On the 25th Anniversary of June 4, Tiananmen Square

The moment is etched indelibly in my mind.  I was still at Georgia Tech, undergoing my baptism by fire as a gradual student. I was four years away from graduating. It was the beginning of the usual pollen infested Atlanta Summer, but I felt comfortable if a bit warm and humid as I watched the students, kids my age or younger, in Tiananmen Square on the verge of changing my native land, a land that I had never set foot in.  It would be twelve years before I would set foot in China.

We were all sitting mesmerized by our television screens, all tuned into CNN, back when CNN was relevant and in the vanguard of television journalism.  I remember following every word coming out of Mike Chinoy's mouth, studiously tracking the comings and goings of the students as they congregated around the Gorbachev visit to China.  We cheered for the sheer audacity - back when audacity meant something, before it became a slogan - of the students, and the pure chutzpah of the student leaders as they dictated their demands to their elders, who we knew could crush them like a bug, like they were wont to do later. We followed the troop movement rumors as if they were celebrity gossip, we marveled at the lack of sanitary conditions, and we dreamed of democracy for China.  Deep in my still idealistic heart, was the remotest hope that my people, a people so inherently focused on survival that we had, throughout our history, gladly traded self determination for stability.  A Chinese historian had likened us to sand, forever loose, selfish  and individualistic and never cooperative, unified, or powerful.

But we were hopeful, hopeful that this was the turning point, hopeful that this was going to be our moment in history, hopeful that the Chinese dragon was about to arise out of the ooze of political corruption, so emblematic of our governments, both dynastic and authoritarian. In hindsight, we were so naive, so fooled by our hearts that we actually believed that sincerity and good will was enough to overturn centuries of patrician oligarchy.  We innocently were convinced that the outpouring of pure patriotism and passion would convince the skeptical and cynical old people that the young knew the way, and they would lead the people to the promised land.  While we all knew, whether we admit it or not, that this was not going to end well.

As the situation dragged on, we were more and more hopeful.  When reports came that the Beijing police and troops refused to move on their own blood, we were elated and lulled into dreaming of a democratic future.  We went to bed that night with visions of a strong and democratic China dancing in our minds.

I remember that Sunday, I had gotten up late and was late getting to a lunch date with some friends.  We were going to Hong Kong harbor, a dim sum joint on Cheshire Bridge Road, one of my favorites.  I arrived and the people at the table were speaking in whispers, some were crying.  I had no idea, but they told me.  I don't remember if the restaurant had the televison on or not, but I just remembered feeling slightly numb and surreal, I did not accept the stories my friends had told me.  My mind was so wired to the belief that it wasn't real unless I saw it on TV, preferably CNN.

We all met up in Emory University, where a spontaneous gathering had happened.  I couldn't tell you which building we went to, but I do remember people wearing white headbands with defiantly angry Chinese calligraphy slashing in all its fury on the white backgrounds.  White is the color of mourning in China, so it was both a protest and a mourning.  There was confusion about how many had died, there was confusion about the timeline, we held on to the slim belief that the attacks came from a renegade Chinese army unit, that the oligarchs dared not eat their own young.  We were so wrong.

I remember angry speeches, sad speeches, sobs and shouts.  There was a TV and CNN was on, that was where reality struck us all in the face.  I remember standing up and being pushed forward by my friends to the podium. I said my piece, incoherently, sobbing at times, screaming at times. I left that stage and I went home.  I sat glued to the television, calling my parents,calling my friends, trying to make sense of it all.  In the days that followed, I joined the Chinese students on campus and in the greater Atlanta area, forging bonds with people who had considered me to be too American to be Chinese, and me considering them too Chinese to be American.  For a short period of time, we bonded in our common grief.

We wept at the vision of the lone man confronting the tank and wondered if we could be that brave and that foolish at the same time.  We speculated about the man's identity, we watched as the western press tried to gather the outrageous stories of utter cruelty, of dead bodies on the square, of macabre and yet totally believable stories of tanks running over students in their tents, their lives being squeezed forcefully out of their bodies. 

And in the end, time passed, memories faded, and we went to being the selfish Chinese people that we have always been. We saw the student leaders emerge in the west, shell shocked but alive, amazed at the decadent west, making a fortune in the decadent west by selling their stories, becoming entrepreneurs and activists, and in the end fading into the mist of history.

So now here we are, twenty five years later.  China is still as UN-democratic as it was twenty five years ago, but so much wealthier and so much less human and innocent  than it seemed twenty five years ago. I hear that there are mothers who are still struggling to find out what happened to their children, having never recovered their remains, and being persecuted for being mothers and for asking inconvenient questions.  People are still struggling against the regime, but in relative comfort of Hong Kong. True to the western stereotype of China and the Chinese, the future seem inscrutable as ever, but now the desendants of the butchers of Tiananmen are far more powerful and respected than they had ever imagined.

So now my thought is: what was accomplished? The flowering of idealism was crushed effortlessly, that was kind of expected, but what did a bunch of college kids accomplish twenty five years ago?  In the short term, it seems that the oligarchs have won.  I ponder the long term meaning of all this and I will weep once again for the long dead and for the future of my people, as most Chinese people have through out our history, because we are so maddeningly patient.

Armistice Day 2013

I recently posted what was to me a heartwarming video of a homeless military veteran being given a makeover.  The story was told in stop action video format and it showed the transformation of the man.  The end of the video showed him being shown his new look.  There he was resplendent in his new suit, haircut, shave, and made up face.  The man broke down and cried and hugged the film's producer.  The message at the end of video told us that he was so moved by what he saw and it's significance to his self worth that he committed himself for the first time to an AA treatment program and is working on getting sober and working again.

