32 years ago today, nothing happened…

Today is the 32nd anniversary of the Tianenmen Square massacre in Beijing. There had been seven weeks of protests that grew out of the funeral of “liberal” CCP official Hu Yaobang. The protests called for reforms of the party and its systems, such as ending corruption and the abuse of power. Focused on Tianenmen Square, the protests spread to cities the length and breadth of China. The protesters were not calling for the fall of the CCP and were even singing the Marxist anthem, the Internationale. Nevertheless, they were saying the CCP was far from perfect, the CCP clamped down hard.

They declared martial law, tanks and troops were called in to break up the protests. It isn’t known just how many were killed, but certainly in the thousands, and according to British Foreign Office papers  released recently, maybe as high as 10,000.

Like Bill, these days I use Duck Duck Go for my internet searches. Today I thought I’d have a little look at Google. They like to mark significant (and often not so significant) dates with a specially designed Google doodle. 

Nothing, not a sausgae. No “Tank Man”, no Statue of Democracy, nada, zilch, sweet foxtrot alpha. Just the plain Google logo.

Of course, the CCP is trying very VERY hard to ensure the “incident of the 4th June” as they call it, is forgotten. Commemorations used to be held in Hong Kong, these are now cracked down on themsleves, although Hong Kongers, being Hong Kongers, are finding ways to keep the flame alive.

It may not be a landmark anniversary, but one might think such a self consciously “socially aware” company as Google might want to mark this date every year. Oh well, no doubt their designers are too busy coming up with a unique design to mark the birthday of the first left handed, non-binary black woman to climb Pikes Peak dressed as a llama.

As Google have not seen fit to mark this date, I thought I would. Here you go.