如何破除“六四痴迷”？ How to Break the Fixation on June Fourth?

By Timothy Huang

一年前，我曾经发文讨论，在六四这一绕不开的政治符号面前，年轻一代反贼与老一辈民运之间的割裂感究竟从何而来，以及这种代际裂痕应当如何理解、如何处理。一年之后，我逐渐意识到，许多人真正面对的问题已经从“如何打交道”转向了另一个更加根本的问题：如果根本不想继续打交道，是否可以在政治上、心理上都绕开这一套既有仪式？

对于我这样的反华分子，这个问题并不复杂。我对六四以及老一辈民运，长期保持一种尊重而疏离的态度。尊重的是他们在特定历史条件下付出的代价；疏离的是他们所继承、建构并不断重复的政治语言、道德姿态与历史想象。可是，并非所有人都站在我这样的思想位置上。许多人仍然停留在反习不反共、反共不反华的阶段；也有人类似柏杨，虽然满口中华民族劣根性，内心深处依然怀有改造中华民族的冲动。对于这些人而言，如果不能真正摆脱那种每年此时必须大张旗鼓纪念六四、必须与所有人辩出一个是非高低的心理冲动，最终很容易陷入持续的内耗。

因此，本文真正要讨论的，是一个对所有流派的反贼都具有现实意义的问题：如何从心态上打破对六四的痴迷，如何在政治行动中绕开六四所制造的身份绑架，并尽量避免在现实抗争中因为这一符号与民运前辈发生不必要的冲突。

一、区分纪念与继承

从心态上破除六四痴迷的第一步，是区分“纪念和缅怀六四参与者及广义上的民运先驱”与“继承和发扬所谓六四精神”。

中国政治文化中的纪念活动，常常有一个根深蒂固的问题：它很少满足于单纯的哀悼，总要在哀悼之上附加某种解释权。那些已经牺牲、沉默或失去发声能力的前人，被后来的纪念者一次又一次地重新征用；他们的鲜血与苦难，变成了后来者宣扬自身价值、观点和政治路线的材料。所谓纪念，也就很容易滑向对人血馒头的争抢。更麻烦的是，如果被夹带进去的内容，是今天看来早已腐朽不堪的八十年代民小政治想象，那么即使年轻一代民主小清新，也很难毫无不适地接受。也正因如此，把纪念与发扬区分开来，是破除六四痴迷的第一步。

纪念六四，与被纪念者本人的政治观点无关，与纪念者本人的政治观点更加无关。一个人可以哀悼某场政治镇压中的死者，却无需继承他们的全部政治主张；也可以承认一场国家暴力的残酷性，却无需接受后来围绕这场暴力所发展出的整套解释体系。

类似的例子并不难理解。人们纪念广岛原子弹轰炸中的死者，并不意味着他们必须把每一个死者都塑造成道德上纯粹无辜的形象。广岛与长崎的普通民众中，当然也存在大量支持战争、参与战争动员、接受大日本帝国叙事的人。纪念他们作为原子弹下的死者，核心在于承认核武器使用问题在战后国际秩序中所引发的伦理和战争规则争议。把他们称为受害者，并不自动意味着要把世界反法西斯同盟，尤其是美国，简化为同等意义上的加害者。纪念广岛与长崎的死者，也无需在“对日使用原子弹是否合理”这一问题上作出全部表态。至于爱因斯坦、奥本海默后来围绕核武器形成的思想象征，更不能直接套到广岛、长崎普通民众身上。

六四也是如此。许多人之所以觉得纪念六四等于一边流泪一边吃屎，正是因为他们无法把纪念活动本身，与六四罹难者及老一辈民运的政治观点区分开来。事实上，纪念归纪念，那坨屎未必需要吃。一个人感到痛苦，往往源于他把纪念活动与继承义务捆绑在了一起。谁规定参加婚宴就必须吃完整桌酒席？红包送到了，祝福说完了，转身去吃麦当劳，未必不体面。

