PROMPT
Essay 3: Research Paper
In this course we have looked a variety of nonviolent philosophies and tactics. For the final essay, you will choose a specific social or political conflict and use the nonviolent philosophies and tactics covered in class to solve or ameliorate the conflict. Political conflicts can be ongoing - such as the Syrian civil war - or historical clashes that you believe could have been better solved with nonviolent means. Social conflicts, such as domestic violence and economic inequality, are also acceptable topics. If you choose a social conflict you must narrow it down to a specific time and place. For example, if you would like to write your research paper on domestic violence you must choose a geographical area (the United States, India, New York City, etc.) and a time period (you can choose to write on a contemporary social conflict as well as historical ones).
Your essay must be 10-12 pages in length (12-point font, Times New Roman, double-spaced, one-inch margins). Your evidence must include at least 7 primary sources and 2 secondary sources. Remember, primary sources are those composed by individuals who participated in and/or witnessed a particular event and a secondary source is a book or article written by someone who did not directly participate in or witness the event. If you are confused as to whether a source is primary or secondary, please ask before proceeding.
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Facing Down the Guns: Why Did Nonviolence Entirely Fail?
- the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989
"Troops [fired] AK-47s indiscriminately into crowds. Students [lay] in their tents, crushed beneath the treads of army tanks. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, died; many hundreds more lay wounded." This was the picture the world saw of Chinese communism on Jun 4, 1989, which was also known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 were student-led initially nonviolent movements in Beijing. As the initiator of the movements, students were sure to take more responsibility for the failure. In other words, students' lack of knowledge, practical methods, and experiences, and their immature mentality the main causes of the failure.
The first mistake students made was their confusion about their aim. It is a common sense that hardly anything will be done if people do not have a target, not to mention such a large-scale movement like the Tiananmen Square Protests. But in this case, it occurred that students only knew they had to oppose the government, and they needed to let political leaders step down. According to a new report, when asked why they had to do this, students' answer was "for free speech, a free press and other democratic mechanisms" . When questioned further about these "mechanisms," however, "the students - even their leaders - [were] vague at best" . The author then goes on to discuss that the new crowd in China "[were] motivated by ideas, but there [was] nothing systematic about these ideas." The student leaders did not understand the "mechanisms" themselves, much less knew how to explain it to their members. Thus "democracy" fell into an awkward situation, where it "[became] a buzzword" and was no longer treated as an idea that it truly represented.
Aside from "democracy", students came up with many other slogans that sounded passionate. Tong Shen, a student leader in the movement, "had hoped that the Chinese student movement would lead to the partial acceptance of pluralism as he understood had happened in Eastern Europe, but he admitted that he knew little about that region's experience." As a leader in the movement, he was unclear about their goal, as he only had a vague impression about the word, instead of knowing the true meaning of the word "pluralism"， let alone putting it into action. All Shen's followers got was this one single word, and they did not even have an image about what a pluralistic society may be like. They regarded this word as their central thought, without understanding what this word actually meant. All they knew was they were not under a pluralistic society and the political system at that time was not pleasant enough for pluralism to grow. In order to get to a pluralistic society, they had to march and sit in front of the Tiananmen Square to draw political leaders' attention. Students' confusion about their aim, especially among student leaders, caused them to have a shallow knowledge about their long-term target and only focus on how to crush the government. The lack of long-term target easily made them expect quick results and neglect many details, which laid the seeds for the failure of the movement.
Admittedly, not all students were that unclear about their aim. Wuerkaixi, a leader in the movement, once said "We wanted to found a new democratic system in China, there was no (leadership) faction supporting a democratic system. Our goal was not to play with the current system. We wanted to rock the system." Wuerkaixi had an objective judgment about their aim when the craze was sweeping over students, he knew clearly that they needed to crush the political system. However, his opinion was too radical and aggressive that he did not ask the government to make some changes on a particular policy, but wanted to destroy the whole political system and rebuild the government in the pattern that he liked. This was absolutely not the initial purpose of the protests, which was "to have everything better; they were not against the Communist party and were hoping for non-violence." In this case, no matter how firm Wuerkaixi was about his goal, he was only a hopelessly idealist radicals.
Other than Wuerkaixi, on no account can people deny that rational student leaders did exist. Evidences can be found in a student's diary, he wrote down a description about a young fellow meeting with Peng Li, the premier. The young fellow was "articulate and passionate". He stated clearly that CCP's "contributions to the country were undeniable", and then "[pointed] out areas where attention was urgently required" . The young fellow showed his deep consideration by pointing out the property of their movement and what kinds of responses they were looking for from the government. Sensible as he was, the young fellow did not play a strong role in the movement, at least his position was lower than Wuerkaixi. Or the movement might have end up in a different consequence.
