3 ms·
Tank man in Tianamen Square changed the world forever. But it wasn't the action itself that changed things but what he inspired in others. The biggest threat t
by insickness 15y ago
Tank man in Tianamen Square changed the world forever. But it wasn't the action itself that changed things but what he inspired in others.
The biggest threat to our world today isn't any single dictatorship or government. It is the corrupt intertwining of financial and political power. When corruption is revealed it inspires action in others.
This is the new frontier of activism. Physical protest is action on the ground that can only accomplish so much without the air support of information warfare.
- yaix 15y agoHow did Tank Man change the world forever?? Here in China, hardly anybody has ever seen the picture or heard of him. Unfortunately, he seems to be just a good campaigning picture in the West.
- petewailes 15y agoHe changed how the West perceived China forever. He might not have changed things in China itself, but that picture has helped influence foreign policy ever since. It raised the profile of human rights abuses in China, along with the whole Tiananmen Square incident, which has been on the agenda of every Western government since.
- yaix 15y agoYes, as I say, the photo is great for campaigning. Only a few years later, half a million people was massacred with knifes(!) in Rhuanda, and nobody in the West really cared. So, the photo didn't really change anything. Its just good to lobby against China. And talking about the "Tiananmen Masacre", only 20 years before that, the same thing happened in Mexico, and the West had no problem celebrating the Olympic Games a week(!) later, only 1 Kilometer(!) away from the place of the crime. The Mexican Gov't of the time used Snipers instead of tanks, though. Look up "Massacre of Tlatelolco". Ironically, human rights abuses at that time where actually declining, having seen a peak towards the end of the Mao regime.