One Man

Today the headline reads: Beijing begins 1-year countdown to Summer Olympics with dancers, fireworks in Tiananmen Square and the image that goes with it is the one posted above. When I hear the word Tiananmen Square I remember the image from back in 1989 that is posted below.

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. Nobody knows what happened to him even one hour after his moment in the world's living rooms. But the man who stood before a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square — June 5, 1989 — was seen in his moment of self-transcendence by more people than ever laid eyes on Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and James Joyce combined.

For seven weeks, though, in the late spring of 1989 — the modern year of revolutions — the Chinese people took back the square, first a few workers and students and teachers and soldiers, then more and more, until more than 1 million had assembled there. Then, in the dark early hours of June 4, the government struck back, sending tanks from all directions toward Tiananmen Square and killing hundreds of workers and students and doctors and children, many later found shot in the back.

A lasting image in my mind and heart, a forever reminder of the day that God told me ‘No’. You see just a year earlier in 1988 I had turned down an opportunity to teach engineering in China and I would have probably been right in the midst of the events of Tiananmen Square.

One person can change the world.