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Similarities Between Tiananmen Square And Fahrenheit 451

Decent Essays

Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Such a thought is common among people that want to spark change. To keep themselves alive, they rebel. Silence is the equivalent of death. It is death to hope for a better future. In China, many students shared this common idea. Beginning in the spring of 1989, Beijing’s students gathered in a famous square known as Tiananmen Square. They were protesting their communist government. There was unemployment, inflation, corruption of the government, and restrictions on the future of the students. They wished for a life of democracy where they could have a dialogue with the government. They refused to let silence kill them. Millions of students gathered, protested, paraded, held meetings, staged sit-ins, and hunger strikes. At first, the government let the protests continue. When it was out of control, the students were pushed to leave. When the students refused, chaos broke loose. Many …show more content…

In Tiananmen Square, the protesters were given a warning. The were ordered to clear the square before punishment arrived. The protesters refused to clear, so “On June 2, Yang ordered a military crackdown on the student-demonstrators and the clearance of Tiananmen Square on the grounds that a ‘counter-revolutionary riot’ was fermenting and continued instability would retard economic reform” (Tiananmen Square Incident: Cold War). This shows that after being advised to halt the rebellion, consequences ensued. The reasoning behind the consequence was that this demonstration caused instability even though part of the protest was requesting government stability. It is clear that in the rebellion of Tiananmen Square, protesters were given a chance to clear away before government

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