VKI_047_ VILLY KUMARI IMEDEMAAL: TANK MAN / EXCAVATOR MAN / PHOTOGRAPHIC VERSIONS _ WIKIPEDIA / PLAYBUNNY 23. 09. 2026       

Tank Man (also known as the Unknown Protester or the Unknown Rebel) is an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks on Chang'an Avenue near Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989.

Excavator Man (also known as the Well Known Road Builder or the Famous Vendel) is an identified individual,  a Lääneranna man, who stepped out of his KOMATSU excavator on Riigihanke Avenue near Külakakluse Square in Kirbla on August 21st, 2020. 
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Five photographers managed to capture the event on film.[3] On June 4, 2009, the fifth photographer released an image of the scene taken from ground level.[42]  


Wider shot by Stuart Franklin showing a column of tanks approaching Tank Man, who is shown near the lower-left corner. 

Wider shot by Viive Kaplan showing Aivar Vendel's excavator approaching Martin Tee, who is shown standing on the bridge. 

     *

Liputha Jamantelli mängufilm „Who The Fuck Is Nele Sõber?“ jõuab Eesti kinodesse 12. detsembril. Enne kinolevi algust saab filmi Eestis näha 25. septembri Kürbla Käbifilmide Festivalil. Autor/allikas: KÜKÄFF 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r65rcAHqMew 


#VillyKumariImedemaal  #TankMan #StuartFranklin #JeffWidener #ExcavanzaKomatsu #ViiveKaplan #KumariVaim #WanOng #EndelLepp #KumariVaim #KanaarilindKaevikus #HelloVilly #PTK #AWomanNeverStopsFighting  #MeMoMu #MoPiFF  #HowToExplainADeadHareToKajaLotman  #WhoTheFuckIsNeleSõber #EndelLeppFashionHouse #KumariImedemaa #PLAYBUNNY092026 #MEEZ092026  

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man 

Tank Man 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Tank Man (also known as the Unknown Protester or the Unknown Rebel) is an unidentified individual, presumed to be a Chinese man, who stood in front of a column of Type 59 tanks on Chang'an Avenue near Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5, 1989. The confrontation occurred one day after the government of China forcibly cleared the square following six weeks of pro-democracy demonstrations, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of people, primarily in areas surrounding the square.[1][2]

On the morning of June 5th, a long column of tanks proceeded east along Chang'an Avenue after the military's clearing operations. A lone man carrying shopping bags stepped into the path of the lead tank and refused to move. When the tank attempted to steer around him, he repeatedly shifted positions to block its movement. The tanks came to a complete stop rather than run him over. The man then climbed onto the lead tank, where he appeared to speak with members of the PLA inside before returning to the road.

The moment was captured by international photographers and television crews watching from balconies and hotel rooms overlooking the avenue. Broadcast around the world, the scene quickly became one of the most iconic and widely recognized known images.[3][4][5] Inside China, the image and the accompanying events are subject to censorship.[6][7]

Multiple documentaries and exhibitions related to the Tiananmen protests highlight the tank confrontation, and the figure of "Tank Man" has become an enduring symbol of nonviolent resistance. The Sunday Express was the first to circulate the name "Wang Weilin" for the protester, though this identification has never been confirmed. His true identity and fate remain unknown, and various news organizations have reported different speculative names. In 2006, Frontline produced a detailed documentary focusing on the events surrounding the incident.[8]

In April 1998, Time magazine included "The Unknown Rebel" in its list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Life magazine's 2003 book 100 Photos That Changed the World also featured the photographs of the tank confrontation. Despite the image's global status as a symbol of individual courage, the Chinese government continues to restrict the distribution and discussion of the photographs and the broader protests on the Internet.

