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The Goddess of Democracy:
Memorialization as a Form of Political Protest
By: Julie Sagram
In 1991, on the eve of the second anniversary of the Tiananmen
Square Massacre, a woman
made of white marble dust was put on display at the campus of
the University of British
Columbia (UBC). Bestowed the title of Goddess of Democracy, she
commemorates the many
lives lost during the Tiananmen Massacre of June 4th, 1989. Her
arrival was met with a ceremony
of three hundred people who wished to witness the erection of
this highly symbolic monument,
which continues to stand today in memory of those who died.1 It
is evident through her history,
however, that this statue is not solely a memorial it also
serves as a politicized object designed
to represent the ongoing protest against the oppression of the
Communist Party of China (CPC).
The Goddess symbolizes the liberal revolutionary ideals that
were crushed by the Peoples
Liberation Army (PLA) on June 4th, while standing in defiance
against the government-imposed
silence, censorship and collective amnesia that characterize the
legacy of this event in China. In
several parts of the world where the memory of the massacre has
not been banned but deemed
necessary, this statue has been replicated as an expression of
hope for Chinas democratization.
This paper seeks to explore the political role and international
significance of the Goddess of
Democracy by unravelling the Goddess' history, examining her
international imitations, and
discussing how her political connotations spill over in both
domestic and international spheres.
1 UBC Goddess of Democracy plaque
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Historical Background
The original Goddess of Democracy was created amidst the
Tiananmen Square protests: a
transformative series of pro-democratic protests in 1989 against
government corruption and
social inequality. These protests erupted under the leadership
of Deng Xiaoping, who came into
power following Chairman Maos death in 1976 and introduced China
to an era of Gaige
Kaifang (Reforms and Openness).2 China became more exposed to
international relations, as
demonstrated by Dengs 1979 visit to the United States and its
improved relations with Japan,
and became less opposed to Western cultural influence, as
indicated by the lifted ban on Western
literature, art and film.3 The tide of Chinese politics seemed
to be turning with a move towards
liberalization; which after a long period of radical oppression
under Mao, gave students and
young workers hope for a brighter future in China. Under Deng,
China was on the path toward
becoming a global superpower by the 21st century.4 However,
despite the promising ideals of the
reforming CPC, inflation and social inequality undermined
economic growth and citizens
became frustrated with government corruption, nepotism and
incompetence.5 A growing portion
of the population began calling for faster progress on a larger
scale, and believed that further
modernization through democratization was necessary to advance
the country.
States undergoing modernization in hopes of gaining power and
wealth often look
towards the West as a model. Imitating the political structure
of Western nations in order to
achieve their level of prosperity was an idea that emerged in
China in the late 1800s, when a
remedy for the nations relative weakness as a global power was
in demand. This notion
2 Anderson, Donna Rouviere, and Forrest Anderson. Silenced
Scream: A Visual History of the 1989 Tiananmen
Protests. Rouviere Media, 2009. 68. 3 Langley, Andrew. Tiananmen
Square: Massacre Crushes China's Democracy Movement. Compass Point
Books,
2009. 27. 4 Ibid. 5 Duiker, William J. Contemporary World
History. Cengage Learning, 2014. 258.
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challenged traditional Chinese political thought based on
Confucianism, which prioritizes the
role of a benevolent ruler tasked with maintaining public order
to ensure peace and productivity.
The principles of democracy, which center around individualism
and equality, naturally come
into conflict with the Confucian values of collectivism and
hierarchy however, Confucian
scholars have proposed a compromise.6 Likewise, the democratic
movement in China advocated
mostly for a form of Chinese democracy one that remained within
the broad framework of
Marxism and Chinese political thought.7 It is difficult,
however, to reconcile the disordered
nature of individual freedom with the traditional Confucian
value of harmony, which the CPCs
policies are based upon.
Prior to the protests of 1989, Deng Xiaoping had already begun
hardening his stance
against individual freedom in order to maintain stability. The
government had instated laws
against public demonstration in response to the Democracy Wall
movement in 1978,8 and
increased the enforcement of existing laws after the
pro-democracy protests of 1986.9 Student
leaders of these movements were arrested, and several
high-ranking party officials were accused
of bourgeois liberalization.10 Most significantly, General
Secretary Hu Yaobang was dismissed
in January 1987. His purge from government served only to
increase political unrest, since he
was seen as a hero to the democratic movement.11 Eventually, Hus
sudden death by heart attack
in April 1989 provoked a wave of distress and grief that was
great enough to cause a gathering at
6 Schell, Orville. "Liang Qichao: China's First Democrat." In
Discos and Democracy: China in the Throes of Reform. Knopf
Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010. 7 "Chinese Democracy." Tiananmen:
The Gate of Heavenly Peace.
http://www.tsquare.tv/themes/essay.html. 8 Goldman, Merle. From
Comrade to Citizen: The Struggle for Political Rights in China.
