I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I’m asking the people who know better than Google.

    • mistermodal@lemmy.ml
      173·
      7 hours ago

      First step, learn the name of the historical location + event you want to pretend you know about. Second, use internet search to look up where Tank Man was Tankmanning. Your browser should automatically search the web if you type appropriate keywords in the navigation bar. You can also use this to learn how things are spelled.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
      1510·
      7 hours ago

      There was no massacre on the square, though. All deaths happened around Beijing, but the dispersal of the protestors on the square was peaceful.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
          134·
          7 hours ago

          What do you mean? Of the few hundred people that died in the riots and fighting, the square was dispersed peacefully. Marxists in general, on Tian’anmen is that hundreds of protestors and PLA officers were killed in Beijing that day as the PLA advanced towards the square, but that the square itself was evacuated peacefully, which matches leaked US cables and the CPC’s official stance on what it calls the “June 4th incident”. This is a rejection of the commonly reported story of 10,000 people being killed on the square itself, which originated from a British diplomat’s cable. Said diplomat was later confirmed to have evacuated well before.

          Western nations intentionally sensationalize the quantity of deaths and the character of the events. This is also why Western Nations don’t frequently report on the South Korean Gwang-Ju massacre that occured around the same era, where the South Korean millitary murdered thousands of High School and College students protesting against Chun Do-Hwan’s dictatorship. All of what I said is backed up by the Wikipedia page for Tian’anmen Square Protests and Massacre, such as Alan Donald revising his estimate from 10,000 to the low thousands yet BBC continuing to report the 10,000 figure:

          In a disputed cable sent in the aftermath of the events at Tiananmen, British Ambassador Alan Donald initially claimed, based on information from a “good friend” in the State Council of China, that a minimum of 10,000 civilians died,[237] claims which were repeated in a speech by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke,[238] but which is an estimated number much higher than other sources provided.[239][240] After the declassification, former student protest leader Feng Congde pointed out that Donald later revised his estimate to 2,700–3,400 deaths, a number closer to, but still much higher than, other estimates.[241]