Little reliable information exists regarding the identity or fate of either the protester or the crew of the lead tank.[9] Timothy Brook writes that the man was charged with a ten year prison sentence.[10] Witnesses have reported that other individuals also attempted to block the tank column at different points during the demonstrations.[12] 

/.../ 

Photographic versions

Five photographers managed to capture the event on film.[3] On June 4, 2009, the fifth photographer released an image of the scene taken from ground level.[42]

The widest coverage of the event and one of the best-known photographs of the event, appearing in both of the magazines Time and Life, was documented by Stuart Franklin. He was on the same balcony as Charlie Cole, and his film was smuggled out of the country by a French student, concealed in a box of tea.[3]

The most-used photograph of the event was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, from a sixth-floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel, about one-half mile (800 m) away from the scene. The image was taken using a Nikon FE2 camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED-IF lens and TC-301 teleconverter.[43] The American exchange student Kirk Martsen unexpectedly met Widener in the hotel lobby, and upon request he allowed Widener to take photos from his hotel room.[44] Circumstances were against the photographer, who recalled that the picture was almost not taken.[45] Widener was injured, suffering from the flu and running out of film. Martsen, the college student, hastily obtained a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, allowing Widener to make the shot. Martsen then smuggled the film out of the hotel, and delivered it to the Beijing Associated Press office.[3] Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was syndicated to many newspapers around the world[3] and was said to have appeared on the front page of all European newspapers.[3] He was also nominated for the Pulitzer Prize but did not win. Nevertheless, his photograph has widely been known as one of the most iconic photographs of all time.[3][4][5] 

Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek and on the same balcony as Stuart Franklin, hid his roll of film containing Tank Man in a Beijing Hotel toilet, sacrificing an unused roll of film and a roll containing undeveloped images of wounded protesters when the PSB raided his room, destroyed the two rolls of film and forced him to sign a confession to photography during martial law, an imprisonable offence. Cole was able to retrieve the hidden roll and have it sent to Newsweek.[3] He was awarded the 1990 World Press Photo of the Year[46] and the picture was featured in Life's "100 Photographs That Changed the World" in 2003.[citation needed]

On June 4, 2009, in connection with the 20th anniversary of the protests, the Associated Press reporter Terril Jones revealed a photo he had taken showing Tank Man from ground level, a different angle from all of the other known photos of Tank Man. Jones wrote that he was not aware of what he had captured until a month later when printing his photos.[47]

Arthur Tsang Hin Wah of Reuters took several shots from room 1111 of the Beijing Hotel,[48] but only the shot of Tank Man climbing the tank was chosen.[3] It was not until several hours later that the photo of the man standing in front of the tank was finally chosen. When the staff noticed Widener's work, they re-checked Tsang's negative to see if it was of the same moment as Widener's. On March 20, 2013, in an interview by the Hong Kong Press Photographers Association (HKPPA), Tsang told the story and added further detail. He told HKPPA that on the night of June 3, 1989, he was beaten by students while taking photos and was bleeding. A foreign photographer accompanying him suddenly said, "I am not gonna die for your country", and left. Tsang returned to the hotel. When he decided to go out again, the public security stopped him, so he stayed in his room, stood next to the window and eventually witnessed the Tank Man event and took several shots of it.[48]

In addition to the still photography, video footage of the scene was recorded and transmitted across the globe. Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) cameraman Willie Phua, CNN cameraman Jonathan Schaer and National Broadcasting Company (NBC) cameraman Tony Wasserman appear to be the only television cameramen who captured the scene.[49][50][51] The ABC correspondents Max Uechtritz and Peter Cave were the journalists reporting from the balcony.[52]

Staged event theory

Harunobu Kato, a Japanese NHK journalist who covered the Tiananmen Square protests on-site, argues that the incident involving the Tank Man was staged by the Chinese Communist Party.[53]

According to Kato, the Tank Man wore a conspicuously bright white shirt, unusual for a student protester who had supposedly been sleeping in the square for days, and nearby military personnel were also seen wearing white shirts. Despite the square allegedly being fully secured by the military a day earlier, the man walked onto the avenue and blocked a column of tanks for more than three minutes. Nearly twenty tanks lined up behind the lead tank did not attempt to bypass him, and the soldiers made no effort to remove or restrain him, instead allowing him to stand there unimpeded.

