Today is the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on the Tianamen Square protests. Tank Man is of course the man who tried to stop a column of tanks by standing in front of them; perhaps the single most famous act of passive resistance ever.
A few questions:
What happened to Tank Man? Many people believe he was shot shortly afterwards. Is there any evidence or even informed speculation to suggest otherwise?
Secondly what impact did Tank Man have on history? Not very much in China itself if you look at its subsequent history. But in this fascinating documentarya journalist describes going to Eastern Europe where people told him that Tank Man inspired them to confront their regimes later that year. So he may have well have helped trigger perhaps the greatest revolution in history. Any information on this?
Any other thoughts on Tank Man and his impact on culture and politics?
Obviously another impact he had was that he called worldwide attention to the situation in China. Maybe that hasn’t fully born fruit yet, but I don’t think it farfetched to say that it will eventually.
That’s a good point. Who knows what the long-term impact of the event on China will be. Perhaps the protestors who eventually bring democracy to China will have been deeply inspired by Tank Man.
No she wasn’t. Only the truly deluded don’t believe that there is a legitimate security issue on that border, no matter what you think about the Israeli-Palestinian issue overall. What she was doing would be more like a Japanese American draping herself over an the muzzle of an anti-aircraft gun at Pearl Harbor.
That one photo is certainly iconic. Literally - I made a little icon of him and just the first tank, which I used as my avatar on various political forums, and AFAIK, everyone recognized it.
Does anyone know if a poster of that image is available anywhere?
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t for one second think what she did was heroic or iconic in anyway. I don’t feel bad for her at all. The reason I brought her up was because she probably likened herself and what she was doing to the Tank Man. If didn’t work out so well for her.
I’d really be interested in knowing what happened to this person too. I’d always assumed he was one of the ones who were killed when the tanks overran the square that terrible night.
It wasn’t only the photo, I thought the video was even more impressive, where the tank kept making these feeble attempts to go around him, and he would move from side to side to block it, and then the tank (as I remember, but I haven’t seen it for 20 years) finally gave up and went away.
Roddy
I can recall during the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia there was one protester who tried…and I am watering down the word ‘tried’ here…to do the same thing to an equestrian policeman during one of the more chaotic protests.
The horse didn’t care that a scrawny college student kept trying to get in his way. I don’t think the officer on the horse even noticed. The guy tried it twice before pulled pulled to the side by a foot officer when he though he’d try yet again.
I’m sure he thought he’d be as good as ‘tank man’ up until the horse knocked him aside.
In The Onion’s “Our Dumb Century” book, their edition for 1989 had that picture along with the headline: “Stirring Symbol of Humanity Difficult to Clean Out of Tank Treads”
Tank man was never officially identified. Based on that I believe it’s likely his identity really is unknown.
The symbolism of his action was that he was able to defy the power of the Chinese government apparently unscathed. The Chinese government does not want other people to be inspired by this example. So if they knew who he was, it would have been in their best interest to publicly identify him and punish him as an example to other would-be rebels. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that even if the Chinese government doesn’t know who he is, they didn’t just pick some other protester as a scapegoat, identify him as Tank Man, and then execute him.
However China was also sensitive about the international outcry at the massacre and probably wanted to minimize any further negative fallout. Given that Tank Man had become an international icon, I doubt they would have executed him publicly especially since he didn’t actually harm anyone. The most common view appears to be that he was quietly arrested and shot.
I disagree. The worst thing a totalitarian regime can do is show any vulnerability. A dictatorship can tolerate fear or hatred - but it has to have respect. If the people think they can get away with defying the state, they will.
Well one thing I think is notable is that China is far less nasty today than it was in 1989. I think that’s pretty relevant, and I think Tank Man had an impact on that.