands.
There's ongoing conflicts in Myanmar, in North Africa, in Mexico, and in Sudan, and more, each of which has left more dead than Tiananmen this year and the year's not even over yet.
So it doesn't seem especially significant in terms of raw numbers, but you could argue that it's more significant because of the effect it had on Chinese politics, as the controversy led to the resignation of the head of state, Deng Xiaoping. Except that I never ever see anything like that discussed. Either way, it didn't change the broad direction of the reforms.
I could give my own reasons as to why it's given such a high position of importance, but I'm genuinely curious to hear your own explanation of why Tiananmen would warrant a spot on a top ten list of important events, compared to any of the other events I've listed.
I don’t know anyone who is laser focused.
Really? You haven't seen the many posts on this one event on lemmy.world? Hell, this is the shitpost community, not even a political one.
Are you for real? Should we forget the people that are silenced in this world?
No, just wondering why the obsession with this one event. This particular event gets brought up more on lemmy.world than perhaps any other historical event. I would ask the same if people kept bringing up the great molasses flood and cracking the same old "slow as molasses" joke.
Because it's a world famous event that is virtually unknown in the host country. There are usually examples for each country.
The US doesn't know anything about the war crimes exposed by wikileaks.
Russia knows almost nothing true about the Ukrainian war.
The UK has superembargos (usually about celebs and royalty) which is only reported on abroad.
Thailand doesn't gossip about its royalty.
Etc.
Are people in China or on Chinese social media allowed to talk about it today?
Being able to talk about the genocide of the Palestinian people doesn't seem to change anything. Turns out freedom of speech is happily granted when your speech is powerless.
You asked why people care about it so much, and I’m pretty confident the reason is because we’re allowed to talk about it here. If we don’t, someone will forget about it. Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.
Furthermore, what we’re remembering is a moment when people who were trying to make their voices heard were silenced. By making our voices heard and remembering that they lost their lives in the name of their voices is in itself an act of remembrance that honors their memories.
Lastly, for the low hanging fruit, asking why people are “laser-focused” on an event from a long time ago is a stupid fucking question when today there are nazis and fascists on the fucking ballot. That’s why we remember the past.
And yes, to your point, those do who know history are doomed to watch others repeat it but remembering it is nonetheless valuable, and honoring people who died for something noble is also valuable.