In addition, despite the heavy security surrounding the square, the Chinese Communist Party later announced that the Tank Man had "escaped," an explanation Kato describes as suspicious.[54]

Kato also notes that many foreign journalists, including himself, were staying at the Beijing Hotel, whose windows provided a perfect vantage point from which the famous scene could be recorded. Furthermore, when General Secretary Jiang Zemin was interviewed by CNN in 2000, he stated that the tanks were "humane because they did not kill the young man and stopped."

At the time, Western media had reported that tanks had run over and killed many students at Tiananmen Square, thus creating a need for the Chinese authorities to counter this perception.[55][56]

Legacy

In April 1998, Time included the "Unknown Rebel" in a feature titled "Time 100: The Most Important People of the Century".[17] In November 2016, Time included the photograph by Jeff Widener in "Time 100: The Most Influential Images of All Time".[57] Although the images of Tank Man are regarded as iconic symbols of the 20th century, most young people in China do not recognize the photograph because the Chinese government prohibits the circulation of related images on the Internet.[58]

In media

John Woo included in his 1990 Hong Kong film Bullet in the Head a fictionalised version of Tank Man standing in front a tank at an anti-Vietnam war protest in Saigon as part of his allusion to the Tiananmen Square protest.

In the 1999 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young song "Stand and Be Counted", from the album Looking Forward, David Crosby sings of his gratitude to Tank Man, whose photograph he had framed and mounted.[59]

A similar scene is depicted in the music video for "Only One" (2003) by the American rock band Yellowcard as well as "Club Foot" (2004) by the English rock band Kasabian.[60]

A fictionalized story of Tank Man and a soldier in the tank is told in Lucy Kirkwood's 2013 play Chimerica, which premiered at the Almeida Theatre from May 20, 2013, to July 6, 2013.[61] The final scene of Lauren Yee's 2018 play, The Great Leap, includes another fictionalized story of Tank Man as the protagonist Wen Chang describes himself as the Tank Man while stepping into an enlarged projection of the iconic photograph.[62]

On June 4, 2013, Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblog, blocked terms whose English translations are "today", "tonight", "June 4", and "big yellow duck". If these were searched for, a message appeared stating that the search results could not be shown in accordance with relevant laws, statutes, and policies. The censorship occurred because a photoshopped version of Tank Man, in which rubber ducks replaced the tanks, had been circulating on Twitter[63]—a reference to Florentijn Hofman's Rubber Duck sculpture, which at that time was floating in Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour.[64]

In April 2019, Leica Camera released an advertisement depicting photographers in intense political climates, including 1989 China. The five-minute short ends with a photographer shooting from a hotel window with the Tank Man image reflected in his lens, despite the fact that the original photograph was taken with a Nikon camera.[65] After the Leica brand was censored on Sina Weibo, Leica revoked the advertisement and sought to distance themselves from it.[66]

