6/4/64: Remembering Tiananmen Square

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June 4th. Six Four. Sixty Four. 8 squared. May 35th. History’s wound. Silent tribute. Never forget. 

These may seem like innocent words and phrases, but if I said them on Chinese social media today I’d be censored or worse. According to China Digital Times, all these terms are banned across the Chinese internet every year around today, June 4th, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

There’s an old joke a friend from China told me: Under the Chinese Communist Party, the future is predictable, but it’s hard to know what’s going to happen in the past.

The CCP wishes to erase a day from history, the day the regime’s mask slipped and showed its true, brutal face.

In their telling, the People’s Liberation Army never stormed Beijing. They never crushed peaceful demonstrators under their tank treads. They never turned their guns on their best and brightest young people, killing thousands. 

We cannot let them control the past. 

We have to remember the bravery of the students and protestors who stood up for freedom throughout that spring, not just in Tiananmen Square but across China.

We have to remember the cowards who ordered the army into Beijing.

We have to remember all the heroes throughout the years who risked everything for freedom in China.

The man who posted an essay on a Xidan Street Wall and signed his name.

The man who stood in front of a tank.

The man who hung a banner on a bridge.

From Democracy Wall to Tiananmen Square to Sitong Bridge…

We remember.

This May 35th…

We remember.