“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting,” Milan Kundera wrote in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.
The June 4 Incident, sarcastically referred to by some as the 35th of May — as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forbids mentions of the actual date — refers to the bloody crackdown on the student-led, pro-democracy demonstrations in and around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. The exact death toll remains unknown, with estimates ranging from hundreds to possibly thousands.
Hundreds of people gathered in Taipei in heavy rain on Thursday last week for an annual candlelight vigil, themed “Memory Beyond Borders, Resistance Without Boundaries,” marking the 37th anniversary of the massacre.
For years, the world’s largest vigils were held in Victoria Park by the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, which was disbanded in 2021, until the Hong Kong government banned the event in 2020, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, a year after the 2019 movement opposing an extradition bill. On June 30 that year, the Hong Kong National Security Law was imposed.
For the fourth consecutive year, a patriotic carnival was held on June 4 at the former commemoration site, while police surrounded, intercepted and detained people who appeared to be commemorating the Incident near the park, warning that their behavior could be “seditious” and might constitute “disorder in public places.”
Holding a flower or a lit candle on that sensitive date has officially become a taboo in the territory ever since Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) and Chow Hang-tung (鄒幸彤), leaders of the alliance, were put behind bars on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” under the security law in 2021 over the alliance’s efforts to commemorate the Tiananmen crackdown and advocate for democratic reforms in China.
In the same year, the Pillar of Shame and the Goddess of Democracy statues were removed by Hong Kong University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong respectively.
There had been heated debate in the territory over whether people outside China should commemorate the tragedy, especially those who advocated for Hong Kong’s independence following the 2014 “umbrella movement,” which failed to bring universal suffrage despite a 79-day occupying protest, as they do not consider themselves to be Chinese politically and regard the Incident as a “foreign affair.” Some also questioned whether performing the annual ritual was “useful” in resisting the CCP. Ironically, those vocal in the discussion — for and against — are either in prison or in exile, as they are all regarded as “Hong Kong separatists” by the CCP.
There has been a similar discussion in Taiwan. Some say the Incident is none of their business because they are not Chinese and they do not shoulder any responsibility for a democratic China.
Meanwhile in China, young people question why they should even talk about the Incident, as it happened “long ago.”
“What is the point?” they ask.
Some even say that the CCP did what it had to do, showing immense empathy with its “difficult decision” to run over unarmed people with tanks and shoot them with machine guns.
A candlelight vigil would neither “end the one-party dictatorship” nor “build a democratic China,” as the Hong Kong alliance demanded. A memorial would not bring the dead back to life. Nevertheless, an annual commemoration serves as a ritual to pass on the memories of those who witnessed or survived the tragedy, and those who did not make it.
Remembering the Tiananmen Massacre would not make us more Chinese or less Taiwanese. Taiwanese take pride in being the “beacon of democracy” in the Chinese-speaking world. They dare to speak the truth in the face of a tyranny that is in constant denial of its brutality.
They do not to forget, because they care about oppressed people, the lives sacrificed and the families who lost loved ones. They do not stand aside and disregard the pain of others. They have the moral courage to stand in solidarity with those who remain firmly committed to carrying the torch of truth.
They refuse to collaborate with an authoritarian regime that tells them to reject the evidence of their eyes and ears.
“Who controls the past controls the future: Who controls the present controls the past,” was a Party slogan in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. Remembering the truth is an act of defiance and resistance. Taiwanese must preserve memories until the end.
