cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/57660342
French Art historian Nathalie Trouveroy shared footage with Le Monde from her personal archives of the Tiananmen Square protests, shedding new light on how the Chinese regime violently repressed the student protests in June 1989.
The linked article contains a video (17 min). Here is an invidious link to this video with the comments being in French.
[…]
The analysis of previously unseen images obtained by “Le Monde” and leading testimonies provide a better understanding of how the Chinese regime gradually shifted to the violent repression of the student demonstrations in the spring of 1989.
Spring 1989, Tiananmen Square. At the heart of the student demonstrations, a young expatriate, Nathalie Trouveroy, films the Beijing protesters, their slogans, their enthusiasm and their fear with her Hi8 video camera. These images, which remained in a family setting for a long time, are unpublished archives obtained by Le Monde.
Her husband, Guy Trouveroy, was then a political adviser at the Belgian Embassy in Beijing. For seven weeks, the couple were privileged witnesses to the regime’s hesitation, torn between dialogue, obstruction and repression of the demonstrators. When the movement turns in favour of democratic measures, the communist government sends tanks against the population. On the night of 3-4 June 1989, the massacre took place. The repression would spread throughout China.
Since then, the Chinese authorities have been trying to erase Tiananmen from the collective memory. But, thirty-eight years later, Nathalie Trouveroy’s never-before-seen video and photo archives have come to light. With these family images, the Trouveroy couple intend to preserve the memory of the victims of the bloody repression of the Tiananmen movement.
For french people passing by, did you know we also had a Tiananmen-like massacre in 1967 in France resulting in more than 100 protesters being killed and their bodies being stolen and disposed by authorities ?
For the non-francophones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Guadeloupe_riots
Also, while legally the island of Guadeloupe is part of France, it is one of the overseas departments and regions (i.e. a colony), in the Caribbean, not part of mainland France. Just to be clear to people who are not familiar with France’s governance who might be misled by “in France”.
Horrible, but at least it’s reported by the press without an authoritarian regime repressing it and persecuting journalists.
Evil governments are inevitable. The power of democracy and free speech/free press is that it allows us to easily know about it, fight them, and eventually confine or remove them. As long as we protect these things, we have a chance. Once they’re lost, the fight against evil becomes much harder.
The French still protest. They protest really quickly and we should all learn from them.
And the gouvernement is learning from your and is repressing harder and harder