Harvard University Press,
2005. 49. 9 Lu, Yonghong. China's Legal Awakening Legal Theory
and Criminal Justice in Deng's Era. Hong Kong
University Press, 1995. 276. 10 Hong, Junhao. The
Internationalization of Television in China: The Evolution of
Ideology, Society, and Media Since the Reform. Greenwood Publishing
Group, 1998. 102. 11 Langley, Tiananmen Square, 30.
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Tiananmen Square, initially as a mourning ceremony.12 It quickly
grew into a full-scale
demonstration, due to the increase of anti-government sentiment
and added urgency to the
protesters demands for freedom of speech, an end to corruption,
and democratic elections.
By April 18th, ten thousand protesters were involved; by April
22nd, that number grew to
one hundred thousand. Less than a month later, an estimated one
million people were present in
Tiananmen Square.13 It was the largest political protest in
Communist Chinas history.14 Despite
its scale, the protests were unable to persuade the political
elite to consider possible government
reforms.15 While some protesters began resorting to hunger
strikes, many began to give up their
fight due to exhaustion. 16 Towards the end of May, there was an
atmosphere in the square of lost
hope for democracy in China. In order to strengthen their
resolve, the portrait of Mao at
Tiananmen Square was confronted with the erection of the Goddess
in a face-off that would
determine whether a peoples fight for democracy could defeat the
long-standing elite-controlled
Communist Party of China.17
The Political Role of the Goddess of Democracy
In hopes of bolstering the movement, students of the Central
Academy of Fine Arts were
hired to construct the Goddess of Democracy beginning on May
27th.18 Her form was based on a
12 Wright, Teresa. "Protest As Participation: China's Local
Protest Movements." In Mobilizing Dissent: Local Protest, Global
Audience. World Politics Review, 2013. 13 Langley, Tiananmen
Square, 32-35. 14 "Timeline: Tiananmen Protests." BBC News. June 2,
2014. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-
27404764 15 Schock, Kurt. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power
Movements in Nondemocracies. University of Minnesota
Press, 2005. 101. 16 Schell, Orville. Mandate of Heaven: The
Legacy of Tiananmen Square and the Next Generation of China's
Leaders. Simon & Schuster, 1995. 128-129. 17 Ibid. 130. 18
Simmie, Scott. "The Goddess of Democracy's Short but Enduring Life
Began 25 Years Ago." The Star, May 27,
2014.
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sculpture of a man holding a pole, and her feminine
characteristics were strategically added.19
Protesters believed that the symbolism of a female deity that
alluded to Western folklore, the
Roman Goddess of Liberty,20 would resonate more with
international supporters of the
movement. Her resemblance to the Statue of Liberty is
indisputable and was deliberately used to
appeal to an American audience.21 The torch in particular is a
common symbol of enlightenment,
which lights the way to freedom, showing us the path to
Liberty.22
Although it was primarily an object of self-expression, the
Goddess was intended to gain
more international sympathy, since it had proven to be an
excellent source of political pressure
on the Chinese government.23 It was also able to recruit over
one million U.S. dollars worth of
donations from the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong,
and many other nations in
support of the democratization movement.24 The protesters
benefited from the world identifying
with their cause, but were careful to maintain balance, since
they did not want to give credence
to the authorities theory that the protests were being
completely orchestrated by the West. At
first, she was most commonly referred to as the Goddess of
Liberty due to her resemblance to the
Statue of Liberty, before given the official title of Goddess of
Democracy which expressed
identification with American values less explicitly.25
19 Dean, Jodi. Cultural Studies & Political Theory. Cornell
University Press, 2000. 169. 20 Fischer, David Hackett. Liberty and
Freedom: A Visual History of America's Founding Ideas. Oxford
University
Press, 2005. 234. 21 Weiss, Jessica Chen. Powerful Patriots:
Nationalist Protest in China's Foreign Relations. Oxford
University
Press, 2014. 228. 22 United States National Park Service.
