Take it for what it's worth...

This link was sent to me as part of an anonymous comment to my post on the anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre. A report by the Columbia Jouralism Review casts various doubts about the events that night, such as the reporters who claimed they saw students being murdered, but had no such vantage point to see the square, and that anyone who was killed were outside of the square and were not students, but workers.

"The Chinese government estimates more than 300 fatalities. Western estimates are somewhat higher. Many victims were shot by soldiers on stretches of Changan Jie, the Avenue of Eternal Peace, about a mile west of the square, and in scattered confrontations in other parts of the city, where, it should be added, a few soldiers were beaten or burned to death by angry workers."

Like much of what we know as truth alot of Tienanman is perhaps legend, and unless you were there you'd be a fool not to at least entertain the possiblity. However, nothing should take away from the metaphor and the iconicness of Tienanmen. What do we know? Students were protesting for civil rights and freedoms, and along the way, some chain of events set off a series of deaths. Now we can argue who killed who, and how many died, and so forth and so on, and if picking over the bones of legend is your thing, then by all means do so. But these kind of stories, like those who want to nitpick over details of the Holocaust, or the European, and American slave trade, can be dangerous when not placed into the correct context. What matters overall--the lesson of the legend--or why it became legend in the first place, isn't about how many died, or who died, but that there was death and havoc because people wanted freedom. I don't believe that Jesus was the son of God, and frankly he might not have existed, but I won't let my doubts destroy his positive messages. Those that bury their heads in the sands of details, sometimes, miss the clear blue skies above.