纪念六四，并不要求接受老一辈民运的政治观点；甚至也不要求逐条反驳他们的政治观点。许多人只是在同一个符号下，纪念各自所理解的东西。大家仿佛同坐一班从上海飞往迪拜的飞机。飞机落地之后，每个人都将前往自己真正的目的地，彼此连旅行搭子都算不上。一旦想明白这一点，一旦不再执着于必须借六四把彼此的政治观点分出高低贵贱，很多人心中那种“老一辈民运绑架并独占六四解释权、年轻一辈每年还得去拜堂会”的压迫感，也就会自然瓦解。

二、中共的污点不必然是自己的政治立足点

从心态上破除六四痴迷的第二步，是承认这样一个事实：天安门镇压作为中共无法抹去的污点，并不能自动成为所有人反邓、反习、反共、反中、反华的共同立足点。

习近平、中共、中国、中国人，能够被批判之处已经足够多。为什么许多人偏偏总在六四问题上反复纠结？原因大概在于，天安门镇压是一个几乎所有反贼派别都能形成共识的巨大污点。无论是温和民小，还是激进反中群体，都很难在这个问题上完全为中共辩护。于是很多人下意识地认为，只要自己能够在六四问题上占据道德制高点，就可以在所有反贼群体中确立地位；既能扮演五岳派盟主，又能把六四当作挡箭牌，最大限度减少自身活动所遭遇的阻力，甚至更方便地向西方争取资源。

这个假设是错误的。六四是中共的污点，却很难成为各个派别自身政治立场的坚实根基。

用《笑傲江湖》的比喻来说，如果左冷禅或岳不群能够一举剿灭日月神教，把任我行和东方不败的人头挂在山顶当景点，他们当然可能顺理成章地成为五岳剑派乃至整个武林的天然领袖。问题在于，五岳派根本打不过日月神教。左冷禅和岳不群最终也都以五岳派掌门的身份死于非命。反过来说，如果任我行和东方不败没有那样强大，五岳派的思想建构原本也不会出现。一旦五岳派出现，日月神教的地位随之改变。它原本是华山派、嵩山派、泰山派、恒山派和衡山派共同面对的首要敌人；可是当华山与嵩山为了统领五岳派而彼此竞争时，双方反倒成了彼此最大的威胁。

幸亏“天降伟人”令狐冲，使得五岳剑派的普通弟子，也包括日月神教的普通教众，避免了陷入类似东欧国家夹在希特勒与斯大林之间二选一的死局。可这种局面的出现，本身正是因为各方都在追逐剿灭魔教的政治正确。如果天门道人与恒山三定没有那样嫉恶如仇，没有那么“顾大体、识大局”，五岳剑派的建构很难真正成形。如果左冷禅和岳不群在推动五岳合并时稍有政治权谋，意识到任盈盈才是日月神教绕不过去的命门，那么整部《笑傲江湖》的叙事都要被改写。

六四也是同样的道理。天安门镇压确实是中共最大的污点之一，也是各派都可以共同批判的槽点。然而，一个各派都能共同批判的污点，并不能自动转化为各派从自身立场出发进行政治斗争的共同基础。破除这一层迷思之后，每年六四都感到不适的新一代反贼，才可能真正从岳不群和左冷禅主持的武林大会中脱身。

三、对六四祛魅、对自己的反贼身份祛魅

从心态上破除六四痴迷的第三步，是认识到六四在本质上是中共秩序内部的派系斗争。这一点既是对六四本身的祛魅，也是对自己反贼身份的祛魅。

只要稍微回到1989年的社会结构中，就不难理解当时大学生在中国所处的位置。他们与今天已经高度贬值的大学毕业生不同。那一代大学生，是毕业后包分配、能够进入体制的储备干部。即使他们确实出身贫下中农，只要进入大学，便已经在社会流动意义上脱离了原本贫贱的阶级位置，并成为广义统治阶层的一部分。这个位置或许低微，却依然属于体制内部的上升通道。因此我们今天也会看到，每年纪念六四最积极的人，往往并非理论上最反对武力镇压、最推崇和平演变、民主自由的各派民主小清新，反倒是反习不反共的人，或者主张三民主义统一中国的民国派。原因很简单：他们才是当年六四失败派系在政治上的继承人。相似地，民小对白纸运动的推崇与纪念，和老一辈民运对白纸运动近乎沉默的态度之间，也形成了鲜明对照。