To me, this was a lesson showing just how much of our self confidence and self worth is raveled in our external appearances and the power that vision has over us.  The fact that the person depicted was a military veteran had no impact on the story line.

My friend Al, a military veteran, took me to task for posting the video.  For him it was an indictment of just how little we think about the deal we as a culture has made with our soldiers.  Broken down into simple bullet points, here is what I think is the deal.  In exchange for their life and well being: physical mental, intellectual, and spiritual; we promise to:

• Make wise and humane decisions when we commit them to do our killing and to fight our wars.
• Treat them with dignity and respect while they are being trained to do our killing and fighting our wars.
• Take care of them while they are in harm's way.
• Take care of them when they come back, broken or whole, physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually.
• Take care of their families if they don't come back, or if they come back maimed and unable to make a living.

If one considers just how heinous modern warfare can be, I don't think it is asking for too much.

Al thought though that the video representative of just how shallow our commitment to the veterans are because the message that he got was that everything will be fine if we gave our veterans a makeover and they will be fine.

Al has a point.  Even though I think he overthought the video.

We are inundated with verbal diarrhea and other tripe on Memorial Day, Armistice Day, the Fourth of July and even Christmas from politicians, political parties, and our fellow citizens. We are reminded to honor the veterans where ever we are, we are shown videos of the wonderful people of this country clapping whenever a person in military uniform walks by or how major corporations, the major beneficiaries of these wars that we fight, are being so generous with their special employment opportunities. We are treated to politicians who never did one second of military service wrapping themselves in flags and speaking movingly of the bravery of the men and women of our country.

The truth of the matter is that we treat the military abhorrently, it doesn't matter if they are active duty or whether they are retired.  We do give them some nominal assistance, but the worth of those programs are a mere drop in the bucket when compared with the profits gained by the corporations who lead us inexorably towards war in order to profit their own profit margins and their ever important shareholders.

Civilizations have always taken advantage of the hopeless and helpless to profit the powerful and wealthy.  Our society is no different.  I also think that those being taken advantage of also knows this but they are much more hopeful and optimistic about their own role as the paid mercenary class, they have a steadfast belief that the society will be true to our words and fulfill the aforementioned bargain completely.  Sadly, that is not the case.

Here are some of the many ways that we have not fulfilled our bargain:

• Women are being sexually harassed, assaulted, and out and out raped while on active duty, and nothing has been done by the military senior leadership until congress, actually just the female members of congress threatened to cut off their....funding.  Many of the military brass threw out the old excuse: threat to military discipline.  I think raping a fellow soldier is example eenough that discipline is already broken.
• The number of suicide amongst the active duty military has skyrocketed.  It is obvious that there is something that is happening over in Iraq and Afghanistan that is creating a major mental health problem with our fellow citizens who are in uniform, and despite the best efforts of the existing military medical resources it is not enough.  And yet, our congress imposes sequestration on our economy and true to form, the weapons programs don't get cut, the mental healthy and military well being programs do get cut.
• The horrors of the VA system was well documented during the previous administration.  We progressives responded loudly to the incompetence of the Bush administration, and yet we are five years into the Obama administration and while there improvements, it is anything but improving at a satisfactory rate.  Appointing Eric Shinseki as the head of Veterans affairs is one small step, we need many more steps.
• We will have a massive influx of returning vets coming home.  The present veteran affairs system is in no way, shape, or form ready for this onslaught.  What this means is that the social welfare system will be stressed by sheer numbers, and with the after effects of the sequestration and the tax cutting mantra of the ultra conservatives, the situation will only get worse.

To make matters worse, here are some ironies to ponder.

• When Bush was elected and announced his cabinet, one of my volleyball friends, who is active military declared that she was very happy to see Rumsfeld as the DOD secretary because she thought that: " he knew the military and was sympathetic to the soldier."  After the Afgahanistan and Iraq wars, the miscalculations, the wantonly bad decisions, I wonder if she regrets her optimism.  Of course, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith et.al were never active military.  How did they get the aura of being sympathetic to the foot soldier.  Yet John Kerry and Chuck Hagel were suspect in defense matters.
• I understand that ex-military are traditionally pro-conservative, that is their mindset.  Unfortunately the new conservatives are anything but faithful to the military folks, just look at how many times they have sold them down the river.  Look at the number of conservative lawmakers who voted to enter Iraq and then look at how many of them voted to cut veteran benefits. It is sad that you don't realize that you have been sold down the river and yet still act as lapdogs to your abusers.
• On the other hand, I have also heard veterans talk about civilians not understanding what it takes to be military and that they should get special treatment because they are veterans and have sacrificed for the society.  The tragic aspect of this attitude is that we have caused them to feel like the things they have earned should be termed as special.  The veterans should be given what they have earned, that was a part of the deal, not something special.  When we meet our end of the bargain, maybe they can stop thinking about what they have earned as being extraordinary and just ordinary.

So, ending my rant.  I would like to ask people to do something different for Armistice Day this year, instead of writing or mouthing the usual  long laudatory pablum on God, country, bravery, and patriotism and boring all of us.  Help a vet, write a politician to make sure they get what they have earned, buy a vet a coffee, a doughnut, a meal. Do something nice for them on November 11.  And then, taking the big leap here, do something special for them everyday. 

Happy Armistice Day.