Nineteen Years Later...
Jun. 4th, 2008 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ziasudra*dons memorial bracelet for Year 19*
From New York Times:
♦ The Starting Line: The Tiananmen Square Protests, 19 Years later
From Mingpao:
♦ 4.8萬六四燭光兩行淚 | 哀天災 悲人禍
Nineteen years is a long time, and with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last summer, the concept of nineteen years has developed new meaning. J.K. Rowling chose to give us a glimpse of how Harry & Co. are doing -- not twenty, not eighteen -- but nineteen years after the main events of the book took place. In those nineteen years, Harry and Ginny marry and have three kids; Ron and Hermione marry and have two kids; Draco marries and has at least one kid; Teddy Lupin -- the baby in the final chapters of Book 7 -- is now a strapping young man stealing kisses with Bill and Fleur's daughter, Victoire. And so the list goes on, with glimpses of future!Neville, Percy, Hagrid... etc., etc., etc.
Nineteen years meant stability and happiness for these fictional characters. But what does it mean for those who were affected by the Tiananmen Square Massacre that day? One hundred and thirty people are still imprisoned, student protesters are still exiled overseas (by choice or de facto), and for thousands of friends and relatives, today is the day they mourn the loss of loved ones for the twentieth time.
There might not be as many people attending the protest this year, but I'm still mindful of what today means, and send my thoughts from faraway New York City.
1989-2008
19 Years and counting
以史為鑑，平反六四
From New York Times:
♦ The Starting Line: The Tiananmen Square Protests, 19 Years later
Today is the 19th anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests. In an op-ed piece in today’s Washington Post, Wang Dan, a student organizer who was sent to prison for his role in the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square, calls for the Chinese government to declare an “Olympic amnesty” for what he says are the thousands of Chinese who are “serving long prison terms for activities that are normal political engagement in most of the world” and “to allow those of us who are in exile to at last return home.”
From Mingpao:
♦ 4.8萬六四燭光兩行淚 | 哀天災 悲人禍
Nineteen years is a long time, and with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last summer, the concept of nineteen years has developed new meaning. J.K. Rowling chose to give us a glimpse of how Harry & Co. are doing -- not twenty, not eighteen -- but nineteen years after the main events of the book took place. In those nineteen years, Harry and Ginny marry and have three kids; Ron and Hermione marry and have two kids; Draco marries and has at least one kid; Teddy Lupin -- the baby in the final chapters of Book 7 -- is now a strapping young man stealing kisses with Bill and Fleur's daughter, Victoire. And so the list goes on, with glimpses of future!Neville, Percy, Hagrid... etc., etc., etc.
Nineteen years meant stability and happiness for these fictional characters. But what does it mean for those who were affected by the Tiananmen Square Massacre that day? One hundred and thirty people are still imprisoned, student protesters are still exiled overseas (by choice or de facto), and for thousands of friends and relatives, today is the day they mourn the loss of loved ones for the twentieth time.
There might not be as many people attending the protest this year, but I'm still mindful of what today means, and send my thoughts from faraway New York City.
19 Years and counting
以史為鑑，平反六四