Staring down the barrel, Hong Kong’s museum to Tiananmen
TUCKED away on the 10th floor of a Hong Kong commercial building sits the world’s only museum commemorating the pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square brutally shut down after Chinese soldiers opened fire on thousands.
The 100 sq m room is a time capsule – a pair of glasses broken when its wearer was shot, a spray of bullets plucked from the dead.
A wall of photographs flanks the entrance; protest banners hang behind glass; two clocks silently count time elapsed since the massacre. Museum staffers mill around in black T-shirts: “The People Will Not Forget.”
Even three decades later, the crackdown remains one of the most sensitive topics in China, and is subject to government efforts to erase it from history.
As the 30th anniversary nears on June 4, the government has launched “pre-emptive strikes” by detaining, interrogating, and placing under house arrest former protest leaders and their relatives, according to the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a coalition of human rights groups.
Richard Tsoi, of the Hong Kong Alliance, the non-profit group behind the June 4 Museum, fears it could fall victim to such pre-emptive action by Beijing.
Shortly before opening last month, the place was vandalised, and occasional protesters still line the kerb outside.
The alliance faced years of lawsuits, and finding space was tough. Some owners were not keen to sell property for such a politically sensitive exhibit. Amid protests over the erosion of Hong Kong’s freedoms by the government in Beijing, whether or not the museum is allowed to stay open will “be a very important symbol”, said Mr Tsoi.
He added that it was important to inform people of the “tragedy and crime” the Chinese government was trying to hide. “We will not let this regime escape its responsibility.”
About 100 visitors a day enter the museum in the former British colony, which enjoys rare civil freedoms.
Jo Ng, 36, a history teacher, brought two dozen students for a lesson after they asked her: “The People’s Liberation Army belongs to the people; why would they kill their own people?”
References to Tiananmen in the rest of China, however, are banned and routinely scrubbed off the internet. Last week, the government forced Ding Zilin, 82, whose teenage son died in the protests, to leave Beijing.
Efforts to suppress mentions began in 1989 with propaganda giving the government’s version of events. An original propaganda pamphlet at the museum is titled, “Quelling CounterRevolutionary Rebellion in Beijing.”
The caption next to a picture of soldiers in Tiananmen praises them for “thoroughly winning the triumph of safeguarding the capital”. Over the years, Chinese historians, writers, artists have tried to remember the many deaths the Communist Party would rather the world forget.
It is also getting passed on through parents like Dennis Cheung, 32, a NGO worker visiting the museum. “I was just three when this event occurred,” he said. “I would like to learn more to educate my child.”