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Tiananmen Square 1989 death toll was at least 10,000 according to UK documents

(www.bbc.co.uk)
362 points ComputerGuru | 2 comments | 23 Dec 17 12:36 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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zizek23 ◴[23 Dec 17 15:01 UTC] No.15994372[source]▶
In a previous naive world intoxicated by dreams of global citizenry and humanism it would be easy to get sanctimonious and posture about evil.

But cultural divides are real and are not going away. And these kind of events and stories simply become opportunities to target other countries weaknesses, reassert a jingoistic sense of superiority and perpetuate existing comfort zones.

Or there would be protests daily in western capitals about the sheer unimaginable scale of destruction, devastation and millions of families destroyed and lives lost in the middle east starting from Iraq to Libya and now Syria done purely to further geo-political and financial interests.

But that is handwaved away as 'necessary' somehow. The fact is people don't even care about the poor and suffering in their own cities and countries, so how can they care about an unknown people in another part of the world? It's posturing, China's problems will be only be fixed by those chinese who truly care for their people and country.

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1. rayiner ◴[23 Dec 17 15:35 UTC] No.15994507[source]▶
Globalization is going to happen thanks to technology. But we get to decide what terms it happens on. Recollecting these sorts of events can be opportunities for asserting jingoistic sense of superiority. Or it can be an opportunity for encouraging and shaming everyone towards a just, humanist moral framework.

My family comes from Bangladesh. In the 1970s, Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan, and enshrined principles like secularism into its constitution. But in the 1990s, Islam was made the official religion, women were forced to don head coverings, etc. Today, Islamists are killing journalists who espouse the same secularist principles the country was founded on. As a Bangladeshi-American, I want Americans to criticize these things! It pains me when (often well-intentioned, but misguided) people apologize for and accommodate these things. It's a slap in the face of people in Bangladesh who are fighting for a more just society.

That is not to say I don't want Americans to feel shame for the bad things America did. But, at least on the east coast, at least, I grew up hearing about all the evils of slavery and the genocide of indigenous people. We can try to help the world move forward without forgetting that we also have things in our history for which we need to feel shame. I think Americans broadly recognize that.

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2. junkscience2017 ◴[23 Dec 17 18:04 UTC] No.15995366[source]▶
Tim Cook assures us he is working hard to improve conditions...

this is about as good as it will get. private industry will try to hide and/or paper over the abuses and we will continue to honor them as "progressives"