这说明，在一场政治运动中，真正会把它长期作为旗帜的人，通常是败退派系的政治继承者。宣称自己比屋大维更有资格继承凯撒衣钵的安东尼，可以前往埃及，与克丽奥佩特拉享受政治失败后的余生；布鲁图斯作为“最高尚的罗马人”，却只能不断为共和而战，因为在他的视野中，全天下都已经成了罗马共和的敌人。

相较之下，其他派系更多只是前来分享人血馒头。只是天安门广场上的人血馒头太多、太有名、也太有象征价值，所以才会吸引各路人马蜂拥而上，甚至彼此争夺、相互厮杀。

因此，我们必须不断追问自己：纪念六四，究竟是在纪念什么？是在纪念具体的人、具体的死亡、具体的国家暴力，还是仅仅在借此给自己一个仍在斗争的幻象和心理安慰？我们又该如何承认，海内外不同派别的中国人，其实各有各的命运，各有各的政治归宿？只有经过这种近乎残酷的自我审问，我们才可能继续思考：通过纪念六四来标榜自己的反贼身份，究竟还有没有现实意义。

我的答案是：没有。想明白这一点，也就不会继续纠结。

以我这样的反华分子为例，反华立场高于一切意识形态；对英国的效忠，也凌驾于其他一切可能的效忠对象。即使在最不幸的未来，英国变成一个共产主义国家，或变成一个宗教神权国家，我依然会站在英国国家利益一边，参与一切针对中国的对抗——无论是共产主义颠覆，还是新时代的十字军或圣战。正因如此，我永远无法被中共收买。然而，有些比我更虔诚的基督徒，完全可能因为中共铁血镇压穆斯林而高唱赞歌。这说明，一个人的思想底色，往往比他在某个纪念日里的姿态更加重要。对于我而言，通过纪念六四向世界证明自己是反贼，已经没有任何意义。至于其他派别的人，我没有能力逐一探究他们的思想底色。我只能向他们提出一个问题：你是不是胡耀邦、赵紫阳的政治继承人？如果你认真思考之后，心里的答案是否定的，那么六四对你来说就更像梦魇，而非旗帜。你的反贼身份无法由你对六四的反应来定义。否则，等待你的将是被那些通过自己的抗争乃至鲜血赢得六四解释权的老反贼们长期绑架。

你以为，人血馒头是免费吃的吗？

结语：从年度仪式中脱身

综上所述，年轻反贼从心态上破除六四痴迷，是政治成熟的必经之路，也是摆脱政治斗争耗材身份的第一步。至少，它能够让一个人献身于自己真正认同的派系，而不至于在别人的历史叙事和道德仪式中被不明不白地牺牲掉。正如我一开始所说，也如我去年所说，我关于老反贼为什么难相处、如何与老反贼相处，以及如何从心态上开始不与老反贼相处的讨论，并无意把他们扫进历史的垃圾堆。它们只是试图与那些不反华、却也不想自己走进历史垃圾堆的年轻反贼，交流一点政治上的心得。以及，如果有一点私心的话，我希望所有人，不要等到自己变成老登之后，才骤然发觉自己已经再也无法摆脱几十年的路径依赖。

How to Break the Fixation on June Fourth?

By Timothy Huang

A year ago, I published an article discussing where the sense of rupture between the younger generation of dissidents and the older generation of Chinese democracy activists came from when confronted with June Fourth, an unavoidable political symbol, and how that generational divide should be understood and handled. A year later, I have gradually come to realise that the real question facing many people has shifted from ‘how to deal with them’ to a more fundamental one: if one has no wish to continue dealing with them at all, is it possible to bypass this established ritual, both politically and psychologically?

