Tiananmen memorial

About the memorial-

• The 8-meter (26-foot)-tall sculpture was constructed in memory of the victims of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
• It is made of bronze, copper and concrete. 
• Danish Sculptor Jens Galschioet had gifted the statue to the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China.
• The Tiananmen massacre, in which hundreds and possibly thousands were killed, was a pivotal moment at which a divided Communist Party leadership decided to suppress the democracy movement rather than allow it to grow. 
• The statue shows 50 bodies with anguish-ridden faces piled up together commemorating unarmed student protestors who had been protesting since mid-April in 1989 against corruption, unemployment, inflation, etc., and were killed as Chinese troops opened fire on them. 
• These bodies symbolize the devaluation of the individual, and the sculpture expresses the pain and despair of what happened. 
• It was erected in Hong Kong in 1997 during an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate the event. 
• The text at the base of the sculpture reads, “The old cannot kill the young” in English and Chinese. 
• Hong Kong was a British colony and not part of China in 1989. 
• After its return to China in 1997, it was given partial democracy, with some of its legislature but not the city’s leader chosen by popular vote. 
• Demands for greater democracy sparked massive protests in 2014 and 2019.