Cirque du Soleil, a show biz spectacle of pounding music, dance, gymnasts, trapeze artists and out of this world costumes, recently performed a Michael Jackson tribute concert in Beijing that, by some accounts, had the audience stunned and gasping. Why? In the midst of the show’s gyrations, just for a flash, a photograph of the famous “Tank Man” of June 1989, appeared. The most common version of the photograph, distributed worldwide by the Associated Press, shows a lone man facing down a line of tanks near Tiananmen Square the day after Chinese troops killed hundreds or thousands of peaceful protesters.
“As the Chinese might say, the image is as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns here, where the Communist Party suppresses any mention of the 1989 violence,” according to The New York Times. ‘I can’t imagine ever being witness to that image being shown in Beijing again, even if I stay here for another 50 years,’ ” The Times quoted one witness. He won’t see it again soon. The next day, Cirque du Soleil stripped the photo from a montage of images showing civil rights abuses and protests that accompany Jackson’s song, “They Don’t Care About Us.”