For an anti-China element such as myself, this question is not complicated. I have long maintained an attitude of respect and distance towards June Fourth and the older generation of democracy activists. What I respect is the price they paid under particular historical conditions; what I distance myself from is the political language, moral posture and historical imagination that they inherited, constructed and repeatedly reproduced. Yet by no means does everyone stand where I stand intellectually. Many people remain at the stage of opposing Xi without opposing the Communist Party, or opposing the Communist Party without opposing China. Others resemble Bo Yang: while constantly invoking the deep flaws of the Chinese nation, they still harbour, deep down, an impulse to reform it. For such people, unless they can truly free themselves from the psychological compulsion to commemorate June Fourth with great fanfare every year at this time, and to argue with everyone until a hierarchy of right and wrong has been established, they are likely to fall into a state of sustained internal exhaustion.

The real subject of this article, therefore, is a question of practical significance to dissidents of all tendencies: how to break the fixation on June Fourth at the level of mentality; how, in political action, to bypass the identity hostage-taking produced by June Fourth; and how, as far as possible, to avoid unnecessary conflicts with senior democracy activists over this symbol in real-world opposition work.

I. Distinguishing commemoration from inheritance

The first step in breaking the fixation on June Fourth at the level of mentality is to distinguish between ‘commemorating and mourning the participants of June Fourth and, more broadly, the pioneers of the democracy movement’ and ‘inheriting and carrying forward the so-called spirit of June Fourth’.

Commemorative activities in Chinese political culture often suffer from a deeply rooted problem: they are rarely content with simple mourning, and almost always seek to attach some claim to interpretive authority to the act of mourning. Those predecessors who have sacrificed themselves, fallen silent or lost the ability to speak are repeatedly appropriated by later commemorators; their blood and suffering become material through which later generations promote their own values, opinions and political lines. So-called commemoration can therefore easily slide into a scramble for steamed buns dipped in human blood. What makes matters worse is that, if the content being smuggled in consists of the rotten political imagination of the naive Chinese liberals of the 1980s, then even young naive Chinese liberals will find it hard to accept without discomfort. Precisely for this reason, distinguishing commemoration from promotion is the first step in breaking the fixation on June Fourth.

Commemorating June Fourth has nothing to do with the political views of those being commemorated, and even less to do with the political views of those doing the commemorating. A person may mourn the dead in a political crackdown without having to inherit all of their political claims; one may also acknowledge the brutality of state violence without having to accept the entire interpretive system that later developed around that violence.

A similar example is not difficult to understand. When people commemorate the dead of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, this does not mean that they must turn every dead person into a morally pure and innocent figure. Among the ordinary people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were of course many who supported the war, participated in war mobilisation, and accepted the narrative of the Great Empire of Japan. To commemorate them as people who died under the atomic bomb is, at its core, to acknowledge the ethical and legal controversies over the rules of war that the use of nuclear weapons provoked in the post-war international order. To call them victims does not automatically mean reducing the world anti-fascist alliance, especially the United States, to perpetrators in an equivalent sense. Nor does commemorating the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki require one to make a full declaration on whether the use of atomic bombs against Japan was reasonable. As for the intellectual symbolism later formed around Einstein, Oppenheimer and nuclear weapons, it cannot simply be imposed on the ordinary people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

June Fourth is the same. The reason many people feel that commemorating June Fourth is equivalent to shedding tears while eating excrement is precisely that they cannot separate the commemorative act itself from the political views of those who died in June Fourth and those of the older generation of democracy activists. In truth, commemoration is commemoration. That lump of excrement need not be eaten. A person’s pain often comes from binding commemorative activity to an obligation of inheritance. Who decreed that attending a wedding banquet requires one to eat the entire feast? If the red envelope has been delivered and the blessings have been offered, turning around and going to McDonald’s is not necessarily undignified.

Commemorating June Fourth does not require accepting the political views of the older generation of democracy activists; nor does it require refuting those views one by one. Many people are simply commemorating what they themselves understand under the same symbol. It is as if everyone were sitting on the same flight from Shanghai to Dubai. After the plane lands, each person will head towards their true destination. They are not even travel companions. Once this is understood, once one ceases to insist on using June Fourth to rank one another’s political views as high or low, noble or base, the sense of oppression in many people’s minds — that the older generation of democracy activists has hijacked and monopolised the interpretive authority over June Fourth, while the younger generation must attend the annual ritual — will naturally dissolve.

