Claudia Rosett writes in today's WSJ.
'In a long career as a reporter, which has included both tanks and gunfire elsewhere, there is no story I have covered that has been more haunting, inspiring and important than that Tiananmen uprising. And there is no story that, in its plotline, has been more heartbreaking.'
Read the entire piece. 1989 was the year the Berlin Wall fell (November 9), an event I'd hoped for but did not anticipate in the near future. It was the year that millions in communist countries demanded their freedom. As great as the victories for freedom were in 1989 and the two years beyond, if you think about it, more than twice as many gambled for their freedom and lost than gambled and won.
I have seen the Berlin Wall. I looked at it as a young college grad in 1984. I saw the East German guards staring back at me. They had guns, yet they were in a cage. Never before have I been more grateful to hold a U.S. passport.
Today we remember those who gambled and lost at Tiananmen Square in the early hours of June 4, 1989 and what they dreamed about for those hopeful weeks proceeding the violent crackdown. A logical question follows: Do we really want to be a trillion-dollar debtor to the regime that brutally crushed everything we believe in?
0 comments:
Post a Comment