The confusion about the movements' aim was terrible, yet the division among student leaders was even more deadly. Only when students knew clearly about their goal could they ally against the common enemy jointly. When students were confused about their aim while not reaching a consensus at the same time, the movements were sure to fail. "The student leaders were divided among themselves over how to proceed." If the student leaders themselves could not reach an agreement, how could they require their members to follow them firmly without a second thought? Those followers were sure to hesitate and rethink which leader to follow, which shook the morale among the remaining students. Having a lot of excellent plans can be great, but not in this case. Clearly the division among leaders was caused by their different understanding of their goal, which was a consequence of their confusion about the aim. It would turn out to be a different situation if student leaders reached a consensus before executing their own plans.
The failure also happened through students' lack of practical method. As China was once a vast country accustomed to imperial rule, where preserving overall harmony by suppressing individual freedoms was accepted, thus there was hardly any nonviolent movement in the past in Chinese history. Thus it was hard for students to learn some practical methods from Chinese own history, they had to borrow from the experiences of other countries. But sadly, as is mentioned in the interview with Shen, neither did students know clearly about their aim, nor did they know anything about what nonviolent strategies people used in nonviolent movements happened in other countries. "People criticize [students] for being too vague, for not being specific enough about the kind of system [they] want. But just making people conscious of democracy is a big step for [them]." From the description, the democracy students wanted only remained a hollow slogan, which happened because students did not figure out a proper way to promote their idea.
Nevertheless, when comparing the few "nonviolent" tactics that students used in the movement with the strategies used in other truly nonviolent movements, people can find out that though there were obvious similarities between students and Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., there was also an important distinction to be made between them. Students' "reluctant resort to violence", as Freund referred, made them "capable of committing violent acts without violating the identity" . People can find evidences of large-scale rioting in two interior provincial capitals, Changsha, in Hunan Province, and Xi'an, in Shaanxi Province. In both cities, clashes "took place between the crowd and police", and "[caused] much damage to public buildings". The clashes not only violated the principle of violence, but also worsen the relationship between students and government.
The deterioration of relationship can be demonstrated by the change of government's attitude towards movement. As is recorded in a memoir of a witness, the government did not send out army to repress the movements at the first place. As the hunger strike went on, Li, together with some officers, met with student leader in the Great Hall of the People and tried to offer students help. Student leaders, on the other hand, "refused their help" . Thus it was not surprising that the government declared martial law to end a "disturbance by a small group of people" who "should be distinguished from the patriotic students" afterwards. People cannot arbitrarily blame the martial law on students, but no one can deny that students were one of the most significant factors that directly contributed to this law.
There were many nonviolent strategies they could have used in the protests. Referred from Sharp's essay , who is the leading theorists of nonviolent strategy, other than the formal statements (letters of opposition or support, group or mass petitions etc.) and the communications with a wider audience (slogans, banners, and leaflets etc.) students used in the protests, it would be much better if they used the methods of nonviolent protest and persuasion and the methods of economic noncooperation and the same time. While government focused more on the economic development at that time, students could have raised government's attention sooner to their appeals by setting off economic noncooperation movements such as workmen's boycott and protest strike. And to raise economic noncooperation movements, students need to draw public attention by some means such as giving speeches to the civilians, instead of just delivering speeches on campus.
Students' inexperience was another factor that contributed to failure. Admittedly, experience is not everything, and abundant theoretical knowledge and certain practical method can make up the lack of experience. But things only got worse when students lacked experience and theoretical knowledge at the same time. Students only had experience on how to make chaos, instead of organizing a orderly nonviolent movement. "[Shen] began urging people to leave because he thought the protest had gotten out of control." Students didn't expect the public so hard to control, and thus they got panic when they had to direct so many people and finally let the movement "[got] out of control". It was good for a movement to get widespread, but it was another story when it got out of control. Many nonviolent movements succeeded because they brought public attention and made more and more people get involved into the movement, and thus pushed the government to make concession. However, it was obvious that differences did exist between getting public participation and losing control over the whole movement. Students were so inexperienced in organizing that they poorly planned some of the movements and did not fully consider certain unexpected factors, which partly led the movements to fail.
The failure was also a result of the innocence and immature mentality of students. As can be found out when looking at the nonviolent movements through the history, students lead most of the movements. It was not only because students are more energetic and enthusiastic, but also because it is really easy to provoke students' indignation and anger because of the innocence of teenagers. The innocence is not fully derogatory but only a common psychological characteristic of this age period. People cannot get to the conclusion directly that this movement was a plot to stir students' resentment of their own leaders according to students' immaturity. But it was quite ironic that the small-scale opposition escalated into a full-scale movement partly because of the arrest of Ziyang Zhao, a political leader advocating reform at that time, who actually did not play an important role in the whole movements. When Shen made his pleas, he said that "[they] should go back to the campuses where [they] still had [their] newspapers and [their] own broadcasting operations" . Students got angry with him, which made him lose authority among the students. Students at that age were so easily blinded by their anger that they totally ignored how intelligent Shen was and chose not to follow him anymore. This reflected students' least-rational facet that their emotions were so easy to stir up. Emotions can be creative, but negative emotions can do nothing but destroy their reason and made them totally lose in the anger when they felt they were betrayed by their leader.