"Frequently Asked Questions About the Statue of Liberty." National
Parks
Service. December 4, 2014.
http://www.nps.gov/stli/planyourvisit/get-the-facts.htm. 23 Stoner,
Kathryn, and Michael McFaul. Transitions to Democracy: A
Comparative Perspective. JHU Press, 2013.
393. 24 Zhang, Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link. The
Tiananmen Papers. Public Affairs, 2008. 334. 25 Schell, Orville.
The China Reader: The Reform Era. Vintage Books, 1999.
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On May 30th, she was officially
welcomed to the square with the protesters
cheers and applause (Figure 1). The
unveiling of the Goddess attracted
significant attention and is credited with re-
expanding the movement from ten thousand
to hundreds of thousands of square occupants.26 This paper-mch,
thirty-three-foot tall symbol
of freedom and democracy inspired the crowd and caused many
protesters to announce their
revived determination.27 It is also likely that she succeeded in
her mission to gain or at least
maintain international sympathy, since Western media took notice
and the support continued.28
The Goddess of Democracy also provoked a harsh reactionary
response by the government. The
statue was seen as a terrible offense against the honor of the
CPC, emphasized by her
confrontational position in the face of Mao, and was reviledas
desecration.29
On June 4th, when soldiers were ordered to have the square
cleared by 6:00 AM using any
means necessary to clear impediments,30 the Goddess of Democracy
was a target, whose fall
would symbolize the irreversible destruction of the democratic
movement in China.31 As one
graduate student from the Central Academy of Fine Arts said, The
statue was made so that once
assembled, it could not be taken apart again, but would have to
be destroyed all at once.32 The
26 Katsiaficas, George. Asia's Unknown Uprisings: People Power
in the Philippines, Burma, Tibet, China, Taiwan,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Thailand and Indonesia 1947-2009.PM Press,
2013. 158. 27 Brook, Timothy. Quelling the People: The Military
Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement. Stanford
University Press, 1998. 88. 28 Stoners, Transitions to
Democracy, 393. 29 Buckley, Chris. "The Rise and Fall of the
Goddess of Democracy." New York Times, June 1, 2014.
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-goddess-of-democracy
30 MacFarquhar, Roderick. The Politics of China: The Eras of Mao
and Deng. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
457. 31 Fischer, Liberty and Freedom, 725. 32 Ibid.
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protests were seen in a similar way by the Chinese government,
and in a matter of hours, the
thousands of occupants of the square were forced out or
otherwise killed by the PLA.33 The
statue, the democratic movement, and many protesters were
massacred in the early morning of
June 4th, 1989.
Collective Amnesia vs. Memory
The remembrance of the Tiananmen Square Massacre is highly
controversial, and
depending on which version of history one subscribes to, the
Communist Party of China is either
defended or condemned. Amid the uncertainty and disorder of the
days following June 4th,
Chinese authorities popularized their own interpretation of the
event, which classified the
democratic protests as counter-revolutionary riots that posed
the threat of reverting China to
the state of chaos experienced during the Cultural Revolution.34
According to the officials, the
PLA had shown great restraint and dignity in their actions and
opened fire only in self-defence.35
These claims are highly contested, along with the preliminary
death toll, which was reported by
the Chinese government to be 241, including 23 soldiers.36 Many
witness testimonies estimate
the number of protester deaths to be in the thousands.37
After several months, in the early 1990s, the government halted
the public retelling of
their story, and began discouraging any public discussion of the
June Fourth Incident. The
authorities have opted for a systematic process of forgetting
limiting information in education
33 "Timeline: Tiananmen Protests." BBC News. 34 Wasserstrom,
Jeffrey. "China's June 4, 1989: Remembered and Misremembered."
Time, June 3, 2010. 35 Lim, Louisa. The People's Republic of
Amnesia: Tiananmen Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014. 94. 36 Ibid. 7. 37 Kristof, Nicholas D., and Sheryl WuDunn.
Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia. Knopf
Doubleday
Publishing Group, 2000.
