You shall not pass!

I’ve seen a lot of pictures in my life, but the one I consider the best is that taken by Stuart Franklin in Tiananmen in 1989. It shows a column of 6 tanks going to the square, and a man trying to stop their way by standing in front of them, alone.

The first time I see it I was 5. My dad showed it to me in a newspaper. Obviously I didn’t consider it a great picture, because I barely knew what a tank was, and at that age I thought I was immortal. But when I grew up, I realized that the person standing in front of that war machine, probably is the most valiant person in human history. He stopped the tanks for half an hour. After that, he was taken away. Nobody knows his name or who was he. Some people say that he was a 19 years old student called Wang Weilin, while others say he was an unknown worker of a building near the area called Wang Aimin. And what happened to him is a mystery too. Some people say he is still alive, hidden in China’s countryside, while others say he was executed for the Chinese army some days later.

I hope someday we will know who he was. For the moment we only have this picture: a tribute to courage, real courage.