• NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    191
    ·
    8 months ago

    Let them not be forgotten

    This is a large album of images from the protests in Beijing in 1989. It gives the historical context for the events leading up to the “tank man” photo, and what happened after.

    Warning: blood, gore, visible injuries, death

    • michael_palmer@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      arrow-down
      6
      ·
      8 months ago

      I uploaded this pictures in my old Xiaomi cloud account. It took almost 100 MB out of 5 GB free space. Other 4.9 GB is taken by Winnie the Pooh pictures and memes about Xi.

    • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      45
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      8 months ago

      I’ll never understand how the tankies can claim it never happened when there’s so many pictures like this available.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Even Lemmygrad says there were 300 deaths. I really can’t find anyone saying it straight up didn’t happen, not even the CPC itself. The closest is saying that the massacre happened outside the square, which seems more of a technicality that both “sides” rely on to pretend the other is making stuff up. Ie, Lemmygrad claiming others know nothing because there was no massacre on the square itself and it all happened outside, while others see that as outright denial.

        Lemmygrad also believes it was CIA-backed and turned a pro-Maoist, anti-Dengist protest into an anti-Maoist, anti-Dengist, pro-Liberal Democracy/Capitalist protest, which I would say ultimately doesn’t change that protestors were murdered even if that was true.

        I think it’s helpful to see what people are actually saying, you can better argue it to be an atrocity that way. For example, as above, even if it was steered in a different direction by western forces, it still had popular support and as such was still an unjust escalation of force into massacre.

        The massacre is undeniable.

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Interestingly, and having done a bit of extra reading, the current Western position is that the killings didn’t actually happen in the square itself, but in the surrounding streets as the army was pushing through Beijing to reach Tiananmen Square. Some of the initial reports that came out were evidently erroneous. Again, that’s internal communications in the USA acknowledging that. But still very awful and hundreds of people killed according to that version of events.

        • blackn1ght@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          24
          arrow-down
          7
          ·
          7 months ago

          Yes. They try and minimize it as much as they possibly can. I’ve seem them claim on here that nobody was killed and that nothing happened at Tiananmen square.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            The bloodbath happened on side streets, the square itself was cleared by intimidation alone.

            The one important name to know regarding the background and politics of all this is Hu Yaobang. Party hard-liners were happy being a faction of the party and struggling things out with other factions, students had the gall to very openly support the reformist faction, though, and marching onto the square in the wake of Hu Yaobang’s death would’ve set precedent that you can just march onto the square and demand basic decency. Tankies can’t have that, they gotta tank, and thus the hardliners took over leadership and reverted course away from the reformists for a decade or two.

            • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              9
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              It was decided that “The-Side-Streets-Around-Tiananmen-Square Massacre” was a little too wordy

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                4
                ·
                edit-2
                7 months ago

                I mean yes but no the salient point for the Chinese would be that the army did in fact not roll over all the students on the square, they “merely” intimidated them out of there after massacring themselves through barricades Peking locals had erected to protect the students. I say massacring not so much because those people didn’t right-out attack the army, but because the fighting was completely one-sided we’re talking pretty much fists and stones against machine guns and tanks.

                There were plenty of people within the CCP who wanted to see much more blood, that there was so relatively little blood is thanks to Peking locals (this time less militant ones) bringing rice and fried noodles to the army camping out in front of the city while explaining to them that (unlike what they had heard from the party) those weren’t counter-revolutionary bourgeois foreign agents on the square, but simply reformists.

                That’s why that point is rather important, the Chinese people might not be saying it out loud but “there was a massacre on the square” implies that the people did nothing to influence the situation. They very much did and avoided a much worse calamity.

        • zeppo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          7 months ago

          Still they give counterfactual assertions the same way Trump supporters give counter factual assertions about their lame coup attempt on Jan. 6. “It was a secret plot by someone else!!”

  • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    149
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    Thanks for sharing. Every time I see a picture of the Tiananmen Square massacre I get shivers. That man is one of the most amazing icons of resistance against oppression. I like to think of myself as brave but I’m genuinely skeptical if I’d have the courage to stand in front of a tank that way.

        • BigFig@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          84
          arrow-down
          5
          ·
          8 months ago

          I like when they speak up because then I can tag them “Certified Tankie™” on sync

            • BigFig@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              40
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              8 months ago

              I don’t like to miss out on the conversation. But keeping labels makes it easier to call out idiots

              • Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                12
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                8 months ago

                There’s too much content to pay attention to even when you block all tankies and other extremists. My blocklist is around 550 users long and there’s no shortage of content - just a slightly better noise to signal ratio.

                • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  16
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  One scenario that worries me:

                  100% of existing users block unpleasant posters. New user joins. New user sees hateful/ignorant comments with zero contradictions in replies. New user assumes many existing users are hateful/ignorant, when in reality it’s a small muted minority. New user leaves never to return.

                  Potential partial solution/community contribution:

                  Resilient users in excellent health (🧠) block no one, replying to lampoon jerks as necessary.

