INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / JUNE 20, 1989

 

 

 

Fascist Cries Echo in Tiananmen

Square

by Crawford Kilian

(Reprinted from The Province,
Tuesday, June 13, 1989)

On June 4 in Tiananmen Square,
China’s 27th Group Amy
reminded us that education is a life-
and-death business.

Not just China’s children, but we
ourselves were in the soldiers’
sights. Their targets weren’t bodies
but the ideas that animated them: in-
dependent thought, respect for
people, belief in the value of
knowledge and its free exchange.

Fascism, as my father used to ob-
setve, is contempt for people. The
27th Army Group perfectly ex-
pressed the perverted war cry of
Franco’s fascists in the Spanisu:
Civil War: “Down with intel-
ligence! Long live death!”

Chinese fascists won’t last much
longer, and we should be thinking
now of ways to help China recover.

Nothing will be more important
than rebuilding her education sys-
tem.

The country has about a
thousand colleges, universities and
institutes, with a total enrolment of
only 1.7 million. Some of the best
schools are in Beijing, and many of
their students are now dead or in
mortal danger.

Faculty members are equally
threatened; few will co-operate
with the Dengists, and the price of
resistance will be death or prison.

Meanwhile more than 30,000
Chinese are now studying in the
U.S. and about 4,500 in Canada.
They should stay as long as they

 

need to complete their work, and
should remain as long as the fas-
cists still rule in Beijing.

Few students are likely to stay
here permanently, however; those I
have spoken with are implacably
determined to overthrow the Den-
gists and build a democratic China.

When the fascists fall, they will
leave the country destitute and
chaotic. Economic recovery will
depend on a strong democratic
government and on rebuilding the
schools.

It will be in our interest as well
as China’s to speed that rebuilding.
We can’t afford to let the world’s
biggest nation sink into war-lor-
dism, any more than we could
leave westem Europe to rot in its
ruins after the Second World War.

In fact, we will probably have to
develop something like the Mar-
shall Plan, which enabled Europe to
rebuild.

Whether as a long-term loan or
outright gift, we will nced to supply
Chinese universities with every-
thing from books to lab equipment
to thousands of temporary teachers.

Technology will help; in some
cases, we will be able to link
Chinese campuses to western
universities and computer
databases via telephone and satel-
lite.

We will also need to bring
thousands more Chinese scholars
and students to our universities for
advanced study - not only in their
own disciplines, but in education
administration.

 

The scale of recovery will be
daunting. Even if we helped China
double its post-secondary student
population, it would achieve a par-
ticipation rate of only about two per
cent. Canada’s is 25 per cent.

The cost to the West will be
daunting as well. North American
universities will face a severe
shortage of faculty in the 1990's,
and every professor we send to
China will worsen that shortage.

Our own schools are short
enough of money; aid to China may
mean more sacrifices here.

Nonetheless, the total outlay will
probably be less than the U.S. alone
has already donated to China in the
form of military aid in the last 10
years, and as an investment it will
repay us many times over - in trade,
intemational stability, and the
friendship of a billion people.

Not to make that investment
would mean leaving the survivors
of Tiananmen Square at the mercy
of the fascists.

And we are among the survivors.

 

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