In the weeks leading up to 4th of June annually, Chinese authorities are placed on the highest alert. In a country where internet users alone surpass and dwarf the entire population of America, the Great Firewall of China is activated, and search keywords like “Tiananmen” or “Tank Man” yield no result. A blackout is obtruded on some international media outlets and they were taken off-air for 24 hours in an audacious bid to deny the factual events of what transpired on that fateful day.
Every 4th of June marks the brutal suppression and aggressive removal of protestors at Tiananmen Square by the Chinese military in 1989.
Beijingers arose to an untypical morning unlike any other. At the break of dawn, there was prevalent bloodshed and abominable carnage as blood of the innocents and fallen were splattered in the vicinity of the Square. The streets were littered with lifeless bodies of unarmed demonstrators, exacerbated by the intolerable foulness of decomposing corpses in the stale air. Hospitals were overrun and inundated by the mammoth number of wounded casualties.
Retreating demonstrators were overwhelmed by a sense of unspeakable defeat while the Chinese government emerged victorious in their successful clampdown and subsequent indictment of those who were involved in the demonstration.
Twenty-five years on, the Chinese government is still vehemently rejecting the protests of 1989 and categorically censoring the ensuing military clampdown. However, with the explosion of social media and proliferation of the internet and mass media, China’s desperate efforts of whitewashing, masking and disguising the truth have failed to gain fruition or accomplishment worldwide as it struggles to mythify the “fallacious” events among the mainland Chinese population.
The Tiananmen incident led me to think about our own past incidents in Singapore, namely, Operation Coldstore and Operation Spectrum.
In Operation Coldstore launched on 2 February 1963, at least 111 activists were detained without trial, including key members of the opposition political party Barisan Sosialis. Others who were arrested included newspaper editors, trade unionists and university students. They were accused to be communists intending to “overthrow” the government through violent means.
In Operation Spectrum, also known as the 1987 “Marxist Conspiracy”, it took place on 21 May 1987. 22 people were detained without trial for their alleged involvement to “overthrow” the government and setup a “Marxist state”. The people arrested were a mix of Catholic workers, social workers, overseas-educated graduates, theatre practitioners and professionals.
If these people were really as “violent” or as “seditious” as what the government said, the government should charge them in an open court and provide the evidence to back up its claim so that Singaporeans can finally know the truth.
If not, I think the government really owes them an apology. In this case I think the government should apologise, pay the necessary compensations and close these unfortunate chapters so that the country can move on.
Attempting to whitewash history like what the Chinese government is currently trying to do is doomed to fail especially in this Internet age.
DK