blunomore
Honorary Master
http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=1009580
Twenty years ago this week an unknown man defied a giant.
Outside China he is known simply as Tank Man. Inside the country he is not known at all.
No trace is to be found of the young man armed only with shopping bags who 20 years ago blocked a column of tanks rolling through Beijing. His defiance became the defining image of the student demonstrations crushed by the People’s Liberation Army.
It was on the morning of June 5 1989 that he appeared from nowhere. A line of tanks began to pull out of Tiananmen Square and drove east along the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
A day earlier, the square had been cleared of students. The provocative plaster Goddess of Democracy statue had tumbled under the tracks of a tank. After seven weeks, the Communist Party was again in control of the plaza that symbolises the heart of its power. The broad road was empty of humanity before the fearsome display of force.
Suddenly a slight figure in a white shirt and black trousers, a shopping bag in each hand, dashed into the road and stood waiting as the tanks approached. The lead vehicle halted. It was a breathtaking standoff. The lone man stood firm. Would the tank run him down?
It moved right to go around him. The man waved the shopping bag in his right hand then danced a few steps to the left to block the tank again. The tank swerved to avoid him. The man waved the bag again and stepped to the right. Both halted. The tank even turned off its engine.
Then the man jumped onto the machine. He banged his fist on it and appeared to talk to the soldiers inside. After a few moments he clambered back to the ground and resumed his blocking position. The tank driver even opened the hatch, perhaps to talk.
Then a man on a bicycle darted out from the roadside. Two others followed on foot, hands in the air, rushing to hustle the unknown man out of harm’s way. He was never seen again.
It has become an image forever identified with the defiance displayed that spring by students and citizens demanding greater freedoms and more accountability from their government.
The identity of Tank Man remains a mystery. Did he vanish back into the crowd? Was he picked up by police and jailed? Even executed? Throughout the death-defying stand-off, none of the many cameras focused on him ever captured his face. Perhaps only the tank driver and passers-by who pulled him away saw his features.
The only official comment that China made came from the previous president, Jiang Zemin, in an interview in 1990 with Barbara Walters. Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “I can’t confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not.” He added in English: “I think never killed.”
Within days of the incident, the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin, 19. That identification is now regarded as almost certainly spurious.
Even the aggressive media in Hong Kong and Taiwan have failed to track him down.
If he were to come forward, he would end one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. But doing so might diminish the power of his courageous act: an Everyman who chose to show indomitable spirit in the face of the tyranny of dictatorship. — © The Times, London
Twenty years ago this week an unknown man defied a giant.
Outside China he is known simply as Tank Man. Inside the country he is not known at all.
No trace is to be found of the young man armed only with shopping bags who 20 years ago blocked a column of tanks rolling through Beijing. His defiance became the defining image of the student demonstrations crushed by the People’s Liberation Army.
It was on the morning of June 5 1989 that he appeared from nowhere. A line of tanks began to pull out of Tiananmen Square and drove east along the Avenue of Eternal Peace.
A day earlier, the square had been cleared of students. The provocative plaster Goddess of Democracy statue had tumbled under the tracks of a tank. After seven weeks, the Communist Party was again in control of the plaza that symbolises the heart of its power. The broad road was empty of humanity before the fearsome display of force.
Suddenly a slight figure in a white shirt and black trousers, a shopping bag in each hand, dashed into the road and stood waiting as the tanks approached. The lead vehicle halted. It was a breathtaking standoff. The lone man stood firm. Would the tank run him down?
It moved right to go around him. The man waved the shopping bag in his right hand then danced a few steps to the left to block the tank again. The tank swerved to avoid him. The man waved the bag again and stepped to the right. Both halted. The tank even turned off its engine.
Then the man jumped onto the machine. He banged his fist on it and appeared to talk to the soldiers inside. After a few moments he clambered back to the ground and resumed his blocking position. The tank driver even opened the hatch, perhaps to talk.
Then a man on a bicycle darted out from the roadside. Two others followed on foot, hands in the air, rushing to hustle the unknown man out of harm’s way. He was never seen again.
It has become an image forever identified with the defiance displayed that spring by students and citizens demanding greater freedoms and more accountability from their government.
The identity of Tank Man remains a mystery. Did he vanish back into the crowd? Was he picked up by police and jailed? Even executed? Throughout the death-defying stand-off, none of the many cameras focused on him ever captured his face. Perhaps only the tank driver and passers-by who pulled him away saw his features.
The only official comment that China made came from the previous president, Jiang Zemin, in an interview in 1990 with Barbara Walters. Speaking through an interpreter, he said: “I can’t confirm whether this young man you mentioned was arrested or not.” He added in English: “I think never killed.”
Within days of the incident, the Sunday Express named him as Wang Weilin, 19. That identification is now regarded as almost certainly spurious.
Even the aggressive media in Hong Kong and Taiwan have failed to track him down.
If he were to come forward, he would end one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 20th century. But doing so might diminish the power of his courageous act: an Everyman who chose to show indomitable spirit in the face of the tyranny of dictatorship. — © The Times, London
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