                • BigFig@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  10
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  8 months ago

                  Oh I have posts from .ml and several others blocked on here. The comments I don’t mind

          • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            Someone should make an extension that cross references account names with ones on the various defederated instances, whenever there’s a comment like that, I check Hexbear for their username, and literally every single time I have so far they have an account there too

            That particular guy is an OG first wave r/ChapoTrapHouse banning refugee (the reason it exists, its original name was Chapo.Chat), Hexbear account is 4 years old with over 3k comments

        • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          8 months ago

          I’m starting to feel like I made my account on the wrong instance if those people are the average

          • drislands@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            18
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            7 months ago

            Yeah, I’m sorry to say that’s looking more and more like the case. Lemmygrad and Hexbear were the most obvious and have been either defederated or blocked by most, and it seems like the users have made their way to ML.

            I was just about to look into what options I had for blocking all users from the ML instance automatically, and I’m sure others are considering the same.

            For your edification, the people spouting pro-CCP propaganda like those in this post are called “tankies”.

            • Kedly@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              After getting a bigotry removal for even mentioning Tankies exist, I blocked all .ml instances. Dont have time to deal with Tankie snowflakes

            • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              I was just about to look into what options I had for blocking all users from the ML instance automatically, and I’m sure others are considering the same.

              Not sure how it works on the web interface, but in the app I’m using (Thunder), you click on the 3 dots next to the upvote arrow, choose instance and then block instance.

            • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              8
              ·
              7 months ago

              ML is a lot better than Hexbear and Lemmygrad. There are certainly some tankies in there such as the user above but if you visit their communities its mostly just lefties.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                6
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                7 months ago

                ML is a lot better than Hexbear and Lemmygrad.

                On one hand, yes.

                On the other hand, that’s a low bar.

                • Linkerbaan@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  7 months ago

                  I’d argue the .ml stance on the israeli Genocide on Gaza and non censorship of articles debunking Hasbara was a lot more correct than the .world one especially at the start of the Genocide. Even now only mainstream Western outlets are condoned no matter how well sourced articles are.

                  If the user above posted the same take on .ml he wouldn’t be showered in updoots either. There sure are some outlier users but .ml and Hexbear/Lemmygrad are completely incomparable.

                  I can go to .ml right now and see comments like these, just the most insane tankie takes!!:

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        110
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        8 months ago

        Atrocity denial is not welcome here, and neither are the people who engage in it.

        • workerONE@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          20
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          8 months ago

          I agree but I think it’s too bad that someone needs to choose between deleting a comment to stop the spread of lies and propaganda and the other option of leaving it in place so people can see it. I think it’s helpful to see that people like this exist, it helps you understand why people are opposed to these types of people and who is being called a tankie in a negative way.

        • Melkath@kbin.social
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          95
          ·
          8 months ago

          Says the dude who habitually justifies American involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people.

          BeCaUsE tRuMp!

          • PugJesus@kbin.socialM
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            60
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            8 months ago

            Here I thought I was condemning it as unambiguously a genocide and advocating for the complete removal of military aid from Israel. Silly me. I’m glad you’re here to correct me on what I believe.

          • Victor@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            8 months ago

            Dude why are you digging your grave deeper like this? You are losing your cool and looking a fool. When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. Shall I go on? No, I shan’t.

      • GrymEdm@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        70
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        8 months ago

        Even the Chinese government says a couple hundred civilians died. “At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government said 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died. Other estimates have ranged from hundreds to many thousands. In 2017, newly released UK documents revealed that a diplomatic cable from then British Ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald, had said that 10,000 had died.”

        I honestly don’t know what your goal is with that post but I choose to believe the many sources (Chinese and international) that show a different history than what you’d have me believe. At least hundreds died with thousands more injured, and that’s the low end of the estimates.

        • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          17
          arrow-down
          9
          ·
          8 months ago

          .ml is a shit hole instance. Everyone rightfully ridiculing this post risks getting preemptively banned on ml because their dipshit tankie mods are that soft.

      • Alteon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        33
        arrow-down
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Hey! You’re the same AH trying to get people to not vote Biden, because you’re such an enlightened Democrat. Didn’t take long for your true colors to start showing lol. Western narratives lol… Okay.

        Still not sure if your a Russian/Chinese national trying to act like an American, a piss poor troll, or just a truly uneducated bigot. What next mate, you want to start denying the Holocaust was real? 😂

  • HollandJim@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    126
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Thanks for this. China keeps trying to wipe away this event by having any image deleted. It needs to be reposted and seen often.

    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      8 months ago

      Ya know I dont know if thats legit NSFL or if im just that desensitized to war photos. Maybe giving 12 year old me a book on the civil war that included post battle photos and sections from a contemporary medical book with photos from the mangled corpses wasnt the wisest move by my grandmother. But ya know what those photos do invoke within me absolute fucken rage.