II. The CCP’s stain need not become one’s own political foundation

The second step in breaking the fixation on June Fourth at the level of mentality is to acknowledge the following fact: the Tiananmen Square Massacre, as a stain that the Chinese Communist Party cannot erase, cannot automatically become the common foundation for everyone’s opposition to Deng, Xi, the CCP, China, Chinese people, or the Chinese nation.

Xi Jinping, the CCP, China and Chinese people already provide more than enough targets for criticism. Why, then, do so many people repeatedly fixate on the question of June Fourth? The reason is probably that the Tiananmen Square Massacre is a vast stain on which almost all dissident factions can reach a consensus. Whether moderate naive Chinese liberals or radical anti-China groups, few can fully defend the CCP on this question. Many people therefore subconsciously assume that, so long as they can occupy the moral high ground on June Fourth, they can establish their status among all dissident groups. They can play the role of leader of the Five Mountains Alliance; they can also use June Fourth as a shield, reducing as far as possible the resistance encountered by their own activities, and even making it easier to seek resources from the West.

This assumption is mistaken. June Fourth is a stain on the CCP, yet it can hardly serve as a solid foundation for the political position of each faction itself.

To use the analogy of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer, if Zuo Lengchan or Yue Buqun could have destroyed the Sun Moon Sect in one stroke and hung the heads of Ren Woxing and Dongfang Bubai on the mountaintop as tourist attractions, they might certainly have become the natural leaders of the Five Mountains Sword Alliance, and even of the entire martial world. The problem is that the Five Mountains Alliance could not defeat the Sun Moon Sect at all. Zuo Lengchan and Yue Buqun both ultimately died unnatural deaths as leaders of the Five Mountains Alliance. Conversely, if Ren Woxing and Dongfang Bubai had not been so powerful, the ideological construction of the Five Mountains Alliance would never have appeared in the first place. Once the Five Mountains Alliance emerged, the position of the Sun Moon Sect changed. It had originally been the foremost enemy jointly faced by the Huashan, Songshan, Taishan, North Hengshan and South Hengshan sects. Yet when Huashan and Songshan began competing with each other for leadership of the Five Mountains Alliance, the two sides instead became each other’s greatest threat.

Fortunately, ‘a great man descended from the heavens’ in the form of Linghu Chong, allowing the ordinary disciples of the Five Mountains Sword Alliance, as well as the ordinary followers of the Sun Moon Sect, to avoid falling into a dead-end resembling that of Eastern European countries caught between choosing Hitler and Stalin. Yet the emergence of this situation was itself the result of every side chasing the political correctness of exterminating the demonic sect. If Taoist Tianmen and the Three Elder Nuns of the North Hengshan had not hated evil so intensely, and had not been so committed to ‘considering the overall situation’ and ‘understanding the larger picture’, the construction of the Five Mountains Sword Alliance would have struggled to take real shape. If Zuo Lengchan and Yue Buqun had possessed even a little political cunning when pushing for the merger of the Five Mountains, and had realised that Ren Yingying was the unavoidable vital point of the Sun Moon Sect, then the entire narrative of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer would have had to be rewritten.

June Fourth follows the same logic. The Tiananmen crackdown is indeed one of the CCP’s greatest stains, and it is also a point of attack that all factions can criticise together. However, a stain that all factions can jointly criticise cannot automatically be transformed into the common basis on which each faction conducts political struggle from its own standpoint. Only after breaking this illusion can the new generation of dissidents who feel uneasy every June Fourth truly escape the martial-arts assembly presided over by Yue Buqun and Zuo Lengchan.

III. Demystifying June Fourth, and demystifying one’s own dissident identity

The third step in breaking the fixation on June Fourth at the level of mentality is to recognise that June Fourth was, in essence, a factional struggle within the CCP order. This demystifies June Fourth itself, and it also demystifies one’s own dissident identity.

If we return, even briefly, to the social structure of 1989, it is not difficult to understand the position occupied by university students in China at the time. They were different from today’s highly devalued university graduates. That generation of students consisted of reserve cadres who would be assigned jobs after graduation and could enter the system. Even if they truly came from poor and lower-middle peasant backgrounds, once they entered university, they had already, in terms of social mobility, left behind their original impoverished class position and become part of the broad ruling stratum. That position may have been humble, but it still belonged to an upward channel within the system.