Other than easily stuck in anger, teenagers' innocence can also be embodied through their irrational actions. They made actions out of sentiment, instead of reasonable consideration, which became more dangerous when students were unclear about their aim. [Zhen], a student leader, "and the students on the steps of the Chinese Revolution Museum yelled, shaking their fists skywards as the craft swirled by behind a black-and-white flag of protest atop the building's pillared portals." Just as mentioned in a commentary on the Tiananmen Square Protests, most of the students did not care at all what kind of society they wanted, students only regarded this as a chance for them to "prove their mettle" and "be a part of the challenge to authority". The movement fell into a competition at last, where students bid for the chance to demonstrate their courage. Once they totally forgot their aim, not clearly from the beginning though, they got lost in competing with each other on how much damage they had down.
However, it is undeniable that people cannot blame the failure of the movement largely or completely on students. As in other great historical events, the failure was the interplay of many social, political, and economic factors. In brief, there were three major groups of actors: students who initiated the movement, people who supported the students, and political leaders who ordered the suppression. Aside from students, the failure should also be borne by civilians and political leaders.
Civilians should have taken more participation in the movements. Students were a large crowd, yet they were still the minority comparing with civilians. If more civilians got involved in the movement, they would not only back up students, but also would bring more government's attention. Admittedly, the lack of public awareness was partly because of students' lack of the movement's intellectual underpinning, as is described in a report, People "weren't really sure what the student were doing" . How could students give public a clear sense of democracy they were looking for when students themselves did not understand what democracy was. On the other hand, the lack of civilians' participation was also because civilians were so conservative back then that they could not fully accept the idea of opposing the government. And because of the lack of civilians' participation, which is reported as "the march attracted far less participants than organizers had anticipated" , student leaders had to change their plan over and over again, which also led to the failure of the movements.
The government did not act properly in two aspects. Firstly, the government paid too much attention on creating broad and dramatic economic changes that they neglected the fact that changes' "roots [were] shallow". And this fragility "[stemmed] not only from China's long history of political volatility but also from the tangle of hopes and successes, frustrations and difficulties." The "shallow roots" directly caused students' discontent and made them rebel at last. Besides being the immediate cause of the protests, government's primarily concentration on economic reforms also led political leaders somewhat neglect students' requirement at the first place. If the government took the movement more seriously at the beginning and sent someone who could communicate with students in a much milder way, the meeting of student leaders with Peng Li would not reach an impasse where students "scolded Li for ... talking too much about irrelevant matters" and Li "acted patronizing and berated [student leaders]" .
Other than that, it turned out that the government did not actually care whether students died. The best way to mop up the consequences was never covering up the truth, but was to frankly admit mistakes and apologize sincerely for the wrongdoings. Sadly, the political leaders did not seem to realize that. According to a report, Deng Xiaoping, the senior political leader, "[was] unapologetic about the sequence in which his fearful and insecure regime saw in the demonstrators a mortal threat to its survival and sent in the tanks." It was quite pathetic that the government did not regret killing its people and was not willing to apologize. And it is more shameful that the government is not willing to confess up till now as the word "Tiananmen Square Protests" is still blacklisted and gets blocked in Web searches.
The Tiananmen Square Protests, though ended up in a massacre, was not only a bourgeois political reform but also a new culture enlightenment movement. In the movement, students put forward slogans related to democracy. Notwithstanding the fact that students did not fully understand the meaning of the word, they made public conscious of the problems in the political system. The failure of the Tiananmen Square Protests reflected the conflict between public and political leaders, and also highlighted weaknesses among participants. Students, acted as sponsors of the movement, should bear the brunt of the blame for the failure. They should have reached a consensus after figuring out their objective, learned from successful nonviolent movements, and then applied nonviolent tactics in a more efficient way. Other than the accumulation of knowledge and experience, they also should have suppressed their anger and thought more reasonably before taking any action. However, criticizing students for the failure cannot bring the dead back to life. Students, as well as civilians and political leaders, should learn from the mistakes and then improve. Only in this way can they adjust social relationship, resolving disputes and stabilizing social orders.
Works Cited
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Duke, Michael S.. The Iron House: a memoir of the Chinese democracy movement and the Tiananmen massacre. Layton, Utah: Peregrine Smith Book
Fathers, Michael and Andrew Higgins. Tiananmen: The Rape of Beijing. London: The Independent
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Reuter. "Target date is June 20: Chinese students to stay put in Tiananmen Square."
Sharp, Gene. "Nonviolent Action: An Active Technique of Struggle." in Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, Holmes and Gan, pg. 255-266. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press
Thomson, John Seabury. "The Road to Tiananmen Square." the Washington Post