Tiananmen: 20 years on still a bleeding wound

Today Wuer Kaixi is 41 years old: twenty years ago, together with the students Wang Dan and Chai Lin, he was one of the 3 most important leaders of the  protests, which involved at first Peking and later the whole country, and  were overwhelmed in a bloodshed by the Chinese army in June, 1989.

Wuer belongs to the uigur ethnic group (a 8 millions people coming from  vast Xinjiang, that wide part of central Asia now under the Chinese rule)  now  considered an “ethnical minority” in its own land. Uigurs follow a Sufi form of Islam, they have a western appearance and their language is strictly connected to Turkish. In fact, in the uigur language,  Wuer Kaixi  is  called Urkesh Devlet. During the weeks following the slaughter, he fled at first to France, where he co-founded the Federation for a Democratic China, then to the USA, where  he finished his studies. We interviewed him in Taiwan, where he lives now in exile with his wife and two children and is employed in the media

 

Recalling today the events of 20 years ago, mass protests involving millions of people in the whole China and ending so tragically, which are your presents thoughts?

I think it has been a crucial time in China history: a very touching time, a stirring. It has had a great impact on what happened thereafter in China.  We must not forget that amongst other things the students requested  freedom of speech and freedom of meeting, as well as  private property rights . Looking at present China, we can see that our political requests have been rejected, whereas all our economical requested have been granted. Furthermore, the Tian’anmen students requested that the Party should not interfere with people private lives. Toady all this is finished: everybody can choose their own work, where to live, with whom to marry…

 

However, it cannot be said that you obtained everything you requested…

No, but the recorded steps forwards are important and they started from our student movement. Shortly after the slaughter, from 1989 to 1992, the Chinese government turned the country into a police State.  It decided to reach a bad agreement with the population: in exchange for the political freedom we are not granting, we are prepared to grant you the economical freedom. I  call it a bad agreement, because both freedoms belong to the Chinese people by rights. Nevertheless, the Chinese people accepted it; thereafter, no other meaningful political protests had taken place.

 

What do you think presently  about the events  that occurred that night and during the following days? Which are your memories thereof?

It was a cruel action carried out by the Chinese government against the Chinese people. There are no other words for it. It was a slaughter: as well as all criminals hide their crimes, the Chinese government wants to hide the proof of the crimes it committed. Just like all totalitarian regimes, the authorities try to control people freedom of speech. Every hint to the truth threatens directly the State and their legitimacy. For this reason there is a very strong censorship. But presently things are less easy for them, there is Internet and outside media are more accessible. The dissidents, but also a lot of Chinese politically not involved, try to overwhelm this censorship, which is just an instrument  of a government very much afraid of the truth. The time will come for the Chinese people to know the truth about such events. Because nobody can stop the truth forever.

There were shells everywhere.  Blood was very real, so were fear and anger amongst people. The tanks…huge: It was terrible, dreadful.

 

How did you come out of China?

I cannot yet disclose all details, because I could still get  into trouble some people who helped me. I was one of the students coming out of the country through the so-called “Yellow Bird” operation, which used an inside network among our supporters, businessmen from Hong Kong and also some smugglers accustomed to smuggle illegal products into and from China.  I will never know if it was true or just a rumor, but I have been told by many that the official orders were to arrest Chia Ling and Wang Dan, but to kill the “uigur”. After arriving in Hong Kong, I left for Europe.

 

Do you manage, from abroad, to keep in contact with China and your family?

Presently it is more easy, there are communications means such as Skype or e-mails; I can phone, I try to do my best to communicate with inland towns. But it is difficult;  I had a blog but it was censored; I opened another, but  it was blocked in China as well.  I have not seen my parents for twenty years.  They live in Urumuqi, (county town of the wide Xinjiang district – Editor’s Note), but my family is the only one which cannot travel outside China: the families of the other dissidents could visit their exiled relatives. Maybe because they are uigurs …

 

Would you like to come back to China?

Of course I would! Together with other exiled dissidents belonging to the 1989 movement, we appealed to the Chinese government, asking for the permission to come home and we intend to appeal again this year, strongly. In the past I have been approached by people suggesting me to negotiate to be able to come back to China , but the conditions are unacceptable: they want me to publicly denounce the 1989 movement and to give information about some people connected thereto: I cannot do it.  I cannot betray their trust. Of course I want to come back to China, very much indeed, but only if I can keep unimpaired my dignity and my freedom.

 

Thinking about it presently,  would you do again what you did twenty years ago?

I do not regret what I did. I am proud to have been a part in a so important historical event. However, should I have known the result of it, could I have imagined, before  the repression, that the government would have shed so much blood, in such case no, I would have tried to avoid it: And if I had not been sure I could prevent the bloodshed, in such case no, I would have done nothing  of it.

 

What do you think about the present  young Chinese, so nationalist, ready to demonstrate in the streets against the West , but not to criticize the government?

Present leaders, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao,  the most boring China leaders, simply inherited their power from Jiang Zemin: they are neither soldiers nor revolutionaries, they have not been elected. They  even cannot claim the national economical success. To wrap themselves in legitimacy they can only wave the nationalism flag.  It is a real pity that it is so successful among some young people who seem to really believe that there is an enemy outside China and so they hit French shops such as Carrefour or American fast foods such as KFC. It is not proper, but it is encouraged by the powers. I think that often irrationality is an illness  of the society, also in democracies: but the difference is that  democracy bears the means to correct itself when  the electors suffer for the wrong choices. A totalitarian government cannot correct itself.  But  I feel that today more rational voices oppose  a bit to the nationalism;  when I read the Chinese chat rooms, I  feel that many people criticize  such virulent nationalism and  this seems to me a positive omen.

 

Many people, both in China and outside, today criticize your movement, they say you were  naïve and not responsible, you brought a state of chaos into Peking’s streets and that democracy could be a mistake for China.

I listen with humility to anyone saying we made mistakes and encouraging us to reflect. But most critics are not in good faith, they  want to cover us with mud,  they blame us instead of blaming who fired against us. It is understandable that someone in China fears democracy, because they  witnessed the Cultural Revolution’s devastation and they fear chaos. Their mistake  is to think that democracy  fatally leads to chaos… Democracies can be noisy, but  not chaotic. Look at Taiwan! It is noisy, but it is not chaotic: the Opposition does its job ( to criticize and to propose options),  who is in power defends his choices, media criticize or approve noisily in accordance with their orientation: It proves that in the Chinese culture there is nothing preventing a Chinese democratic system of government.

 

 

Translated by Bianca Pozzoli

 

Source:

www.missionline.org