Tiananmen Square Massacre/Democracy

Today in my World Affairs Class, we watched a documentary about the Tiananmen Square Massacre.  The Tiananmen Square Massacre was a massacre that occurred in Beijing, China in 1989.  It was a major blemish on the chinese government, and a disgrace upon Chinese history.  A basic summary of what happened, to my understanding, is that after a certain Chinese political reformist leader died, there was a major uprising by the people.  They all came together in Tiananmen Square to protest against communism.  The communist party sent the military to empty out the square.  After a few days of failure, the army was told by the communist government to CLEAR THE SQUARE BY DAWN the next morning, but "try to avoid bloodshed." Obviously, the soldiers failed to avoid bloodshed.  First they killed tons of innocent students and citizens, then their parents the next morning when they came to retrieve their body.  The death toll was between 2,000 - 3,000, but the government wanted to cover it up, so they reported the toll as 241 deaths.

What I find unbelievable is that some of the communist leaders that issued the order to "clear the square by dawn" are still in power today.  Deng Xiaopeng, the leader of China at the time, lived the rest of his life without any prosecution.  This event can be called a small scale Holocaust, but all the bad guys got off without any punishment.  I find this absurd!  And it is all because of the fact that China's government is communist: no one can tell the government they are wrong, or impeach them.  Leaders in China and other communist countries can do whatever they please; they can consider themselves God, and no one will contradict them.  They say life's not fair, but whoever says that doesn't realize that life is VERY fair compared to life in other countries, especially the non-democratic ones.

I think Democracy is unarguably the best way to run a country for the country to prosper.  For instance, take India and Pakistan.  Two countries, born at the same time.  Now, sixty years later, one of them is on the verge of becoming a world power in a few years (India), while the other is on the brink of descending into a failed state (Pakistan).  Both countries have the same kind of people with the same religions, and both have the same natural resources.  The only difference between the two countries is that one is democratic (India), and the other is a dictatorship (Pakistan).  The point of this article is: Be glad we live in a democratic country.