Times to Remember

 

This past week was the Thirty-second anniversary of the demonstration and subsequent massacre at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China in 1989. If you remember, up to a million students were demonstrating for more freedoms and rights in China. They even built a replica of the Statue of Liberty called the Goddess of Democracy to highlight their rally. Now, however, few Chinese know of the history of the events of that time. China has long repressed any use of the words on the internet it censors. Demonstrations that had been held annually in Hong Kong to mark the anniversary, sometimes with the Goddess Statue were prohibited this year with a massive police presence in the central city park where demonstrations were usually held. This repression was discussed this week on the PBS news hour which marked the anniversary and aired an interview with a leading Chinese dissident, now in America, who claims that the true nature of that day when hundreds, perhaps thousands were killed is not taught in Chinese universities, nor schools. You can read the transcript here.

I have a Chinese friend who was a student in Beijing in 1989 and saw the massacre. He vowed at that time that he would do all that he could do to leave his country and the place of such savagery; it took him ten years, but he eventually made it to the US and is now a citizen here. He remembers and his children and grandchildren will surely be told the story of that day. But–to a billion Chinese, the memories of that day are being erased and soon it will be as if the events at the Square never happened.  That is what autocratic regimes do–they attempt to rewrite history and erase the memories of atrocities.

During the reign of Josef Stalin in the (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) USSR, the people of Ukraine opposed his rule and wanted freedom. He ruthlessly starved the country almost to death; historians calculate that about one-quarter of the citizens of that region died in the USSR’s brutal response to their quest. Ten million citizens were uprooted and deported to Siberia to work under collective prison farms. Farm crops were seized and homes were searched for food which was removed; borders were sealed and people could no longer import food. This crackdown in 1933 led to the displacement of the ethnic Kulaks, private farms were destroyed, the country was occupied and millions, including as many as three million children, died in this harsh campaign. In that year alone, an estimated seven million Ukrainians perished. The pressure on Ukraine to follow the Soviet model of collective farming and Stalin’s five-year plans was only stopped by the beginning of the Second World War. Photos from that time can be found here. (Some are disturbing.) In 2018, the US Senate officially defined these events, sometimes called the Holodomor, as acts of genocide and named them as some of the most atrocious of the 20^th Century.

Russian citizens continued to be sent to the country to dilute the native populations, which remained during the following decades of the USSR. Once the Soviet Union dissolved and its border nations, including Ukraine, achieved their independence, they continued to exist on a tenuous tightrope. To this day, Putin continues the myth that Ukraine has always been a part of Russia and dismisses reports of the famine. Again, the ethnic Ukrainians remember, but here history is again being erased. Putin’s continued threats at the Ukrainian border and the attack on Crimea were part of this myth as he attempts to again rewrite history.

This week also saw the anniversary of D-Day–the day in 1944 the US and Allied troops landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, to begin the land war that ultimately defeated the Nazi regime. That day was 77 years ago and there are few veterans of that war still alive.  Families who visit graves and cemeteries on holidays, anniversaries, and other special times keep memories because they remember. Our country makes certain that they remember as we reward our heroes with accolades. To many Americans, this day marks the memory of the “Good War”–the one where we were fighting against the evils of fascism, Nazism, antisemitism, white supremacy, racism, and other crimes against humanity. You know, as we are told good guys vs. bad guys. The world, however, is not that simple. We knocked some of those things down for a while, only to turn around and see them pop back up again and stoked by those who would-be autocrats. Returning WWll Black veterans who fought for others to have freedoms found that they were not free to move around once they returned home. In the United States, many Asians were treated as if they had been invading Japanese troops, just as other Asians are now being attacked due to the fact that the coronavirus started in China. So, holding onto our stated values is difficult. We must safeguard liberty. Memories need to be held dear.

This week also saw the anniversary of the Massacre in Tulsa which I discussed here two weeks ago. Again, the news of this event at the time was distorted and made to seem as if the Black residents of Greenwood started the riot, which burned up their part of town. There needed to be a responsible press, which was not available at that time; the newspapers instead promoted the forming of vigilantes and the arming of mobs. The only papers which properly reported the burnings and deaths of that day were the Black newspapers. Those events were hidden from history books; many public records were destroyed in a huge organized cover-up.  But as history showed us this week, there were still survivors who had been children at that time and who had clear memories of that day. Those memories were lived daily for these children for the horror and disruptions they caused. Many Americans noted that they had never heard of that terrible day in Tulsa; that omission was intentional. Hopefully, our history books now will carry this story forward, so that future generations can learn from that day.

Now many Republicans are also trying to rewrite history when it comes to the insurrection of January 6^th.  The vote against a bipartisan commission because ‘we do not need to know any more about that day–we need to move on,’–is another part of that attempt. Right-wing media, the propaganda machine of the former president, and many elected officials have somehow convinced a large percentage of Republicans that the perpetrators were left-wing Antifa, Black Lives Matter members, or some such groups, despite the facts shown by the more than 500 criminals charged which included Proud Boys, white supremacists, para-military groups and the Oath Keepers. Those arrested so far are 95% white and 85% male and come from 44 different states and even blue districts in those states according to reports in the Washington Post recently. Karen Tumulty, also writing in the Post in April noted that we cannot allow the “shameless revisionism about the Capitol attack to take root”. She reports on people who were holed up for hours, not knowing what was going on. Others were fearful that they would never again see their families or children–some staff children were in the daycare center there and were out of reach for a time. She notes we must demand a fair and transparent review of those events. The Associated Press shows that there was more organization to the event than many thought at first and that some members have disavowed participation by leaders. At least one Oath Keeper has entered a guilty plea so far.

But what is most important is that they investigate this insurrection and that we learn about groups that claim to be patriotic but are often in fact racist or anti-democratic. We cannot allow the happenings of that day and the bad actors who egged the rioters on to walk away or have that destruction swept away by propaganda. We must learn from this threat to our democracy so that it cannot happen again. Above all, we must remember so that history will record it properly.

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The CDC reported this week that some unvaccinated teenagers have been hospitalized with severe Covid cases recently and urged parents to get their eligible children vaccinated. Most colleges are requiring incoming Fall on-campus students to be vaccinated. The country is edging closer to the 70% vaccination rate, and it is hoped that President Biden’s goal of a July 4^th date will be realized. Maryland has reached 70% vaccination levels.

COVID Stats – NY Times:

US Cases:33,369,170. New Cases: 13,895. Total Deaths: 597,219. New Deaths: 436.

MD Total cases:460,471. New Cases: 132. Total Deaths: 9,639. New Deaths: 9.

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Today Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) announced that he cannot support the new voting rights bill, and will not vote against the filibuster. (Say it ain’t so, Joe!)

He wants the previous Voting Rights Bill reinstated and rewritten to be applied to all 50 states. It was gutted by a decision of the Supreme Court in Shelby County vs. Holder and has allowed many states to disenfranchise voters. Manchin insists that decisions of such importance cannot be voted on by just one party and must be bi-partisan. He maintained that he was amazed that there were not 60 votes for the bipartisan insurrection commission. Apparently, he is the only Senator who still believes that.

The New York Times came out strongly today against the efforts to curtail voting in many Republican-run states. It advised that the Voting Rights Bill be revised to get it passed. The editorial also said in part:

In a statement published this week by the left-leaning think tank New America, more than 100 leading scholars of government warned that election laws in some states “no longer meet the minimum conditions for free and fair elections.” The statement warned that “our entire democracy is now at risk.”

President Biden, in remarks given on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery also stated that our democracy is in danger.  With all of these warnings, hopefully, some elected officials will take action.

“Til next week- Peace.