Please hear me out.

Lately there has been a lot of fighting regarding the infamous June Fourth Incident. Lefties make it appear as though all of it is a fabrication, while liberals dismiss all of it as CPC propaganda. Very few seem willing to engage in any meaningful discussion, as they feel like their ideology is under attack by a hopelessly brainwashed political opponent.

While there certainly are many uncertainties regarding the event, I’d say much of the disagreements are quite needless. While there definitely were hundreds of civilian deaths that night and morning, scholars tend to agree that very few (if any) died on the square itself. The square seems to have been peacefully evacuated, and most of the deaths seem to have happened in dispersed conflicts between violent protestors and law enforcers, and on Changan Jie as people tried to reënter the square. It is also worth noting that a lot of (non-student) protestors were very violent against the law enforcers, killing several and severely injuring many others.

While the events and the government’s heavy censorship on the topic are still not justified, it is very different from the story of tanks rolling into the square, mercilessly killing many thousands of peaceful student protestors. The few witness accounts that did tell such stories were very quickly picked up by western media despite often being disproven, and although many news agencies later corrected themselves, this version wad the one that caught on with the public.

A read on the Wikipedia page may clear up the biggest misconceptions. Also check out these articles by the Columbia Journalism Review and CBS News, both of which would definitely not like to render the CPC favourably.

The lefties are actually not trying to say much more than this. If you pay attention, you see thay they always say that specifically the “Tiananmen Square Massacre” is myth. Of course they also have things to say about the nature of the protestors and other context, but ultimately most of their views are quite nuanced. It is just because of their dislike for brainwashed liberals that they appear so confrontational, which in turn discourages liberals from having a listen, exacerbating the estrangement and preventing any productive discussion, ultimately causing more people to have a narrow point of view.

I suppose my main message is that one should be a bit more open minded and that a lot of disagreement just stems from misunderstanding due to unnecessaty hostility. To be fair, I have been pleasantly surprised by the general open-mindedness here on Lemmy. I salute everybody that has the courage to admit that they are wrong.

    • ttmrichter@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Because truth matters. I know that’s a radical thought, but it remains true. The truth matters. If you say there were students massacred in Tiananmen Square in 1989, you’re saying things that are untrue. You’re not only spreading a lie, you’re also erasing the people who actually suffered under the thumb of the tyrannical authorities. Not to mention what spreading lies does to credibility.

      Consider, for example, the plight of westerners who try to come to China and teach the locals a “better way”. They mention the “slaughter of students” and get blank incomprehension. Their credibility is blown, their message falls on deaf ears, and they make life harder even for those who aren’t ignoramuses because now “westerners just make shit up”.

      And if you can’t see a difference between nationwide protests viewed as a literal existential threat to a tyrannical state and a bunch of cute kids cosplaying democracy advocates in terms of perceived threat and response, well, I really don’t know how to explain this to you. So let’s just stick with “truth matters”. Though I’m going to predict even that falls on deaf ears because you’d much rather believe the bullshit that doesn’t challenge what you think you know than change your worldview.

      Truth is, after all, not the American Way.