Hilarie Stelfox on the Tian’anmen Square anniversary

Jun 6 2009 by Hilarie Stelfox, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

MY CHINESE teacher says it is considered impolite to discuss politics. In China, that is.

I suspect that it is also potentially dangerous.

She told us this in one of our first lessons of the academic year and since then we have respected her cultural sensitivities and not pressed her on such issues as Tibetan sovereignty or the Tian’anmen Square massacre.

As an educated person, who has spent much of the past year reading British newspapers and watching our television news channels, she must have been quietly forming new opinions of both the West and her native country.

But we may never discover what these are and, in fact, it’s probably safer for her to keep these opinions to herself.

She’s looking forward to returning to China this month, to her family and job in a high school. It’s been a long, cold, grey autumn, winter and spring for someone more used to a Mediterranean climate.

As chance would have it, this week’s lesson, the last of the year, featured a unit on travel. Included in the vocabulary list was the topical Tian’anmen Guangchang (guang means wide and chang means ground or place).

We focussed on the tricky pronunciation and politely refrained from asking any awkward questions.

As every one (certainly in the West) must know by now, it’s 20 years since the day Chinese troops mowed down protestors and bystanders in the square. There are only estimates of how many were killed as the Chinese Government has done a cover-up job on the incident ever since, but it is thought that the death toll could have been in the thousands.

My teacher would have been a child when the massacre took place and will, of necessity, have been raised with the Government view of events.

Governments throughout history have been adept at re-writing history to suit themselves and, of course, some Chinese will argue that to control a country of such a size and complexity takes a certain ruthless determination.

But what’s most disturbing about Tian’anmen is that two decades later and the fight for democracy, which cost the blood of so many young people on that fateful day, is no nearer being won.

Chinese novelist Ma Jian, who was one of the protestors, says that the Chinese people are choosing material comfort and possessions over political and intellectual freedom. He calls it a ‘Faustian pact’. Today’s young Chinese, he explains, have been taken in by Government propaganda. They call him a traitor to his country and say he is spreading false rumours about Tian’anmen.

Maybe it’s true that nations get the governments they deserve. Perhaps we can blame the current MPs expenses scandal on the complacency and disinterest of the British voting public.

No doubt tales of British Government corruption will be finding their way to China.

But no matter how loathsome our politicians might seem at the moment, at least they’re saying sorry and reluctantly ‘fessing up.

That’s something unlikely to happen in China.