The slogan on the t-shirt above says in Chinese, "The People Will Not Forget".
Click on the picture for other photographs from the memorial service in Hong Kong that was attended by tens of thousands of people. It's an annual thing and it's always well attended.
I am curious, if something of this magnitude happens close to Singapore like how Tiananmen in Beijing happened so close to Hong Kong, will we Singaporeans remember or even bother to remember 18 years after the fact? I know quite a number of Singaporeans were upset over the whole event as it played out on our TV screens then. I had learnt from the Straits Times that some Singaporeans had placed protest wreaths at the doors of the Bank of China building next to the present Fullerton Hotel while some port workers unfurled banners and shouted "Merdeka" (freedom) at some arriving PRC-Chinese merchant ships.
It was the day youthful ideals met the death blow of adult real politics and entrenched interests.
Maybe we Singaporeans move on quickly. Maybe we find that this event really has nothing to do with us. Then again, I may be wrong. For all I know, Singaporeans still do remember and some small numbers do commemorate this event in their own small way.
For me, it was one of a few defining moment in my own political awareness and it still stands out in terms of horror, shock and indignation; especially the images of human remains (students and other Chinese) after the military and their tanks have finished them. And it's probably why I still get perturbed when people start to cosy up to the PRC government or become an apologist for them.
Labels: china, history, hong kong, politics
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