“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Students of colonially oppressed and poorer countries have a proud history, a history of standing against the oppressors without fear and leading the way for freedom and sacrificing lives. And today we’re going to look at some of the examples where student protests have paved the way for independence but more importantly, one specific example, where the sacrifice was not fruitful, and backfired to such a point that the incident struck fear among an entire population.
The quote from Gandhi rained true for achieving independence of India and Pakistan, it was the students who were politically active and marching on with signs and putting pressure on the British oppressors to give them their demands. The same was true for South Africa, Cuba as well as China in 1949. The same revolution that led to the communists taking power in China in 1949. From 1949 China’s economy went from extreme poverty to having a relatively healthy middle class in the 1980s. The communist ideology was hurting the modern economy and freedom of expression was a huge factor in the world. Free markets provided voices to more and more people and made them more prosperous. Students also in China were fed up with corruption and propaganda, they wanted freedom of speech, rights, and press. They wanted to be like the West.
At that very moment The Soviet Union was hurting, countries of the Soviet bloc were revolting left and right, and Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to loosen up the grip of suppression but it was proving to be worse. Seeing the grips of oppression being loosened, students from the University of Beijing took to the streets to fight for their rights also, the government wasn’t hostile at first but was growing impatient day by day. In 1989 people from all walks of life. Finally, on the day of the visit of a delegation from the Soviet Union, the students decided to gather around the city center which already had the military stationed to stop any gathering, the military forces at first were not aggressive and they didn’t want to launch an attack on their people. Rumor has it that the army leadership was divided, but at midnight, the patience ran out and military vehicles and ammunition were fired upon the citizens of China by the Chinese military from the orders from the Chinese government. In modern history the phenomenon of mass killing of your citizens is rare, it was like Niro came back to kill the people of Rome for his liking, but the communist party of China saw this as a necessary measure for the party to establish its root deep inside the nation’s foundation.
Communism as a rigid ideology failed everywhere except China. What China did was adapt. Adapted to the capitalist free markets, adapted to the desire for free expression through brutality. And this brutality was enough for citizens to accept sponsorships, and look away from politics as it was a point of fear. China has a history dating back thousands of years. The culture invented gunpowder, paper money, and a way to destroy the desire for political freedom.
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Writer
Nazmul Haque Parthib
Intern
Content Writing Department
YSSE