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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Farmers and students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 (Was: Fwd: [Permaculture International] money ....)

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  • From: Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Farmers and students at Tiananmen Square in 1989 (Was: Fwd: [Permaculture International] money ....)
  • Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 02:46:39 -0800 (PST)

> > It is natural that farmers are radical, thinking about
>> the roots of things as much as they do.

Nope, it is natural that farmers are conservative because they need to
conserve the prosperity of the land that has come down to them through
generations of ancestors.

It is only in desperate times that farmers will rise up in arms and throw
away their lives together with their land because of the hardship brought
about by a combination of natural calamities and the pressure from the city
whose greed will drain the land of its last resources.

> Are the events described above true and accurate about the
> murders and repression committed by the Chinese Government
> during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations when thousands of
> farmers as well as thousands of students participated
> together?

The true numbers will never be known. The subject is still a taboo in China.
But it is without a doubt one of the most horrible crimes in modern times.
And what's worse: the butchers of Tiananmen and their heirs are still in
power and dictate the destiny of more than a billion people. They are now
flexing their newly gained economical muscle to bully smaller Nations into
submission and buy up land in Africa on a large scale. This will be
something to watch in the years to come.

Personally I doubt that the farmer element at Tiananmen was very significant,
but I don’t have any firm data. There were probably small numbers of farmers
who happened to be at the capital at the time and somehow got mixed up in the
events. At the time, nobody thought it would end like that. The students
sized the opportunity of Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing to encourage a
political liberation in China similarly to the one that was taking place in
the Soviet Union. They thought that they would be safe in the limelight of
the international news. But that was forgetting the bloody-mindedness of the
rulers in Beijing. To mow down unarmed civilians of your own citizenry with
tanks is about the most dastardly thing anybody can do. Chinese rulers will
have to live with the stigma for generations to come.

Dieter








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