We continue our series of "Featured Rascals," considering those who have had the courage to be different in order to make a difference, the character to become a character, and original enough to stand for truth and justice. I am sure everyone remembers this one.

    The protests had gone on for seven weeks.  What began as mourning for the loss of
a national leader, Hu Yaobang, grew into a gigantic demonstration known to the
world as the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989.  Yaobang had been a popular figure among students and
intellectuals, standing for the concepts of free markets and democracy in a
communist nation.  At one point at
the peak, the demonstrations were attended by more than one million people.

            Having
seen enough, the Chinese government addressed the situation by sending in the
military.  Throughout the course of
dispelling the demonstrators, many people were killed and arrested.  An unknown number of others were later
rounded up and executed.  In the
typical fashion of tyrannical regimes, the outside world has no complete set of
confirmed facts regarding the total killed, their names, or the charges against
them.  There is not even any
information about the most famous man of the incident, the "Tank
Man."  All we know about him
is what was shown through the camera lenses of reporters on the scene, who had
to smuggle their film out of the country before what happened could be seen by
the outside world.

            On
June 4, 1989, as a distant line of armored tanks made their way through the
square, just days after other tanks had been seen driving over cars and
crushing civilians, one man stood fast. 
He held a bag of some sort in each hand, and aligned himself with the obvious
path of the oncoming tanks.  As the
tanks reached him they stopped. 
For a moment a silent stand-off ensued.  Then, the man climbed up onto the tank and appeared to be
attempting to talk to those inside. 
At one point, a man inside the tank stuck his head out of the top hatch
and spoke to the protester.  A
moment later, as the tanks started to roll away, the man again placed himself
in front of them.  Another stand-off
ensued.  This time, men in blue
uniforms emerged from a crowd of onlookers and took the protester away.  There are no confirmed reports of what
happened next, although rumors are rampant.  The Chinese government has never been able to produce the
man, and claims to be unable to state whether or not he was executed. 

            Although
so little is known about this man, there is a lot that we do know.  We know he
was courageous.  We know he
believed strongly in stopping the tanks that represented a repressive
government.  We know he used a
non-violent method to do it.  And
we know that his example ignited the enthusiasm of Rascals around the world for
the concept of freedom from tyranny. 
The Tank Man, as he has been called, became an international symbol of
the small standing up to the big, of the oppressed standing up to the bully, and
of the defiant standing up to the enslaver.  We may never know exactly what motivated him, but we can all
be motivated by him.  We may never know what happened to him, but we know what happened to many around the world as a result of his
stand.  Tank Man represented the
flame of justice burning inside the breasts of Rascals everywhere.