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and media while monitoring citizens to an extraordinary
extent.38 Indeed, the Chinese
government spends more on internal security than national
defense, through surveillance and
censorship.39 Despite the small handful of citizens who are
attempting to revive the memory of
Tiananmen, government efforts to contain its memory have largely
been successful. 40 In a nation
where memory means defiance and the risk of imprisonment,
compliance to national amnesia is
certainly the safest choice.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world was publicly outraged by the
violent actions of the army
against the peaceful protesters. Leading up to the crackdown,
Western media portrayed the
protests as a heroic struggle by ordinary freedom-loving people
against the totalitarian might of
the Chinese government.41 The Tiananmen Square Massacre provoked
serious criticism from
the international community, and the United States and its
allies dramatically decreased their
official visits, foreign investment, and foreign lending with
China.42 The commemoration of the
victims of the massacre through construction of monuments is
another significant way the
Western world has expressed their political standpoint and the
most prevalent form of
memorial is the replication of the Goddess of Democracy.
Replicas Worldwide
Imitations of the Goddess were erected as memorials for June 4th
beginning as early as
1989. Replicas have appeared repeatedly in Hong Kong and all
across North America
specifically, in the cities of Los Angeles (1989), San Francisco
(1994), Arlington (1999),
38 Lim, Louisa, The People's Republic of Amnesia, 208-211. 39
Ibid. 211. 40 Ibid. 41 White, P.R.R. "Evaluative Semantics and
Ideological Positioning in Journalistic Discourse a New
Framework
for Analysis." In Mediating Ideology in Text and Image: Ten
Critical Studies. John Benjamins Publishing, 2006. 49. 42 Ross,
Robert S., Allen S. Whiting, and Harry Harding. "China's Foreign
Relations After Tiananmen: Challenges
for the U.S." NBR Analysis, 1990.
http://www.nbr.org/publications/issue.aspx?id=143.
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Washington (1989 and 2007), Vancouver (1991), Calgary (1995),
and Toronto (1992 and 2012).
Many of these replicas have attracted controversy, and emphasize
the Goddess of Democracys
significance as a highly politicized symbol. For example, the
1992 statue at York University was
reportedly removed without warning, with speculations linked to
Chinese political pressure.43
The replica in Los Angeles was banned by the Chinese Chamber of
Commerce from entering the
Chinese New Year parade.44 Another replica was set to be
constructed in Taiwan, however, the
president bowed to political pressure from Mainland China and
cancelled these plans.45 These
instances of censorship and control reveal the fragility and
insecurity of the Chinese government,
and indicate the Goddess ability to provoke political
antagonism.
On June 12th, 2007, a bronze replica in Washington, D.C. was
revealed as the Victims of
Communism Memorial. On her pedestal, two politically active
statements are inscribed: To the
more than one hundred million victims of communism and to those
who love liberty and To
the freedom and independence of all captive nations and
peoples.46 President George Bush
delivered an emblematic speech at her ceremony of unveiling,
ending his speech with the words,
May those who continue to suffer under Communism find their
freedom.47 This caused the
Chinese government to accuse the U.S. of defam[ing] China.48 The
writing that accompanies
the statue, as well as the speech delivered by President Bush,
demonstrate an unmistakable
43 Keung, Nicholas. "What Happened to the Goddess of Democracy?"
The Star, August 18, 2011.
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2011/08/18/what_happened_to_the_goddess_of_democracy.html.
44 Chong, Linda. "No 'Goddess' for Chinese New Year Celebrants."
Los Angeles Times, February 11, 1990.
http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-11/local/me-1088_1_chinese-culture.
45 Rong, Xiao. "Lawsuit Over Canceled Statue." Radio Free Asia,
April 25, 2012.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/statue-04252012104711.html.
46 "The Memorial." Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
http://victimsofcommunism.org/initiative/the-
memorial/. 47 Ibid. 48 Falk, Leora. "D.C. Memorial Honors
Victims of Communism." The Spokesman-Review, June 13, 2007.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=20070613&id=HrsyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SvMDAAAAIBAJ&pg
=7070,679288.
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attempt to use the Goddess of Democracy to remind the public of
the dangers of communism,
while at the same time encouraging democracy abroad and acting
defiantly against the will of the
CPC. Although the political dimension of the Goddess is not
always made so explicit, the same
implications are still present in every instance of her
replication.
