“Tank Man” (also known as the “Unknown Protester”) is the nickname of an unidentified man who stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks on June 5, 1989 — the morning after the Chinese military had ruthlessly suppressed the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 … As the lead tank maneuvered to pass by the man, he repeatedly shifted his position in order to obstruct the tank’s attempted path around him. The courageous incident was filmed and seen worldwide, and inspires millions of people even to this day … More than 28 years after the incident, there is still no reliable information about the identity or fate of the man, or what happened to the tank crew he faced.

 

The incident took place at the north edge of Tiananmen Square, along Chang’an Avenue.  The man stood in the middle of the wide avenue, directly in the path of a column of approaching tanks. Stuart Franklin, who was on assignment for TIME magazine, told the New York Times, “At some point, shots were fired and the tanks carried on down the road toward us, leaving Tiananmen Square behind, until blocked by a lone protester.”  He wore a white shirt and black trousers, and he held two shopping bags.  As the tanks came to a stop, the man gestured towards the tanks with one of the bags. In response, the lead tank attempted to drive around the man, but the man kept stepping into the path of the tank in a bold show of nonviolent resistance. After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit.

Having successfully brought the column to a halt, the man climbed onto the hull of the buttoned-up lead tank and, after briefly stopping at the driver’s hatch, appeared in video footage to call into various ports in the tank’s turret. He then climbed atop the turret and seemed to have a short conversation with a crew member at the gunner’s hatch. After ending the conversation, the man descended from the tank. The tank commander briefly emerged from his hatch, and the tanks restarted their engines, ready to continue on. At that point, the man, who was still standing within a meter or two from the side of the lead tank, leapt in front of the vehicle once again and quickly re-established his man-vs-tank standoff.  Shortly thereafter, two anxious onlookers came out and pulled the Tank Man to safety, and the waters of anonymity closed around him once more – but not before his lasting legacy of courage had been ingrained in the hearts of everyone who had witnessed his bravery, as well as everyone who has witnessed it since.

“The meaning of his moment was instantly decipherable in any tongue, to any age.  Even the billions who cannot read and those who have never heard of Mao Zedong could follow what the ‘Tank Man’ did.  A small, unexceptional figure in slacks and white shirt, carrying what looks to be his shopping, posts himself before an approaching tank, with a line of 17 more tanks behind it. The tank swerves right; he, to block it, moves left. The tank swerves left; he moves right. Then this anonymous man clambers up onto the vehicle of war and says something to its driver, something which comes down to us as: ‘Why are you here? My city is in chaos because of you.’ One lone Everyman standing up to the machinery of the state, to military force, to all the massed weight of the People’s Republic — the largest nation in the world, comprising more than 1 billion people – all while its all-powerful leaders remained, as ever, in silent hiding somewhere within the bowels of the Great Hall of the People … In the unnatural quiet after the Tiananmen Square massacre, with the six-lane streets eerily empty and a burned-out bus along the side of the road, it fell to the Tank Man to serve as the last great defender of the peace; an Unknown Soldier in the long human struggle for human rights.” ~ Pico Iyer

 

“Here’s this guy who is obviously just out shopping, and finally he’s just had enough.  I assume he thinks he’s going to die, but he doesn’t care because for whatever reason his statement has become more important than his own life … If somebody had a way of checking my brain thoughts, this guy probably goes through them every single day.  He’s become a part of me.” ~ Jeff Widener, the journalist who took the iconic Tank Man photo

Filed under: In LOVE with Humanity by Scaughdt