Abstract
In the spring of 1989, millions of people filled the streets all over China demanding political reforms. The nationwide movement, highlighted by the university students’ hunger strike in Tiananmen Square in the center of Beijing, ended with the People’s Liberation Army opening fire on its own people before the gaze of the entire world. On the night of June 3, amid the approaching gunshots, the unarmed students in Tiananmen Square gathered near the Monument to the People’s Heroes and took their oath hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder:1
For the sake of advancing the democratization of our motherland, for the true prosperity of our nation, for our great motherland I pledge to use my own youthful life to protect Tiananmen and to defend the Republic…Heads may be cut off and blood may flow, but the people’s Square cannot be lost. We are willing to use our youthful lives to fight down to the last person.2
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Notes
The oath was led by student leader Chai Ling. Students in the Square first took the same oath on May 24, led by Chai Ling. Eddie Cheng, Standoff at Tiananmen (Berkeley: Sensys Corp., 2009), pp. 217, 258.
Minzhu Han, ed., Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement ( Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990 ), p. 362.
Wu Renhua, Liusi shijianzhong de jieyan budui [The Martial Law Troops during the June 4 Incident] (Alhambra, CA: Zhenxiang Publishers, 2009 ).
Timothy Brook, Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement ( Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998 ), pp. 4–5.
John Schidlovsky, “Waiting for Their Turn to Die: The Battle for Tiananmen Square,” Toronto Star , June 5, 1989, p. A14.
Li Lanju, “Hafo guiyu: Zhongguo liuxuesheng ying Jiang naoju ” [Chinese Students Welcoming Jiang at Harvard], Jiushi niandai [The Nineties] (December 1997). Retrieved on January 3, 2014, from http://www.angelfire.com/hi/hayashi/text2.html. The Nineties was a Chinese-language monthly published in Hong Kong.
Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting ( New York: Harper Perennial, 1978 ).
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© 2014 Rowena Xiaoqing He
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He, R.X. (2014). Prologue Surviving 1989. In: Tiananmen Exiles. Palgrave Studies in Oral History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438324_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438324_1
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