20 years already?

We remember watching the Tiananmen Square protests on TV for several days. And, of course, we remember watching this, as it happened (i.e., probably 6 hours after the fact, on the Today show. This was in the time before the Web, after all.) We loved it. This one guy stopped a line of tanks. He was and still is a hero to us.

But 20 years have gone by, and it’s time to ask: Is there a more useless moment in the history of political revolutions?

Isn’t it time we took a step back and admit that China's suppression worked? Its now 20 years later. The same party is still in power, they are successfully censoring the newest technology (thanks, Google), they are emerging as the next Super Power, the whole world just genuflected to them at the recent Olympics, and from all accounts we've read, the young people in China A) never heard of the Tiananmen Square protests, and B) are actually more conservative and nationalistic than their peers 20 years ago. The man who stopped a line of tanks from advancing on a crowd of civilians is now largely forgotten by the sons and daughters of the people he tried to save.

While the Soviet union and other Communists powers took tentative steps toward a peaceful transition to less authoritarian governments during the late 2oth Century , in the end they all fell. So now it's 2009, and the only remaining Communist power? China, also the only one who violently crushed their opposition. On national TV, no less. There's a lesson in there somewhere, and it's not a good one.

Thanks to Kottke for aggregating a lot of great links on the subject.