There are children marching, and they are dressed in white.
There are children marching to die.
Tiananmen was once the gate of heavenly peace. The peace of heaven, enforced unmercifully upon the people below, wielded by the hand of the Emperor, unapproachable. Now they call it the people's square, and the blood of the people runs red in it.
They came and sat in the square. They came in supplication, as the people of China have always come, because the will of heaven has always been for the people's sake, and it will turn on the Emperor and overthrow him if he pushes too far. The Communist Government was not meant to be another dynasty. The Communists were meant to be the people, just and modern and equal. So the people came to the people's square, and they asked of it, "are you?"
And the Communist Government answered.
China was not in that square. He watched. He watched as his children sat in his square and refused to move. He watched as they made their demands. He watched as they built a statue of liberty to look Chairman Mao in the face. He disliked the Americanism of it, an assertion of the West on his heart. But Marx was from the West too, and China understood.
China did not sit in the square. He watched and he hoped that things might end up better instead of worse.
The Communist Government answered.
On the streets of China there are children in white marching. Some might be fourteen. Some might be twenty five. It makes no difference to China. He is so very old, and they are so very young.
In the West, they will call it the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In China they will call it June 4th, if they call it anything at all. In either case, the students are dead.
So, all across China, students march in protest.
They wear white because they are mourning, and they wear white because they are dead. They march, daring their local officials to shoot them down. Daring the government to make martyrs of them. Because what do they have to live for, if their government is willing to kill them? What do they have to live for if this is the communist utopia they were promised? What do they have to live for if their mother has abandoned them?
Children in China are marching, and China marches with them. He does not abandon them, but he cannot help them either. He wears white because he is mourning, he wears white even though he will not die. China marches with his children, because this time he will not watch them die from afar.
Red is the color of China. Red is the color of happiness and prosperity and good fortune for the future.
In the West, red is the color of blood, the color of violence and sacrifice, and there the communists painted their flags with the blood of martyrs.
In China, children are marching, and the white of death is stained with red.
Somewhere, a patriotic student, a member of the communist party, says, "I feel as though my mother has killed my brother, and I don't know what to do."
China weeps. He did not kill his children. He only watched them die.
This is the end of an era. This is the death of idealism. After this, capitalism will enter the country, and China will grow wealthy, but he will not grow free. After June 4th, there will be no more wide-eyed young communists.
The Government, which calls itself Communist, will want China to forget this day. Few of his people remember. But how could China forget? He is scarred by it. His government has murdered his children. That he will never forget.