Ding Zilin is the mother of Chiang Jielian, a 17-year-old student who was among the hundreds massacred in Tienanmen Square six years ago, on June 4, 1989. Chinese officials branded the pro-democracy protests "counter-revolutionary" and claimed that only 23 people died. In fact many more were murdered, mostly namelessly, and their families humiliated. Ding wants to have the officials' lies exposed, the dead's heroism honoured and hidden stories of the courageous protests unearthed. She started a survey on the massacred several years ago. A partial list of the dead was published last year, accompanied by a preface by Ding, printed below, abridged. The search continues.
Five years. At times it seems like yesterday. At times it seems as though it never happened. Whenever memories of my dead son return to haunt me, I pray for release, for a sudden affliction of amnesia to erase those nightmares.
There are days of splendid sunshine, breathtaking skies. The streets of Beijing are humming with purposeful pedestrians and traffic. Children are playing their games underneath the multi-storey buildings. Complacent officials appear on TV, followed by images about this peaceful time. I could almost be convinced that a hair-raising, bloody massacre had never taken place here! Yes, the blood-splattered streets have been paved over by a new concrete — brand-named "economic progress".
"Let bygones be bygones", Communist Party Chairman Jiang Zemin told reporters last year when he met the president of the United States in Seattle. What a casual throwaway remark! He said it as if he was talking about something that took place in the distant past.
The people also seem to have acquired a different mind set. Some idealistic youths from five years ago are now millionaires. Some hang out in cabarets, luxuriating in the comforts of the present, convinced that the world exists only for them. Of course, some have survived in discomfort, feeling frustrated, hemmed in.
My friends, did it ever occur to you that some of your peers and associates were removed from among you five years ago? This world should also exist, inalienably, for them.
That's why I am determined to track down the June 4 victims. I don't want those victims to die an anonymous death in unknown circumstances. I also don't want the victims' surviving parents, wives and children to suffer mistreatment and humiliation anonymously.
In the summer of 1991, I was interviewed by ABC, the American network, during which I condemned the Chinese government's bloody suppression of civilians, denounced the lies about the June 4 incident told by [China's Premier] Li Peng and called on the international community to express concern over the fate of the victims' families. As a consequence, my party membership was struck off and my position as supervisor to graduate students cancelled.
In June of 1993, I was barred from attending the meeting of the United Nations human rights subcommittee, despite a formal invitation. However, I sent in a written statement to highlight the four-year-ordeal of the June 4 survivors. Since then, my friends and I have conducted a more extensive search. The enthusiastic response from individuals overseas, Chinese organisations, as well as international humanitarian and human rights groups, makes me feel better about the task. Without their moral and financial support, our work cannot be continued.
Now there are some self-proclaimed "elites" who've begun to impugn the 1989 movement. After so much bloodshed, so many deaths, they're not levelling their accusations at the killers; instead the 1989 movement was denounced for obstructing the so-called "progress in opening up toward reform". Some pronounce that every small advance in history has to exact tremendous costs, including famine, massacre and death.
However, our country's progress in opening up and reform — so as to get out from under the shadows of poverty and backwardness — is not a gift from our rulers. It is actually a process that reflects the demands of China's laobaixing [common people]. Does it mean that fulfilling such demands would require a bloody sacrifice from them? Such a "theory" vainly attempts to justify not only the killings, but also the cowardice and disloyalty of those "elites" when confronted with the killings.
I also would like to address the democratic leaders in exile. My dead son, who was only 17 years old, threw in his lot because of his ideals for democracy and liberty. I condemned the government's bloody crackdown. And I wouldn't put up with any impugning of the democratic movement even though the participants might have made countless strategic mistakes. But I would like you to know, if you are serious about historical consequences, then you should face up to the consequences the movement unleashed five years ago.
I don't expect the aggressors to avow their guilt. But I do expect the leaders and initiators of the movement to shoulder the moral responsibility of the suffering they brought on the people because of that movement.
I'm quoting from a letter sent to me by an overseas student. "By chance I met some 'heroes' from those days. They are still boasting about their great deeds and their plans of writing memoirs. With due respect for the epic of the 'heroes', I don't think we can afford to forget those anonymous laobaixing. What a great people you're talking about. When you marched, they came to cheer. When you fasted, they brought in drinks and rice. When the troops came, they blocked their advance. When the troops opened fire, they shielded you with their bodies. After you ran, they were there to face the consequence — to get beaten up, to get thrown into jail, to get killed."
He has pointed out an undeniable fact — most of those killed and injured in the June 4 crackdown are ordinary students and citizens.
The student who wrote that letter left for the United States two years ago. He is himself a June 4 victim, with one of his legs taken away by bullets of the troops. He paid dearly for what he believed in and has now assumed the responsibility of assisting the June 4 survivors. That's really admirable. Let's hope that money, fame and power cannot smother the human conscience or corrupt our memories of those who defended the 1989 movement with their blood and lives.
After my son's death on Chang'an Avenue, several times I hovered between life and death myself. Somehow it became clear to me that my son died for the future of China, and the only choice left for me is to live for the future of China. That's why I bandaged my wound, dried my eyes, knocking on one door after another to visit the survivors, the victims' families, and tried my best to reveal to the world every story, steeped in tears and blood, that I unearthed along the way. May the souls of the deceased find an early and peaceful rest.