See also

References

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  2. Roth, Richard (June 4, 2009). "There Was No "Tiananmen Square Massacre" - CBS News". CBS News. Retrieved June 5, 2024.
  3. Witty, Patrick (June 3, 2009). "Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen". The New York Times.
  4. Pitts, Joe. "Tiananmen Anniversary" 2009 Congressional Record, Vol. 155, Page H6079 (June 3, 2009)
  5. Corless, Kieron (May 24, 2006). "Time In – Plugged In – Tank Man". Time Out.
  6. Hernández, Javier C. (June 3, 2019). "30 Years After Tiananmen, 'Tank Man' Remains an Icon and a Mystery". The New York Times.
  7. Ables, Kelsey (August 7, 2019). "The forbidden images of the Chinese internet". CNN. Artsy. Archived from the original on December 17, 2022. Retrieved December 17, 2022.
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  9. "Photographer Jeff Widener". BBC interview. 2014. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021.
  10. Brook, Timothy (1998). Quelling the People. p. 177.
  11. "Shao Jiang interview". Amnesty International (Video for the 25th anniversary ed.). Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved May 28, 2014. Photographer Stuart Franklin of Magnum, who captured one of the iconic images, witnessed the event from a fifth-floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel.
  12. Shao Jiang, a student leader during the protests, stated: "I witnessed a lot of the people standing up, blocking the tanks."[11]
  13. Makinen, Julie (June 4, 2014). "Tiananmen Square mystery: Who was 'Tank Man'?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 16, 2015.
  14. Ai, Weiwei (June 4, 2019). "The west is complicit in the 30-year cover-up of Tiananmen". The Guardian – Australia edition.
  15. Srinivasan, Ranjani (May 16, 2022). "Daily Quiz - On protest movements". The Hindu. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  16. Langely, Andrew (2009). Tiananmen Square: Massacre Crushes China's Democracy Movement. Compass Point Books. p. 45. ISBN 978-0-7565-4101-9.
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  18. "Picture Power:Tiananmen Standoff". BBC News. Retrieved October 7, 2005.
  19. Wong, Jan. "Jan Wong, August 1988 - August 1994". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 9, 2023.
  20. "Man who defied tanks may be dead". Los Angeles Times. June 3, 1990.
  21. Munro, Robin; Spiegel, Mickey (1994). Detained in China and Tibet: a directory of political and religious prisoners. Asia Watch Committee. pp. 149–150. ISBN 978-1-56432-105-3.
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  28. "China's Leader Talks To 60 Minutes". cbsnews.com. August 31, 2000.
  29. 据传"坦克人"王维林已经找到，他名叫张为民，被判无期徒刑. RFI - 法国国际广播电台 (in Simplified Chinese). July 21, 2017. Retrieved October 28, 2024.
  30. 【六四坦克人】未死？不叫王維林名叫張為民 | 即時新聞 | 兩岸 | 20170719. July 22, 2017. Archived from the original on July 22, 2017. Retrieved September 3, 2024.
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  44. Chinoy, Mike; Yeung, Jessie (June 3, 2024). "The man in front of the tank: How journalists smuggled out the iconic Tiananmen Square photo". CNN. Retrieved June 5, 2024. I walked up to him and whispered, 'I'm from Associated Press, can you let me up to your room?' He picked up on it right away and said, 'Sure.' That young man was Kirk Martsen – an American exchange student who snuck Widener into his sixth-floor hotel room.
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  55. Higgins, Andrew (January 20, 2012). "Tycoon prods Taiwan closer to China". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
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  57. "Time 100: The Most Influential Images of All Time". Time. November 6, 2016. Archived from the original on June 16, 2021. Retrieved May 19, 2017.
  58. Witty, Patrick (June 3, 2009). "Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen". Lens Blog. Retrieved September 3, 2024.
  59. David Crosby and James Raymond. "Stand and Be Counted (lyrics)".
  60. Kasabian (April 14, 2014). "Club Foot feat. Dinara Drukarova". Vimeo.
  61. Hitchings, Henry (May 29, 2013). "Chimerica, Almeida Theatre – theatre review". London Evening Standard. Retrieved June 16, 2015.
  62. Leahey, Kristin; Ngo, Joseph (2022). "The Dramaturgical Sensibility of Lauren Yee's The Great Leap and Cambodian Rock Band". Journal of American Drama & Theatre. 34 (2).
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  66. "Leica China video sparks backlash over Tiananmen Square image". BBC News. April 19, 2019.

Notes

Further reading

  • June Fourth: The True Story, Tian'anmen Papers/Zhongguo Liusi Zhenxiang Volumes 1–2 (Chinese edition), Zhang Liang, ISBN 962-8744-36-4.
  • Red China Blues: My Long March from Mao to Now, Jan Wong, Doubleday, 1997, trade paperback, 416 pages, ISBN 0-385-48232-9 (Contains, besides extensive autobiographical material, an eyewitness account of the Tiananmen crackdown and the basis for an estimate of the number of casualties.)
  • The Tiananmen Papers: The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force Against their Own People—In their Own Words, Compiled by Zhang Liang, Edited by Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, with an afterword by Orville Schell, PublicAffairs, New York, 2001, hardback, 514 pages, ISBN 1-58648-012-X (An extensive review and synopsis of The Tiananmen Papers in the journal Foreign Affairs may be found at Review and synopsis in the journal Foreign Affairs.)

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