    • Gabu@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      Yeah, those horrible AI image generators of the late 80s look like garbage - most photos don’t even have colour! /s

  • bdonvrA
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    It’s pretty amazing how they let that guy just harass a tank for several minutes and even climb on it, then just kinda let him be led away by bystanders.

    For some reason growing up I think everyone assumed he got ran over or killed?

    https://youtu.be/qq8zFLIftGk

    • DessertStorms@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      68
      arrow-down
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      For some reason growing up I think everyone assumed he got ran over or killed?

      Because hundreds if not thousands of others were (others have already linked the graphic content).

      Also, seeing him being led away in this footage is zero evidence that he survived his protest (unsurprisingly, there is no documentation of him or what the government did to him, but considering what they did to others like him, there is very little room to doubt that he didn’t make it).

      • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        arrow-down
        43
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        I’ll play devil’s advocate - the photographs don’t seem to show evidence of thousands dying, or even hundreds necessarily. Dozens, absolutely. I doubt we’ll ever know the actual numbers, though. Clearly something awful happened.

        Edit: I mean, they really don’t… and if they “only” ran over fifty civilians with tanks I think we can still consider that an unforgivable example of state violence. It’s not as if the Kent State shootings were okay because they only killed four people.

        I’m just saying, I don’t feel the photographic record is a particularly robust source when it comes to supporting those higher claims. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way, just that the pictures are inadequate to prove that.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          18
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          8 months ago

          I’ll play devil’s advocate

          Devil’s one of the most powerful countries in the world, with people on this platform regularly repeating its propaganda, including in this thread.

          Not sure the devil needs an advocate in this case.

          • Syrc@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            It always does, imo. Most of the time devil’s advocate isn’t meant to actually “defend” anything, but to find flaws/imperfections in your logic so you can adjust it and when you have to argue with an actual Xi bootlicker “devil”, they’ll have less ammo to refute your point.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.worldM
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              It always does, imo.

              Not always. Sometimes it’s just amplifying the devil’s arguments by repetition. Time and place, and all that jazz.

            • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              7 months ago

              The initial exaggeration was probably unintentional, due to second-hand eyewitness testimony getting relayed as fact in the middle of the chaos. But it was later used to pretend nothing happened, which clearly isn’t the case. My girlfriend is Chinese and has no idea anything ever happened in Tiananmen Square: she didn’t even know that date was censored online, so whatever they’re doing is working very well.

        • Gabu@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          7 months ago

          There are photos of dozens dead and tossed to the side like a garbage bag, both on the streets and in hospitals. Do you seriously think that’s the sort of thing which happens when only a few people died?

          • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            I don’t claim a strong position. I suppose if I had to say, I believe the estimates of between 2-800 dead, mostly in the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square, with a dozen or so police lynchings amongst that number. But it would be weird for me to be overly attached to that as an opinion, as the evidence is unclear. I think Beijing hospital records suggest about 400, so that seems like a safe lower estimate.

            • Gabu@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              I think Beijing hospital records suggest about 400

              That’d be the 400 they managed to find with their bodies in a good enough condition to identify. Have you seen the literal human paste?

              • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                5
                ·
                7 months ago

                Yes, it’s a reasonable minimum estimate. What is it that you’re disagreeing with? I’ve certainly seen all the pictures. But have a read about the declassified diplomatic cables, it’s interesting. Notably, the mountains of flesh being burned with flamethrowers probably didn’t happen. I have no stake in that, it’s the current position held by the US Government. What happened is still monstrous.

  • 1371113@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    30
    ·
    8 months ago

    This was the photo in my local newspaper when it happened. Source: local paper boy. (Was greyscale)

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    8 months ago

    I’ve seen lots of pictures of Hong Kong protests, and hear about rent protests in Beijing, but haven’t seen many photos like this in Beijing proper in the 21st century. Are they that good at scrubbing the web, or did I just miss them?

    • max_adam@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      China’s internet is isolated from the rest of the world. We would be looking at a lot of content created from china if it wasn’t like that.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        I think they’re saying that, in the 21st century they haven’t seen many pictures of the event. Not that they haven’t seen pictures from the 21st century.

  • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    7 months ago

    All of those tanks are just on patriotic vacation. There is no other reason for them to be there.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    That’s odd, because that’s the photo I immediately think of when the massacre is brought up. I thought it was really well-known.

        • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          7 months ago

          Except that this photo is way more zoomed in. A photograph of a house from above is not the same as a photograph of earth from space, even though the angle might be the same.

          • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            Didn’t say the photo was the same, only said the angle is almost identical, which it is.

            • HopFlop@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              7 months ago

              Even so, t’s off by at least some 45°. This picture was taken from way higher up (compare the position of the white lights in the pictures) and more to the left (see the ratio of the tanks side and front).

              • JargonWagon@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                7 months ago

                45° is a huge exaggeration. Yes, slightly higher up and slightly to the left, an angle that’s almost identical to the one OP posted, as I’ve been saying.