Democracy (Beijing Massacre)

On the 4th June 1989 there was a protest in Beijing, China that lead to military action and the "massacre" of  many of these civilians. This is a post about how we use technology to uncover dark events from the past and discover the truth. The website Wikileakes stumbled across and released exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, documents and information of the events that took place the morning of June 4th 1989 that were the opposite of accounts documented by the Chinese Government. The Cables which were the documents found by Wikileaks stated "10,000 to 15,000 helmeted armed troops moving into the city, some of whom were carrying automatic weapons." I think this is conveyed that Chinese military soldiers were armed with the intention of opening fire on these demostrators and willing to show no mercy for their actions.

The BBC from a broadcasting perspective would argue that it was in Tiananmen Square where most of the violent shootings and rioting happened and that most of the protestors "were naive about the savagery of the situation" As technology has progressed over time we use more visual mediums as evidence of an event and the video I watched showed footage of the anarchy in the square and the sounds of rapid gunfire. Visually it gives you the experience of what it was like so in that respect technology has given us access to parts of the story but as seen by Wikileaks most did not know what fully happened.


The Beijing massacre is a contraversial subject as China was and is a communist country therefore most if not all political and environmental decisions made are up to the government. This means that what you saw and heard through media sources for example  radio, television, newspapers e.c.t had to be  taken as the account of what actually happened. One man that had spoken about the massacre was a former BBC correspondent in Beijing James Miles who said in 2009, 20 years after the massacre that "He had conveyed the wrong impression" "Protestors who were still in the square when the army reached it were allowed to leave after negotiations with martial law troops [ . . . ] there was no massacre on Tiananmen Square but there was a Beijing massacre." it seems as though different accounts have been made and with the use of technology you can backtrack events to compare stories to interpret your own views on what happened.This means that technology has broadened our perspectives on certain  political subjects as we have a variety to look at more than what we would have seen over 20 years ago.

References:

Moore, M  4/6/11 (8:00 am  BST) Wikileaks: no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square, cables claim
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html
Date Accessed: 20/11/12

taozhuo 17/11/06 BBC News -  June 4 1989, Tiananmen Square Massacre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJBnHMpHGRY
Date Accessed: 25/11/12