A moment in history

By posting this it’s likely that my site will be blocked in China, which strikes me as slightly funny and a little sad.

Twenty years ago I was ten years old and living in New Mexico. I’d just finished fifth grade and already knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to learn all I could. I wanted to be a teacher. And I had no doubts that any of that would be impossible.

There are moments in history that remain with us. While I’m not old enough to remember Neil Armstrong standing on the moon, there are other moments that are part of my memory.

Twenty years ago today is one of those moments. It was on June 4, 1989, that the massacre of Tiananmen Square happened.

I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but I remember watching the news footage that made it out. I remember the picture of the man in front of the tanks. I remember hearing that it was mostly students, college students, that were being killed. I couldn’t understand a country where people could not say what they wanted to say, study what they wanted to study, and be what they wanted to be.

China has made progress in the last twenty years, but the reports of the tightened security this week, including the blocking of large portions of the internet and stopping any commemorations (Flowers laid for Tiananmen Square; Tiananmen in anniversary lockdown; Tiananmen 20th anniversary brings new repression; Censorship on Tiananmen anniversary cripples Chinese net; To shut off Tiananmen talk, China disrupts sites), reveals just how much further they have to go.