I sometimes can never get over the fact that I will go off to shoot an event for AP and be mano a mano with Jeff Widener.
Jeff works for the Honolulu Advertiser and I see him regularly around town and its almost amazing to me this man created one of the most iconic images of the 20th century. People will study this image and him for years to come. He in many ways is a legend from the work he did in Tiananmen Square in 1989. His picture(s) go way back as I was a kid in high school when the Chinese military killed thousands of students protesters 20 years ago today.
He was in a interview on the BBC the other day and I found it on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXE-RP5KiZs
……………….
I remember so clearly Dan Rather’s voice announcing the military crackdown. I remember that photo as it said everything. As I said, I was just in high school and could relate to those kids protesting for democracy. I was roughly their age. Would I have done the same? Its hard to say as we have everything…we are spoiled. Sure we complain about so much but we have it all. So with that, I might not protest as most Americans don’t. We don’t care as we get lost in sports celebrity gossip. We’d rather watch American Idol than CNN and CNN knows this and that’s why someone like Nancy Grace is allowed to spew her filth on the airwaves. Newspapers know this and this is why they are falling apart.
Might any of us be so brave and put down People Magazine or turn off the Real Housewives of New Jersey?
That man in the photograph holding up the tanks surely knew he wasn’t going to make it. Widener said in his interview that man is like the unknown soldier. And surely when the military took that man off the street, he became unknown.
20 years later and we are now buddy buddy with China. We import their dirty food and products and make trade concessions with them as they continue to fill our shelves with cheap goods made by what many would say slave labor. I have a friend who works in the retail industry and they deal with the factories in China regularly. I recall their slight shame when they kinda know whats going on but can’t really do anything about it. The Gap knows, Walmart knows, and we know yet no one is really willing to stop…let alone pay extra for Western made goods made with standards.
NAFTA didn’t work. Goods made abroad are not cheaper and are not made better. People have done experiments trying to live a life without items stamped “made in China” and its impossible. Our economic lives are intertwined for the worse and there isn’t much we can or will do as the public will continue to soak up this stuff.
What I am reminded of as I write this blog is myself 20 years ago today when I saw those images flashing across the screen. I was naive and I recall crying when I realized what the Chinese military had done. It was a powerful moment.
The next year, I was co editor of our yearbook and we decided to put Widener’s image into a historical section in our yearbook so we could look back years later and see what happened when we were young. I got a copy of “Tank Man” and that was the marquee picture of the section. Little did I know I would be a friend of the man who made a lasting image that impressed a 17 year old kid in Texas.
as for Jeff–I don’t have the right to publish his image on this blog. I will just have to buy him a beer for fair usage rights.
Summer 1997, Tiananmen Square
Years later, I traveled to China in 1997. I finished grad school and drank myself around Asia for a time. I was solemn when I went to the Square yet my photo didn’t reveal it. I did spend hours wondering how it all went down. I walked around and really got bent on the fact that I was standing where people stood no more. I was very irritated with China and I left soon afterwards for the comforts of Japan. Yet those days of being in Beiijng affected me greatly. I was sick of traveling at the time and I remember seeing the golden arches of McDonalds on the third ring near the hotel i stayed at. I pushed people out of the way to get my hands on a Big Mac. I was so sick of pickled veggies, chicken feet, and odd tasting grub. That was the best meal I had in all of Asia.
In a way, I remember thinking as I ate my fries about those student protesters. I smirked that the Communist party leaders probably had takeout from here at some point. I wonder if Mao would have done the same.