Depicting a heap of contorted bodies and screaming faces, the statue was unveiled Tuesday as part of an exhibition of “forbidden art” that organizers said had been censored or “deemed subversive” by Hong Kong and mainland China.

The exhibition was hosted by Jens Galschiøt, the Danish artist behind the famous sculpture, and Kira Marie Peter-Hansen, a member of the European Parliament (MEP). A further six MEPs, including representatives from each of the parliament’s five largest political coalitions, were listed as co-hosts.

  • bloor ( bloor@feddit.de ) 
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    3 years ago

    That’s good, however it’s again just symbolism. A real signal would be to begin cutting ties with China on a path to end our economical dependency on them.

    • germanatlas ( germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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      3 years ago

      In theory yes, in practice we should then also cut ties with every other nation that committed a massacre or oppressed its population, which… checks notes… would be almost every nation.

      Why not Turkey for the Armenian Genocide, why not Australia for the treatment of aboriginal people, why not the USA and Canada for the treatment of indigenous people? Why not Great Britain for conquering half of the planet and enslaving people?

      • Vilian ( Vilian@lemmy.ca ) 
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        3 years ago

        why not cut ties because of the people in power? people in power today are not the ones that made these crimes, except china i’m stupid

        • germanatlas ( germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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          3 years ago

          And also excepting Israel, Kongo, Russia, UAE, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, South Sudan and still the USA.

          And on a side note Xi Jinping, the man in power today, didn’t do the TS massacre, he came to power in 2012

            • These were just in the front of my mind at that moment and while it would be morally good if we could flip the finger to them, it would be really stupid. Just losing Russian gas already caused an energy crisis and inflation, completely refusing middle eastern oil, Congolese Cobalt, Copper, Silver, Gold, Diamonds, Uranium etc and the general relations with the USA, a close ally and country with the probably biggest military would not just be crisis-inducing, it would be economical and political suicide.

      • 0x815 ( 0x815@feddit.de ) OP
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        3 years ago

        @BennyHill500, there are no such things as communism or capitalism (or any other systems), there are many different variations of them.

        Tiananmen Square Massacre

        When the initial presence of the military failed to quell the protests [at Tiananmen Square], the Chinese authorities decided to increase their aggression. At 1 a.m. on June 4, Chinese soldiers and police stormed Tiananmen Square, firing live rounds into the crowd.

        Although thousands of protesters simply tried to escape, others fought back, stoning the attacking troops and setting fire to military vehicles. Reporters and Western diplomats in Beijing that day estimated that hundreds to thousands of protesters were killed in the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and as many as 10,000 were arrested.

        Emphasis mine.

      • DdCno1 ( DdCno1@beehaw.org ) 
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        3 years ago

        Given the disastrous legacy left behind by the Soviet Union, there is no need to build a narrative. Communism is bad and failed spectacularly at everything it’s meant to achieve.

    • Norgur ( Norgur@fedia.io ) 
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      3 years ago

      What would you think about a person asking for the inclusion of some injured/killed KZ guards in a Holocaust memorial? Just asking because that’s about what we think about you

    • Kissaki ( Kissaki@feddit.de ) 
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      3 years ago

      Wikipedia says, with six sources,

      The vast majority of those killed were civilians, though a small number of soldiers were also killed.

      You attempt to make it sound like it was anything but a massive inhuman massacre by an oppressive regime. But it wasn’t.

      You want it to have the oppressors and murderers names when it doesn’t even have the victims names?

      As a memorial you could have included the soldier deaths in the memorials remembrance too, but you didn’t.

      People are still oppressed and silenced today. Not being allowed to remember the victims.

      What do you want it to be? A memorial for what? In what way?

      • blindsight ( blindsight@beehaw.org ) 
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        3 years ago

        So… Your honest stance is that “security personnel” who fired automatic weapons into defenseless, non-violent crowds should be memorialized because a handful of them were killed in the ensuing chaos?

