Has the Torch of the June Fourth Movement Blown Out?

By Chen Kuide
June 4, /2004

 Has the Torch Blown Out?

 Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the June Fourth Movement.

According to reports, this event that took place in Beijing and took the whole world by surprise 15 years ago is little known among today's students, who are indifferent to what happened and do not want to ask about it.

This brings to my mind a poem written by Lu Xun over eighty years ago, when the roaring tide of the May Fourth Movement ebbed, and the streets resumed their usual clamor, but life fell into deeper desolation and literary circles receded into wintry silence:

Our new literary garden
     in forlorn silence placed,
The old battlegrounds,
     with tranquil calm are graced.
Somewhere ‘twixt the two,
    a lone foot soldier standing by,
Shoulders his halberd
     wandering the earth and sky.

Teeming with lonely desperation, the poem vividly depicts the situation at that time, when the vigorous political movement had faded into a thread of passing smoke and would soon drift into oblivion. Many former activists, who now felt “more mature” after years of reflection, were seized with remorse and their faces would redden at the mention of what they had done in their younger days. They busied themselves with earning money and making a living. “To hell with state affairs!” they would say.

This is quite similar to what happened after the June Fourth Movement.

In fact, the June Fourth Movement has received even more of the cold shoulder than the May Fourth Movement. The central government over eighty years ago did not deprive the people of their right of speech, and did not forbid the expression of public opinion regarding the May Fourth Movement. But today, the central government treats June Fourth as a scourge of savage beasts, and takes every possible measure to remove it from public discourse. It plots a systematic policy of brainwashing for the younger generation, and tightens its grip on all channels of information, all in a desperate attempt to wipe out all traces of history. When its attempts fail in some cases, it resorts to the concealment of facts with lies. Its only intention is to brainwash the “New Generation”, thus creating a buffer against the June Fourth Movement, for the purpose of removing the event from history.

Without doubt, Beijing's policies have been partially successful.

Therefore, a question is brought before us, one that leaves us trembling with fear --

Has the torch of June Fourth been extinguished? Have we lost any hope of handing the torch of June Fourth down to a new generation?

The Sons of June Fourth

 No! Over the vast land soaked with blood and tears rings a voice of youth and vigor --

“In our hearts they (the Tiananmen Mothers) are not only mothers of the June Fourth martyrs, but also mothers of the generations before and after the June Fourth Movement, mothers of this nation that is tortured by political abuse. We therefore declare upon solemn oath that we are the sons of the Tiananmen Mothers. We feel guilty for our silence and indifference when they suffered, and we are willing to protest against the government persistently for its persecution of these mothers, with our tears, pens, human conscience and even our lives.” -- This is a public voice of Yu Jie and Wang Yi, champions of the young scholars of the Post-1989 Generation.

“No matter whether it is for liberation or for self-salvation, we appeal for starting again from that early morning. “Returning to June Fourth” shall be the real starting point for  China’s public politics... Though fifteen years have passed, we, the generation who witnessed death or even chose death in 1989, still feel the warm blood as if it was shed just this morning. To be or not to be is still a question.  As the fifteenth anniversary of the June Fourth Movement approaches, we make this joint declaration for liberation and self-salvation.” -- This is the declaration issued by Ren Bumei, Yu Shicun, and Pu Zhiqiang, and others, representatives of the “1989 Generation”.

............

In fact, the voice of righteousness has never ceased in the past 15 years. Documents and files related to June Fourth have been smuggled out of China and have been put into publications for the world to see; oral and written condemnations of the bloody massacre have been heard or seen without end and have brought tears to many audiences. Braving threats, the Tiananmen Mothers, against great pressure, rose up from the earth that is soaked with the blood of their children to investigate the truth, charge those who had committed wrongdoings and seek justice. Dr. Jiang Yanyong, who saved thousands of lives by exposing the truth when SARS raged through China a year ago, stood up again at risk to his life to appeal for the rectification of the government’s handling of the

June Fourth Movement, to expose the crimes that took place there and demand the rightful honor of the innocent dead. To our great comfort, not a few young scholars of the 1989 Generation or later generations stood up with overwhelming courage and indignant voices. They proudly call themselves the “sons of June Fourth” and the “sons of the Tiananmen Mothers”, and assert that June Fourth had a great influence on their development.

Perhaps the sons of June Fourth cannot be said to be large in number. But history has proven that it does not matter if only a small number of intellectual successors exist. The difference between 1: 0 and 1,000,000,000: 0 is essentially the same when measured by the significance of intellectual succession. Once the spiritual value is passed on, it will cast its light upon every inch of the land, drawing unending numbers of people from all corners of the earth.

As stated above, in the years after the May Fourth Movement, China was paralyzed by dejection and downheartedness because of the desperation of the intellectual world. There remained only a very few people who still considered themselves successors of the movement. However, with the passage of time, the May Fourth Movement has played an increasingly important role in the history of the 20th century. From a long-term, historical perspective, three types of ideology that are closely connected to China’s fate, whether in a positive or negative way, originated in the May Fourth Movement, namely nationalism, liberalism and Marxism. And as if handled by a magic hand, all of the significant events in the 20th century can be traced back to this movement. Most parties and schools of thought in today’s China claim to be its successors, as if in fear of the denial of their identities if they are not. However, the historical memory of this movement is not clear-cut; it varies in different periods of time and is evaluated with different measures by different people. This is probably the only reason why the May Fourth Movement has been entered into the annals of history.

Without doubt, unlike the May Fourth Movement, the June Fourth Movement has not yet been authorized to be part of Chinas history. To make things worse, many people are in constant fear for of being connected to involvement in it. However, as mentioned above, there have been both young and old people who have asserted themselves as the successors to and guardians of June Fourth. Meanwhile, I have noticed that not all who take an interest in this movement are liberal intellectuals; quite a few are from other schools of thought, such as Wang Hui, who is of the New Left Wing (or Liberal Left Wing, as it labels itself). In an essay of a considerable length, Wang labels the 1989 movement as a leftist movement, and he places it in the leftist system of discourse. This is a phenomenon of remarkable significance, which implies, no matter what the will of the present authorities is and no matter how hard they try to quarantine the event, that the June Fourth Movement will inevitably become a public spiritual heritage of modern China and will thereby merge into the long river of Chinese history.

Therefore, I venture to foretell the fate of the June Fourth Movement.

I once gave my basic evaluation of June Fourth, which remains unchanged, and which I wish to hereby use to commemorate the 15 th anniversary of June Fourth.

“There is no need to 'search the heavens above and Hell below' for the purpose of rescuing the spirit of Chinese civilization. What we need to do is to take action right now to restore the memory of the June Fourth Movement, to mourn those who died in the massacre and to redress the injustice inflicted upon the innocent. June Fourth is a cross borne by China, a cross that Chinese people must carry. Only when this cross, which is stained with the blood of the June Fourth martyrs, towers above us in the spiritual heaven of the Chinese people, will there come the chance for China to escape from disaster and win its final salvation.”

Sooner or later, the fiery lava within the earth will spew out of the crater, billowing like the wild sea and bringing new features to the landscape. First, there will be the judgment as justice descends, and then the feast of pacification for the entire people.

The fifteenth anniversary has arrived. The bell has begun to toll. The last judgment is right around the corner.

(Many thanks go to Wang Yi, a young scholar in China, whose words over the radio about his spiritual development gave me much inspiration in the writing of this article.)

Last Updated: June 14, 2004