What happens when you shoot someone, then run them over with a tank?

You may be surprised to learn that I actually do have some limits on what I am prepared to make funny. Not many. But Tiananmen fucking stumps me. Somehow I just can't seem to keep up the irreverence when considering hundreds or thousands of unarmed civilians being mowed down by tanks and guns. Crazy huh? Who would have thunk it? Surely there's a joke in there somewhere? So here is some decidedly unfunny shit about Tiananmen. Consider it my commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
What Happened? When fearless leader Mao Zedong- you know him, he had that great idea about melting down pots and pans to make steel, guess how that ended? no seriously, guess- died in 1976 the Communist Party took on a new policy of opening up China economically. They failed to realise that maybe, just maybe, this might open the country up to other influences. An obvious oversight, you'd think, but hey, they were pretty much a bunch of uneducated peasants. Anyhoo. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was introducing perestroika and glasnost- google that shit people, I don't got time to explain it- which inspired young Chinese to aspire for more liberal reforms. In shorter terms, the situation leading up to June 1989 can be described thus: weeeeeeeeeee! unrest! reform! crackdown! weeeeeeeeee! Or something more eloquent. Whatever. In China the shit was a fucking tinderbox waiting for a spark. The death of reformist Hu Yaobang in April 1989 provided said spark.
After Hu's death tens of thousands of students took their protest to Tiananmen Square. Protests continued through April and May. China's fearless leaders pretty much twiddled their thumbs and wrung their hands. What to do? What to do? Kill them all? Hmmm, maybe. But they had this pesky little problem of having invited the international press to Beijing to cover Gorby's visit which was set to culminate in a ceremony at, you guessed it, Tiananmen Square. And that, my friends, is probably the only reason we know about this; any other month and the international press would not have been allowed in the capital. Ah fickle chance.
Fearless leaders were determined to clear the square before Gorby arrived, and so, and this is totes logical, I'm sure you'll agree, started blaming the US and declared martial law. The PLA started clearing the area, and by that I mean shooting unarmed civilians and running them over with tanks. Cos, you see, when you shoot someone with high calibre ammunition from a semiautomatic weapon at close range you can never really be sure that they're dead. They might have that special skin, you know the one, which deflects bullets. That why you need to run them over with a tank just to be sure that they're not going to get back up and beat you to death with a cardboard placard. It's only when you've squished someone flat that you can be certain that their unarmed arse is no longer a threat to you. But you already knew that. It's common fucking knowledge.
We don't really know how many people were murdered. Obviously official Chinese estimates are low (250is). Many who survived were later tracked down and sentenced to death, or sent to labour camps (you know the ones where they don't feed you until you die- super fun!). What we do know is that these people protested and died for freedoms we take for granted, abuse, or ignore every day.
We treat democracy like a right, something we are inherently entitled to by virtue of being Australian, but it's not a right, it's a fucking privilege. That I can write as I do without being arrests is a privilege. That you can google without censorship is a privilege. That you get to cast your vote to choose your shitty government is a privilege. Every free step you take, every choice you make to determine your own future, every time you choose your degree, where you live, who you fuck, what you eat, what you read, what you say, that is a privilege. And it is a privilege we need to honour, and honour every day, if for nothing else than out of respect for the millions all over the world who have lost their lives asking simply for that which we take for granted, abuse, or ignore every day.
So Tiananmen, we remember.
Sincerely,
Helenahandbasket.