Everyone Can Make a Difference | Opinion

Helen Raleigh , Entrepreneur, writer and speaker
Newsweek On 6/4/21

 

 

Another year brings another anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Between the late night of June 3 to the early morning of June 4, 1989, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) opened fire at unarmed pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds.

 

One of the most iconic images from that horrific event was the "Tank Man"—a young man who defiantly stood in front of rows of PLA tanks, trying to prevent them from moving forward. This incident took place on June 5, the day after the Tiananmen Square Massacre. So the young man must have known the danger he was facing.

 

He wore a white shirt and a pair of black pants, a typical outfit for Chinese citizens back in the 1980s. However, a detail of the photo that people often missed was that the young man held a shopping bag in one hand. His simple outfit and the shopping bag indicated that he didn't wake up that morning with the intention of being a hero. He probably didn't head out to the world that day to challenge a powerful and brutal regime. But when he saw injustice, he took a step forward.

 

Even one of the mightiest armies came to a complete halt because of him. Yes, they could have easily run him over. But they didn't because even the most cold-blooded killing machines were wary of the outrage they would face should they murder an unarmed individual in broad daylight. So they stopped moving forward and waited until a bystander pulled the young Chinese man to the side. We don't know his name, and we don't know what happened to him.

 

Since June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has spent tremendous energy and resources to erase the history and the Chinese people's collective memory of what truly happened on that day. Every year around June 4, government censors work with Chinese Big Tech firms to scrub the internet and social media with such efficiency and intensity that Chinese people won't even be able to post numbers such as "6," "4" and "89" on social media.

Still, no matter how hard the CCP has tried, people worldwide have forever associated the 1989 crackdown with the Tank Man photo. The image has become one of the most potent symbols of freedom in the face of tyranny. It has inspired millions of individuals worldwide to stand against totalitarianism.

 

I have often been thinking of the Tank Man photo lately—not only because we are approaching another anniversary of June 4, but also because of what has happened here in America.

 

For almost a year, Dr. Anothy Fauci, the majority of our scientific establishment, corporate media and Big Tech companies have rejected the possibility that a Wuhan lab might have created the COVID-19 virus and accidentally leaked it, triggering a global pandemic. These "experts" and professionals treated the lab leak theory as a conspiracy and ridiculed—even censored—anyone who mentioned it. As a result, there was a collective lack of curiosity and a disincentive to seek the truth.

 

 

The Wuhan lab leak theory only got a second life this year because of a group of persistent amateurs who call themselves "DRASTIC," for Decentralized Radical Autonomous Search Team Investigating COVID-19.

Wuhan Institute of Virology in February 2021 HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images

 

According to an excellent investigative report by Newsweek, DRASTIC consists of two dozen or so individuals from different locations worldwide. They do not have impressive degrees, awe-inspiring titles or many resources. Still, they refused to accept the established orthodoxy of the origins of COVID-19. They were willing to ask questions that no "expert" or professional wanted to ask. Driven by sheer dedication and persistence, they have spent countless hours searching for the truth through the internet. They shared their findings on Twitter, "worked through the data, tested various hypotheses and corrected each other" in real-time for all to see. They "made inspired connections and uncovered crucial pieces of the story that needed to be told."

 

Eventually, their research and findings convinced enough establishment scientists and mainstream journalists to bring the lab leak theory out of the shadows and into the mainstream. Then, as we witnessed in recent weeks, the wall of rejection of the lab leak theory crumbled. Americans discovered that the invincible Dr. Fauci was an emperor without any clothes. And it turns out corporate media and Big Tech companies have been conspiring to preserve and enforce many misconceptions about the pandemic.

 

Now, this group of amateurs is regarded as heroic. One of the main contributors to this group, who identified himself only as "The Seeker," told Newsweek that one lesson he learned from the pandemic was that "everyone can make a difference."

 

That, too, should be our lesson. As Friedrich Hayek once warned us: "'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty has been eroded." In times of crisis, some of us are conditioned to turn to experts and bureaucrats, trusting that they know best and letting them tell us what to do and how to think. Yet, time and again, we learn after the fact that despite their resources, experts and bureaucrats often do not know any more than We the People do—and some of them do not have our best interests in mind, to boot. Many see a crisis as an opportunity to grab more power.

 

Both the Tank Man and this group of amateurs who call themselves DRASTIC have reminded us that every individual can make a difference. Therefore, when the next crisis comes, we should not surrender our liberty to experts and bureaucrats. Instead, we must believe in ourselves and step forward.

 

Helen Raleigh, CFA, is an American entrepreneur, writer and speaker. Helen is the author of Backlash: How China's Aggression Has Backfired and Confucius Never Said. Follow her on Twitter: @HRaleighspeaks and visit her website: www.helenraleighspeaks.com.

 

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.