The Goddess of Democracy at UBC
The replica at the University of British Columbia was erected on
June 3rd, 1991. The
artists, Joseph Caveno and Hung Chung, used white marble dust
and epoxy to create this nine
foot tall sculpture of the famous Goddess and modeled it after
the replica in San Francisco
(Figure 2).49 A ceremony of inauguration took place
to welcome her arrival, accompanied by speeches
that honored those who died for democracy,
condemned the brutality of the CPC, and expressed
support for the continuation of the democratic
movement in China.50
Unfortunately, monuments tend to lose their
provocative nature over time and become susceptible
to invisibility. The familiarity that spectators develop
with the object, in addition to the persistence and
longevity of the monument genre, creates a
paradoxical connection between commemoration
49 "Outdoor Art Tour." Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
http://www.belkin.ubc.ca/files/outdoor_long.pdf. 50 Ming, Liu Bing.
"The Unveiling Ceremony of the Goddess of Democracy Statue."
Carnegie Newsletter, August 15, 1990.
http://edocs.lib.sfu.ca/projects/chodarr/carnegie_newsletters/1990-08-15.pdf#page=4.
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and historical indifference.51 However, like the original and
her other imitations, she has been the
center of attention at certain momentous points in her life and
it is precisely these moments that
allow for a constructive dialogue between the Goddess and her
spectators, resulting in a
negotiated understanding of her symbolism. Monuments are like
prisms, which filter, clarify or
distort memory, acting as mediums between the commemorated event
and the spectator's
perception.52 Therefore, without an interested and informed
audience, memorials designed to be
political objects that urge the remembrance and relevance of a
historical event can be rendered
meaningless.53 The legacy of UBC's Goddess of Democracy depends
on her audience's
participation as active interpreters, which was most prominent
at her time of conception and
provoked the type of political debate necessary for constructing
meaning through negotiation.
The Goddess first appeared in Vancouver at an art exhibition in
August of 1989 held to
commemorate the events of June 4th. It was decided that this
sculpture was worthy of public
display as a memorial, which led the community to debate which
location would be most
suitable.54 The Vancouver's Society in Support of the Democratic
Movement (VSSDM) argued
that the Goddess should be placed in Vancouver's Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
Classical Chinese Garden a
garden named after the father of modern China. However, the
garden's board of trustees
disapproved, because the garden was not a political forum, and
therefore the statue was
deemed inappropriate.55 Additionally, the CPC had donated more
than $500,000 to the building
of the garden, which has caused speculations that the Chinese
government had influence in the
51 Carrier, Peter. Holocaust Monuments and National Memory
Cultures in France and Germany since 1989: The Origins and
Political Function of the Vel' D'Hiv' in Paris and the Holocaust
Monument in Berlin. Berghahn Books, 2005. 15. 52 Ibid. 32. 53 Ibid.
41. 54 Parton, Nicole. "Goddess of Democracy a Hot Lady in
Vancouver." The Vancouver Sun, August 22, 1989. 55 Ibid.
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decision.56 Upon the failure of negotiations with the Vancouver
Parks Board, the VSSDM
approached the Alma Mater Society of UBC through the Chinese
Student and Scholar
Association, and received a warm welcome.57
Once established at UBC, however, her presence continued to
create debate among
members of the Chinese community in Vancouver. Some
Chinese-Canadians agreed with
Dongquing Wei, the president of the Federation of Chinese
Student Scholars of Canada, who
appreciated the statue as an expression of the outrage of
Chinese student scholars to the
massacre while supporting the endeavor to protect human rights
and promote the
democratization of China.58 In contrast, opponents of the statue
felt offended and dismayed. The
Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) issued an open letter to
the Chinese community in
Vancouvers Sing Tao Daily, describing the erection of the statue
as a dirty political act and a
blatant interference with the affairs of another country.59 The
CBA has also expressed concern
that it would affect the peace of fellow Chinese and the
prosperity and stability of
Chinatown.60 Former professor of Art History at UBC and witness
to the Tiananmen Square
Massacre, Hsingyuan Tsao, seems to agree that the statue does
not serve a noble purpose, and
holds the view that the statue is painful for some of the
Chinese community to look at, since it
commemorates a failed attempt at achieving what Canada already
has.61 Variation in public
reception of the Goddess of Democracy is inevitable, since
monument interpretations depend on
56 Ibid. 57 Farrow, Moira. "Tiananmen Statue site proposed:
Society seeks UBC site for the replica of Tiananmen statue."
The Vancouver Sun, October 4, 1990. 58 Abbott, Paul. "Goddess'
Position on Campus in Question." Ubyssey, September 21, 1990.
Accessed December 13,
2014.
http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Ubysseynews/id/27758/rec/3.
59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Tsao, Hsingyuan. Interview by Thomas
Friedenbach. University of British Columbia, April 7, 2011.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsZftBLK2VQ.
