Tiananmen Mothers.

Tiananmen mothers. They hold up pictures of their sons and husbands shot, lost and buried in unmarked graves in the 4th June 1989 Tiananmen protest. 

Everyone of them has a story to tell. They do not want to be forgotten. They are determined to hold those in power who have taken the lives of their loved ones to account.

For Madam Zhang Xianling, her 19-year-old son was shot and killed in the wee hours of June 4. On that day, soldiers were called in to fire at student protestors who were clamouring for democracy in a country tightly controlled by the communist party. 

Together with another grieving mother, philosophy professor Ding Zilin, they formed a support group called Tiananmen Mothers.

Mdm Zhang said that she and others (since that day) have been harassed and intimidated by the Chinese authorities. 

Tan Dawn Wei reports about their stories this morning, and this is what Mdm Zhang, a former aerospace engineer said: -

“Every time this year, we all feel terribly sad. Who wouldn’t be if their loved one died in such an unexplainable manner? The 30th anniversary this year isn’t more sad than any other year.” 

Up to this day, Mdm Zhang is not allowed to visit the site where her son was killed. She in fact waited ten days before news of her son’s death made it to her. 

At that time, Wang Nan only wanted to record history as an aspiring photojournalist when he was shot at Chang’an Avenue. 

Dawn Wei reports that “(to date) as many as 55 members of Tiananmen Mothers have died, including a father who took his own life at age of 73 when he found the government’s silence on the matter too hard to bear. The majority of the remaining 127 members are well into their 70s and 80s.”

For Mdm You Weijie, who took over the group in 2013, she shared a common grief with them. She lost her husband, ”a patent law clerk, on that fateful night when he cycled to Tiananmen Square after hearing gunshots. He was worried about he students and had wanted to check on them. He was shot and died in hospital two days later. 

A New York-based non-governmental Organisation Human Rights In China communication director Tsui Mi Ling said: -

“We see the Chinese Communist Party’s strategy having three components - control the narrative of what happened, suppress the truth and silence the voices that point to the truth, forcibly wipe it out from memory.”

Lesson? Mm...

I can write about many issues here. About democracy. About governance. About economic growth. About lost hope. About a much celebrated, rich and strong state, that China has become. 

About how everyone, every nation can’t wait to be a partaker of her phenomenon economic growth or jump into her glittering bandwagon paved by the Belt and Road Initiative. 

Like a senior partner of Control Risks, Mr Dane Chamorro said: “Sustainable one-party states sometimes listen better to the silent majority and not just to vested interest groups.” 

I could almost hear the ”silent majority” he spoke about as the “silenced majority”.

I can write about that too, that is, the silenced majority. But let me write about that ten days that Mdm Zhang waited for news about her beloved 19-year-old, Wang Nan. 

I can imagine it was a long ten days. Imagine you are desperately waiting for your son’s whereabouts after hearing scary stories of students being shot by your own government. 

Imagine the first day of worry for Mdm Zhang. Images of her beloved son must have flooded her mind. The second and third days are where one’s imagination goes wild, waiting in vain for news, haunted by the fear that you might never see him again. 

The fourth to sixth days are torments both of the mind, heart and soul. You can’t eat. You can’t sleep. You can think of nothing but his safety. You can only hope for his safe return. Your boy has never left you for that long in his 19 years of living. 

Then comes the seventh to ninth day. Something inside of you seems to die a little but you still hold on to that umbilical cord of hope that your son will return to you. 

You can’t wait for him to walk right through, smiling and hugging you. That touch would heal all wounds, you are willing to trade everything just for that smile. 

On the tenth day, you hear the news. Your son is one of the casualties. He was branded as a protestor. He’s the enemy of the state. You break down and cry. You cannot believe that such a young life, full of dreams and hopes, is now buried in an unmarked grave.

Your son died alone. He died not knowing why. He died because of an obsession for power, and an even more delusional obsession of losing it. 

It is said that “every society honours its live conformists and its dead troublemakers”. But this does not even apply to Wang Nan because he is one memory the state tries in desperation to forget. 

But you can’t forget. He is your son after all. That will never change. The memory of a mother is what she will take with her to her grave. 

Mdm Zhang said: “Sooner or later, the Chinese government will address the atrocities of June 4. But whether I will see that day, I can’t say. We will fight to the end.”

Incidentally, in the recent Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore, Defence Minister Wei Fenghe said that the 1989 clampdown was “a correct decision” pointing to the stability and prosperity China has gained since then. 

He said: “Throughout the 30 years, China under the Communist Party, has undergone many changes. Do you think the government was wrong in the handling of June 4? There was a conclusion to the incident. The government was decisive in stopping the turbulence.”

Alas, I guess the end justifies the means, whatever it takes. And if the soul of leadership is to leave no one behind, to care for those society has forgotten, and to restore brokenness and pain, healing the wounds of past mistakes, then sadly, the Tiananmen Mothers will have to wait longer for the spirit of their sons and husbands to find rest and justice.

Let me end with a commemorative letter read out in March this year, addressed to the Chinese Communist Party. 

“You have been promoting the 'Chinese Dream'. As Chinese citizens and your compatriots, we too have dreams... We dream that one day, the nation can restore the name of the June 4 martyrs and rectify the reputation of the 1989 patriotic democracy movement.”