Is there also a pillar of shame for the genocide Belgians did in Congo?. Europeans love moralizing, but never like to think about their own sins.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024
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You can't compare these things whatsoever. Comparing these events is uneducated and simply stupid. This happened over a century ago, it was a very different time in Belgium and all of Europe. The massacre of Tiananmen Square happened less than 40 years ago. Also, the government in China didn't change since the 1940s, it's the exact same party that was in power when Tiananmen Square happened, that is also in power right now, still torturing and killing innocent people.
In addition to what @SevenOfWine said, we must note that you can openly discuss Belgian colonial history and atrocities in the public space. You can't discuss the Tiananmen Square massacre publicly in China, though, and the government in Beijing has been trying to hide this and other historical (and contemporary) atrocities committed by China for a long time now. Younger generations who didn't live through the events of 1989, for example, might not know what happened.
[Edit typo.]
Yes we did genocide and killed millions of people. But it's okay because we can openly talk about it. No big deal.
This seems to be the core of your argument. Not very convincing if you ask me.
Chinese censors remove video showing off Tiananmen massacre medal
In the video posted March 18 to the official account of the People's Liberation Army Rocket Force on the video-sharing platform Bilibili, a woman clad in a camouflage uniform holds up a medal she said was presented to her father after he was among the troops that entered Beijing in early June 1989 to put down weeks of peaceful, student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.
“My father is a retired soldier," she says, according to subtitles on screenshots published by several media outlets including Taiwan's Liberty Times newspaper, Radio Taiwan International, and the citizen journalist X account "Mr Li is not your teacher."
The "Defender of the Capital" honor was handed out to soldiers and other enforcers of martial law in Beijing, which was ordered by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping on May 20 and defied by protesters and hunger strikers, who remained on Tiananmen Square.
The video soon started to garner comments referencing the killing of civilians by the People's Liberation Army on the night of June 3-4, 1989.
"You're bragging about how the People's Liberation Army killed our compatriots?" said one comment, while another said the medal was fit for a "butcher," according to screenshots of the now-deleted video.
"A 'medal of honor' won for massacring unarmed students on behalf of a dictator," wrote another.
This sub is basically european propaganda. It's like watching russian facebook
What happened in Congo is taught in Belgian schools and widely known in Europe.
Judging by your username, you're Turkish. Are you taught about the Armenian genocide in school?
Or is that one whataboutism too far?
whataboutism is a healthy response to hypocrites.
Is it?
What about the Armenian genocide? Does it get taught in Turkish schools? Is there a statue?
What about Holodomor? Does that get taught in Russian schools? Is there a statue?
What about the up to 50 million who died as a consequence of the Great Leap Forward? Is there a statue commemorating them?
Building a statue does not let you off the hook from mass murder.
Still no statue though
Because that's what's really important: a statue.
This place should be filled with monuments of stuff European countries did but yeah, China bad. Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, UK, nothing to see here
Isn’t Germany filled with monuments to their sins? And not mild ones, like the kind intended to make people stop and think about the people who had everyday lives snuffed out by their neighbors.
Only one of those countries currently still is a dictatorship.
wadabout waaaaaaaaaa
This place should be filled with monuments of stuff European countries did but yeah, China bad. Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, UK, nothing to see here
This is not true, in these and practically all other European countries there are many monuments - unlike in China which has been rewriting its own history. Read more here, here, here ... you'll find more across the web.
[Edit typo.]
The difference is the other countries doesn't try to bury their dark past and lied about it to their own citizens, all while acting like the government is their savior.
In Northern Ireland, during the troubles, 28 unarmed civil rights protestors were shot (14 killed) on Bloody Sunday, by the British army. They covered it up then, lying that the soldiers had been shot at and that some of the protestors were armed. That was back in 1972. None of those soldiers faced any charges until 2016. And to this day none have been prosecuted. Similarly there has been no charges levied on anyone that put those soldiers there that day. Even though that same battalion was guilty of killing 11 civilians in the Ballymurphy massacre just seven months beforehand and of brutalizing protestors outside of Magillian Internment camp a week beforehand.
Over 50 years later and there are still British MPs that fight bitterly against any British soldiers facing any prosecution for crimes they committed in Northern Ireland against British Citizens.
The Tienanmen square massacre was way worse, no doubt. But don't fool yourself into thinking that any country, especially those that colonized large swaths of the planet, have a clear conscience.
No one claims that democracy is perfect (or will ever be). But another major reason why it is superior to dictatorship is that, for example, you are free to report these crimes and express your opinion as you just did in your post, without any negative personal consequences for you nor your family, and your post won't be censored.
If you write a post in China in memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre, what do you think would happen?
Bad things no doubt. But then I didn't contest China's characterization.
Germany and Italy are filled with monuments regarding their dark past (have never been to France and Spain and only very briefly to Belgium so I can't judge). I really don't know what you are talking about.
With regards to Belgium: the colonial museum has been revamped, schools teach what happened in the Belgian Congo, and no one's going around defending or idealising King Leopold who presided over the worst atrocities. Belgian nationalism barely exists, so that hasn't been a thing in living memory anyway.
Also, what happened in Congo was widely derided even at the time:
It's just the usual clumsy wumao attempt at whataboutism