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an individual's perspective, prior knowledge of the event, and
the degree of their personal and
emotional involvement.62
Memorials can also be used in dramatically different ways
than their intended purposes, allowing them to take on
different
roles depending on the political intentions of the interpreters.
For
example, in February 1997, a series of student
demonstrations
against the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
conference that took place on campus that year in November
used
the Goddess of Democracy as a focal point of protest. There
was
an absence of human rights issues on the conference agenda,
and
given that several members of APEC are leaders of nations with
a
recently bloodstained history, student opposition felt that UBC
was hypocritical in their decision
to welcome these human rights abusers, murderers, and dictators
to the campus.63 Protesters
hung a sign around the Goddess neck, urging students to Remember
Tiananmen! Remember
East Timor! No to APEC at UBC! No Mass Murderers at UBC! (Figure
3), and beneath her on
the ground, someone chalked out a new name for her: The Goddess
of Hypocrisy.64 In
September, she was vandalized with lipstick and eyeliner being
added to her face, along with
being gagged, bound and taped up in plastic however, APEC
protesters do not take
responsibility for these acts, which were considered
particularly outrageous.65 Nonetheless, it is
apparent that the Goddess was taken out of context in order to
serve these protests. Her
62 Carrier, Holocaust Monuments and National Memory Cultures,
32. 63 Capler, Nicole. "Democracy Bound and Gagged at UBC."
Ubyssey, April 8, 1997.
http://digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/Ubysseynews/id/31518/rec/1.
64 Ibid. 65 Ibid.
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symbolism was altered to represent the memory of human rights
abuses in Asia, rather than
representing the hope for democracy in China.
In October of 2014, another group of activists took interest in
the Goddess of Democracy
decorating her with a yellow umbrella, ribbons, and flowers in
support of the recent uprising in
Hong Kong (Figure 4). Students stopped to take photos and admire
her beauty in the new context
of the Umbrella Revolution, which allowed for a re-negotiation
of her meaning by the
community. Similar to the Tiananmen Square protests, citizens of
Hong Kong in September of
2014 protested against the authoritarianism of the Communist
Party of China and demanded democratic rights in response to
their
refusal to allow Hong Kong citizens to choose their own
Chief
Executive candidates, despite their agreement to preserve
the
independent political system of Hong Kong prior to its transfer
of
sovereignty.66 The Umbrella Revolution did not end in
bloodshed,
however supporters of the Umbrella Revolution in Mainland
China
have been censored and imprisoned, and the protesters in
Hong
Kong have been forced to give up their fight. Not unlike the
aftermath of the Tiananmen Square
Massacre, participants in these events expect to experience
intimidation and increased
supervision from Chinese authorities.67 Regardless, the hope for
the protesters cause in both
Hong Kong and Mainland China lives on, and may provoke future
unrest due to the increased
levels of oppression, control and censorship in their everyday
lives.
66 "Hong Kong's Democracy Debate." BBC News. October 7, 2014.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-
27921954. 67 Westscott, Lucy. "Photos: Hong Kong Pro-Democracy
Protest Site Dismantled." Newsweek, December 12, 2014.
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Conclusion
The Czech writer Milan Kundera once wrote, The struggle of man
against power is the
struggle of memory against forgetting.68 This holds true in the
case of the Chinese peoples
struggle against the power of the Communist Party, which is
characterized largely by refusing to
forget the events of June 4th, 1989, as well as the many little
Tiananmens that occur on a daily
basis.69 The key to maintaining the Goddess of Democracys
function as a generator of historical
consciousness is to allow for recurrent debate about her
political significance and relevance
today. As long as the Goddess of Democracy occasionally arises
as a focal point of dialogue, she
will remain a strongly symbolic figure that stands on the campus
of UBC not only as a
reminder of the massacre and its victims, but as a symbol of the
unresolved conflict between the
persistence of authoritarianism in China and supporters of the
democratic movement worldwide.
The painful memory of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China is
a wound that has been
improperly bandaged with amnesia, and remains unhealed. The
Goddess of Democracy is a
powerful piece of commemorative art with the ability to remedy
the indifference towards this
increasingly forgotten event, which has not only transformed
Chinese politics, but also the lives
of June 4th victims and their silenced loved ones.
68 Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. New
York: HarperCollins, 1996. 4. 69 Lim, Peoples Republic of Amnesia.
173.