This is why we can also see today that those most active in commemorating June Fourth each year are often not the naive Chinese liberals who, in theory, most oppose armed suppression and most admire peaceful evolution, democracy and freedom. They are, rather, those who oppose Xi without opposing the Communist Party, or the Republic of China camp that advocates the unification of China under the Three Principles of the People. The reason is simple: they are the true political heirs of the faction that lost in June Fourth. Similarly, the admiration and commemoration of the White Paper movement by naive Chinese liberals stands in sharp contrast to the near silence of the older generation of democracy activists towards that movement.

This shows that, in a political movement, those who will truly uphold it as a banner over the long term are usually the political heirs of the faction that retreated in defeat. Antony, who claimed that he was more qualified than Octavian to inherit Caesar’s mantle, could go to Egypt and enjoy the rest of his life after political failure with Cleopatra. Brutus, as ‘the noblest Roman’, could only continue fighting for the republic, because in his field of vision the entire world had become an enemy of the Roman republic.

By comparison, other factions are mostly there to share in the blood-soaked buns. It is only because the blood-soaked buns on Tiananmen Square were so numerous, so famous and so symbolically valuable that they attracted people from all sides to rush in, even to fight and kill one another over them.

Therefore, we must keep asking ourselves: what exactly are we commemorating when we commemorate June Fourth? Are we commemorating specific people, specific deaths and specific state violence, or are we merely using it to give ourselves an illusion of continued struggle and psychological comfort? How, too, should we acknowledge that Chinese people of different factions, both inside and outside China, in fact have their own destinies and their own political destinations? Only after undergoing this almost brutal self-interrogation can we continue to ask whether proclaiming one’s dissident identity through the commemoration of June Fourth has any practical meaning.

My answer is: none. Once this is understood, there is no need to remain entangled.

Take an anti-China element such as myself. My anti-China position stands above all ideologies; my allegiance to Britain also overrides every other possible object of allegiance. Even in the most impossible scenario, if Britain were to become a Communist state or a religious theocracy, I would still stand on the side of British national interest and participate in all forms of confrontation against China — whether Communist subversion, a new-age crusade or jihad. Precisely for this reason, I can never be bought by the CCP, which has been hijacking and assimilating all of China, then forcing all self-identified ‘Chinese’ to stand on its side. Yet some Chinese Christians, more devout than I am, could quite plausibly sing praises to the CCP because of its iron-fisted suppression of Muslims. This shows that a person’s underlying ideological disposition is often more important than their posture on a particular commemorative day. For me, using the commemoration of June Fourth to prove to the world that I am a dissident has already lost all meaning. As for people from other factions, I have no ability to investigate their underlying ideological dispositions one by one. I can only ask them one question: are you the political heir of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang? If, after serious reflection, the answer in your heart is no, then June Fourth is more like a nightmare for you than a banner. Your dissident identity cannot be defined by your reaction to June Fourth. Otherwise, what awaits you is long-term captivity by the old dissidents who won the interpretive authority over June Fourth through their own struggles, and even through their blood.

Did you think blood-soaked buns were free?

Conclusion: Escaping the annual ritual

In summary, for younger dissidents, breaking the fixation on June Fourth at the level of mentality is a necessary path towards political maturity, and also the first step towards escaping the status of expendable material in political struggle. At the very least, it allows a person to dedicate themselves to the faction they truly identify with, rather than being sacrificed in confusion within someone else’s historical narrative and moral ritual. As I said at the beginning, and as I said last year, my discussion of why old dissidents are difficult to get along with, how to get along with them, and how to begin, psychologically, not getting along with them, is not intended to sweep them into the dustbin of history. It is merely an attempt to share a little political experience with younger dissidents who are not anti-China, but who also do not wish to walk into the dustbin of history themselves. And, if I may admit a slight private motive, I hope that no one waits until they have become an old man before suddenly discovering that they can no longer free themselves from decades of path dependence.