        How about this one: If someone is charging you with a machete, you should just stand still so you don’t accidentally hurt them defending yourself? Or are you saying that if you both die, you should both have your pictures and caskets side by side at the memorial service?

    • 0x815 ( 0x815@feddit.de ) OP
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      3 years ago

      @branchial

      Tiananmen Square: What happened in the protests of 1989?

      No-one knows for sure how many people were killed.

      At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government said 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died.

      Other estimates have ranged from hundreds to many thousands.

      In 2017, newly released UK documents revealed that a diplomatic cable from then British Ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald, had said that 10,000 had died.

      Discussion of the events that took place in Tiananmen Square is highly sensitive in China.

      Posts relating to the massacres are regularly removed from the internet, tightly controlled by the government.

      So, for a younger generation who didn’t live through the protests, there is little awareness about what happened.

    • drolex ( drolex@sopuli.xyz ) 
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      3 years ago

      Basic guide:

      • The oppressed have been killing oppressors? Quite cool actually.
      • The oppressors have been doing anything? Not cool.
      • The oppressors are killing the oppressed? Absolutely not cool.

      You see?

    • 0x815 ( 0x815@feddit.de ) OP
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      3 years ago

      @turkishdelight @Stockente

      In addition to what @SevenOfWine said, we must note that you can openly discuss Belgian colonial history and atrocities in the public space. You can’t discuss the Tiananmen Square massacre publicly in China, though, and the government in Beijing has been trying to hide this and other historical (and contemporary) atrocities committed by China for a long time now. Younger generations who didn’t live through the events of 1989, for example, might not know what happened.

      [Edit typo.]

      • turkishdelight ( turkishdelight@lemmy.ml ) 
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        3 years ago

        Yes we did genocide and killed millions of people. But it’s okay because we can openly talk about it. No big deal.

        This seems to be the core of your argument. Not very convincing if you ask me.

        • 0x815 ( 0x815@feddit.de ) OP
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          3 years ago

          @turkishdelight

          Chinese censors remove video showing off Tiananmen massacre medal

          In the video posted March 18 to the official account of the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force on the video-sharing platform Bilibili, a woman clad in a camouflage uniform holds up a medal she said was presented to her father after he was among the troops that entered Beijing in early June 1989 to put down weeks of peaceful, student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.

          “My father is a retired soldier," she says, according to subtitles on screenshots published by several media outlets including Taiwan’s Liberty Times newspaper, Radio Taiwan International, and the citizen journalist X account “Mr Li is not your teacher.”

          The “Defender of the Capital” honor was handed out to soldiers and other enforcers of martial law in Beijing, which was ordered by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping on May 20 and defied by protesters and hunger strikers, who remained on Tiananmen Square.

          The video soon started to garner comments referencing the killing of civilians by the People’s Liberation Army on the night of June 3-4, 1989.

          “You’re bragging about how the People’s Liberation Army killed our compatriots?” said one comment, while another said the medal was fit for a “butcher,” according to screenshots of the now-deleted video.

          “A ‘medal of honor’ won for massacring unarmed students on behalf of a dictator,” wrote another.

  • Bartsbigbugbag ( Bartsbigbugbag@lemmy.ml ) 
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    3 years ago

    Guys CBS, BBC and Daily Telegraph went tankie… https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/

    https://archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_myth_of_tiananmen.php

    The Chinese government estimates more than 300 fatalities. Western estimates are somewhat higher. Many victims were shot by soldiers on stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations in other parts of the city, where, it should be added, a few soldiers were beaten or burned to death by angry workers.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8057762.stm

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/wikileaks/8555142/Wikileaks-no-bloodshed-inside-Tiananmen-Square-cables-claim.html

    The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and released exclusively by The Daily Telegraph, partly confirm the Chinese government’s account of the early hours of June 4, 1989, which has always insisted that soldiers did not massacre demonstrators inside Tiananmen Square