• @CitricBase@lemmy.world
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    7313 hours ago

    Let’s see…

    • Nazism
    • McCarthyism
    • Vietnam War
    • Racial Injustice
    • South African Apartheid
    • Occupy Wall Street
    • Gaza Genocide
    • etc.

    I am curious. Has there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN’T unequivocally vindicated by history?

    • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      12 hours ago

      The Young Turk movement started with medical students.

      There were quite a few pro-segregation protests when schools were desegregated.

      There’s also a lot of cases where students with real grievances and positive intentions are coopted; most of the students protesting in the early 90s in eastern europe didn’t intend to do a color revolution and have their countries stripped for parts.

      • @CitricBase@lemmy.world
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        57 hours ago

        Thank you for bringing those up. However, unless I’m misunderstanding them, the only one of those where the protesters were in the wrong were the pro-segregation protests, correct? But weren’t those protests by-and-large made up of parents? (Perhaps along with some of their children doing what they were told?) Not exactly the “rebellious youth sticking it to the man” we generally mean by the words student protest.

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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      05 hours ago

      Tiananmen got deleted.

      Never knew until I immigrated to the US. And even then, its merely a brief mention on it and calls it “communism” (its not lol) and then the teachers proclaim its why “communism” is bad, USA constitution rule of law blah blah.

      Look how good the constitution is, its being ripped apart right now.

      Sure, the western world knows it happened, but its only a few shitposters on the internet cares about it. If you go on the street and ask the average westerner, they’d have no clue on what you’re talking about.

      A few posts on reddit shitposting on June 4 is not exactly being “Vindicated”.

      The CCP won, they erased history.

      The USA is now following the same path.

      Autocrats of the world have won.

      • @CitricBase@lemmy.world
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        44 hours ago

        It’s possible English isn’t your first language? No worries.

        The word “vindicated” doesn’t mean “won in the end,” it means “they were right.” As in, justified in their demands, on the right side of history. Even of the protests I listed in my first comment, half of them didn’t actually win in the end (Vietnam, Occupy, Gaza, and arguably more).

        From Wikipedia:

        …(the Seven Demands) for the government:

        1. Affirm Hu Yaobang’s views on democracy and freedom as correct.
        2. Admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalisation had been wrong.
        3. Publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members.
        4. Allow privately run newspapers and stop press censorship.
        5. Increase funding for education and raise intellectuals’ pay.
        6. End restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing.
        7. Provide objective coverage of students in official media.[84][83]

        I hope that you’d agree that the students were in the right, and that the oppressive CCP was in the wrong?

        • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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          34 hours ago

          In Mainland China, most people don’t know about Tiananmen, the older people who heard about it didn’t know much unless they were in Beijing, my parents (in Guangdong province at the time) just think its some kids “causing trouble”.

          Most of the liberalizations goals failed, there is no free press. China is a State-Capitalist dictatorship.

          • @CitricBase@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            Yes, I understand that. Perhaps I was not empathetic enough, I am sorry to hear that about your family being deceived, along with the rest of mainland China.

            The fact that the oppressive CCP won does not mean they were right. The world is not a Disney movie, the good guys don’t always win.

            “Vindicated” just means that the good guys were good. Whether or not they won.

            • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
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              13 hours ago

              Dictionary Definition:

              vindicate *verb*
              - 1 a: to free from allegation or blame
              - b (1): confirm, substantiate
              - (2): to provide justification or defense for : justify
              - c : to protect from attack or encroachment : defend
              - 2 : avenge
              - 3 : to maintain a right to
              - 4 obsolete : to set free : deliver
              

              https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vindicate

              So imagine a person defending against an assailant and inadvertently kills him.

              The polices comes and accuses the person for murder, but its self defence.

              So the man get convicted for murder.

              Sure, his family may believe him. Some friend may believe him. A rebel group might also believe him.

              But most people either don’t care or just believe what the police says.

              The man spends life in prison. And his identity, records, papers are all shredded.

              He may be in the right, but that’s not exactly being “vindicated”.

              Vindicated is:

              to free from allegation or blame

              Yea maybe in the west, but in Mainland China, it doesn’t exist. Those who witnessed it thinks it was a riot.

              Being “Vindicated” would be the CCP topples, and the new government shares the truth.

      • @uuldika@lemmy.ml
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        23 hours ago

        wasn’t the Red Guard also a student movement? it didn’t get deleted, but it’s definitely not looked back upon fondly. tbf most of what I know of it comes from Three Body Problem though, so I could be wrong.

        there’s also the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhoff gang) in Germany during the '70s which killed some people.

      • ssillyssadass
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        14 hours ago

        If they won they wouldn’t still be trying to exert power. It’s not over until they stop.

    • @LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe
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      -1213 hours ago

      University students lead the Hungarian Revolution, and history doesn’t remember them fondly. They rebelled against the Soviet Union, which makes them Nazis. It’s a good thing our dear leader Stalin sent the tanks in to kill those students.

      • @curbstickle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        912 hours ago

        I had to look it up (dont know much about it), but in the Wikipedia entry it notes:

        Time named the Hungarian Freedom Fighter its Man of the Year

        And

        In 2006, Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány referred to this famous Time cover as “the faces of free Hungary” in a speech marking the 50th anniversary of the uprising.

        Which makes me think they were later vindicated. But maybe I’m missing something.

        • @rektdeckard@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          I may be wrong and lack any historical knowledge on the subject, but I think author is sarcastically self-identifying as a tankie?

          • @LeninsOvaries@lemmy.cafe
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            -139 hours ago

            I’m not a troll, I’m a 100% serious and proud Marxist-Leninist. And I think there was nothing wrong with Stalin selling lumber and steel to Nazi Germany in the 1930s to make weapons with. Because I’m a real communist!

        • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          412 hours ago

          The guy you’re responding to is a liberal doing a piss-poor satire of a ML.

          The students protests was quickly co-opted by nazi collaborators entirely unaffiliated with the students, it’d be like if Jan 6 happened during the 2020 protests.

          The government vindicating those protestors also built monuments to nazi collaborators.

          It’s a complex issue, the students had genuine issues the government was failing to address, but if the soviets didn’t step in, things would have been far, far worse. For comparison, here’s what tended to happen in countries that failed to stop the counterrevolution around that time.

          • @LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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            03 hours ago

            Yeah, that is why it was justified to shoot protesters. Because of what might have happened. The people are clearly misguided, we need to roll over them with tanks to prove we are the true proletariat. A lot of governments built monuments to Nazi collaborteurs. That doesn’t mean jack shit. Hitler was vegetarian and against animal abuse.

            • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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              02 hours ago

              Yeah, that is why it was justified to shoot protesters

              If that’s what you think I’m suggesting, you need to work on your reading comprehension.

              There were protesters protesting for a change in government, there were organizers setting up alternative structures to compensate for the government’s failure, there were also fascists lynching government officials in the streets.

              Are you suggesting it would have been better to just let the fascists seize power?

              A lot of governments built monuments to Nazi collaborteurs. That doesn’t mean jack shit

              Oh lmao.

              • @LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works
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                12 hours ago

                Yeah, that is why it was justified to shoot protesters

                If that’s what you think I’m suggesting, you need to work on your reading comprehension.

                […]

                Are you suggesting it would have been better to just let the fascists seize power?

                • @alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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                  1 hour ago

                  Let me simplify this for you: Shooting communist protesters trying to reform the system is bad. Shooting fascists lynching people in the street is good and necessary.