作者：杨长兵
编辑：李晶 校对：熊辩 翻译：彭小梅
每年的复活节，都会让人重新面对一个古老而尖锐的问题：当真理被处死之后，它是否还能回来？
两千年前，耶稣被钉在十字架上。那不是一场偶然的悲剧，而是一场典型的“体制性处理”——一个不掌握权力、却影响人心的人，被视为威胁，从而被清除。从政治逻辑上看，这样的结局再熟悉不过：制造一个公开的终点，让所有人相信事情已经结束。
而在当代中国，“六·四”事件，同样被处理为一个“必须结束”的历史节点。1989年，北京街头曾聚集无数学生与市民，他们呼喊的不是暴力革命，而是更基本的诉求：反腐败、要对话、要表达的权利。然而，随着武力介入，这一切被强行终止。
枪声之后，是更漫长的沉默。与许多历史事件不同，“六·四”并没有在公共叙事中被反复讨论、反思、纪念；相反，它被系统性地从教育、媒体与日常语言中剥离。
仿佛只要不提起，它就不曾发生。这正是独裁社会处理“危险记忆”的典型方式。
不仅要结束事件本身，还要结束关于它的一切可能延续。
如果说十字架是对肉体的处决，那么遗忘，就是对历史的二次处决。然而，复活节所讲述的，恰恰是另一种结局。耶稣被安放在坟墓中，封石、看守、确认死亡——一切都符合“彻底终结”的标准。但第三天，坟墓是空的。
复活的意义，不只是生命的回归，而是对“终结权”的否定：权力可以宣告结束，但无法保证结束真的发生。这正是复活与独裁社会之间最根本的张力。独裁体制依赖一种能力——定义现实的边界:什么可以存在，什么必须消失,什么可以被记住，什么必须被遗忘。而“复活”则意味着，这种定义并不具有最终效力。
回到“六·四”，从表面上看，它似乎已经被成功“埋葬”：在许多人的日常生活中，它不被提起、不被讨论、不被教学，甚至不被搜索。但在另一个层面，它却始终没有真正消失。
它存在于流亡者的讲述中，存在于海外的纪念中，存在于零散保存的影像与文字中，也存在于一代人无法抹去的记忆里。这是一种“未完成的埋葬”。换句话说，它仍然在等待一种属于历史的“复活”。
当然，这种复活不会像宗教叙述那样以奇迹的形式出现。它更可能是一种缓慢而艰难的过程：
当更多人重新了解那段历史，当沉默被一点点打破，当记忆重新进入公共空间——那一刻，就是历史的回归。
然而，复活从来不是自动发生的。在耶稣复活之后，是一群门徒选择站出来见证。他们面对恐惧，却仍然讲述所发生的事。如果没有这些见证者，“空坟墓”只会成为一个无人知晓的秘密。
同样的，“六·四”的记忆是否能够延续，也取决于是否仍有人愿意记住、讲述、传递。在一个鼓励遗忘的环境中，记忆本身就是一种行动。它也许微弱，但并非没有力量。
因此，把复活节与“六·四”放在一起，并不是简单的类比，而是一种更深的提问：当一个时代试图埋葬真理，我们是否相信它仍然可能回来。复活节给出的回答是肯定的，但也附带一个条件：必须有人，拒绝把坟墓当作终点。在独裁社会中，真正被恐惧的，往往不是一次抗议，而是那种挥之不去的记忆——它不会立刻改变现实，却会在时间中不断积累力量。因为一旦人们意识到：被压制的并未消失，被禁止的仍可被记住，那么“完全控制”的神话就会出现裂缝。
或许，这正是复活节在今天最现实的意义：你可以埋葬一段历史，但你无法保证，它不会在某一天，被重新看见。
Easter and June Fourth: When Truth Is Buried
Author: Yang ChangbingEditor: Li Jing Proofreader: Xiong Bian Translator: Peng Xiaomei
Every year, Easter brings people back to face an ancient and sharp question: after truth has been executed, can it still return?
Two thousand years ago, Jesus was nailed to the cross. That was not an accidental tragedy, but a typical case of “systemic handling”—a person without power, yet influential over people’s hearts, was regarded as a threat and thus eliminated. From a political logic perspective, such an ending is all too familiar: to create a public endpoint, so that everyone believes the matter has already ended.
In contemporary China, the “June Fourth” incident has similarly been handled as a historical node that “must be ended.” In 1989, countless students and citizens gathered on the streets of Beijing. What they called for was not violent revolution, but more basic demands: opposition to corruption, the right to dialogue, and the right to expression. However, with the intervention of force, all of this was forcibly terminated.
After the gunfire came an even longer silence. Unlike many historical events, “June Fourth” has not been repeatedly discussed, reflected upon, or commemorated in public narratives; on the contrary, it has been systematically stripped from education, media, and everyday language.
As if by not mentioning it, it never happened. This is precisely the typical way an authoritarian society handles “dangerous memory.”
It is not only necessary to end the event itself, but also to end all possible continuations of it.
If the cross was an execution of the body, then forgetting is a second execution of history. However, what Easter tells is precisely another kind of ending. Jesus was placed in a tomb, sealed with a stone, guarded, and his death confirmed—everything met the standard of “complete termination.” But on the third day, the tomb was empty.
The meaning of resurrection is not only the return of life, but the negation of the “power to declare an ending”: power can declare an end but cannot guarantee that the end has truly occurred. This is precisely the most fundamental tension between resurrection and authoritarian society. Authoritarian systems rely on one capability—the ability to define the boundaries of reality: what may exist, what must disappear, what may be remembered, and what must be forgotten. And “resurrection” means that such definitions do not possess final authority.
Returning to “June Fourth.” On the surface, it seems to have been successfully “buried”: in the daily lives of many people, it is not mentioned, not discussed, not taught, and not even searchable. But on another level, it has never truly disappeared.
It exists in the accounts of exiles, in commemorations overseas, in scattered preserved images and texts, and in the memories that a generation cannot erase. This is a kind of “unfinished burial.” In other words, it is still waiting for a kind of “resurrection” that belongs to history.
Of course, such a resurrection will not appear in the form of a miracle as in religious narratives. It is more likely to be a slow and difficult process:
When more people come to understand that period of history again, when silence is gradually broken, when memory re-enters public space—that moment is the return of history.
However, resurrection never happens automatically. After Jesus’s resurrection, it was a group of disciples who chose to step forward to bear witness. They faced fear yet still spoke of what had happened. Without these witnesses, the “empty tomb” would only have remained an unknown secret.
Likewise, whether the memory of “June Fourth” can continue also depends on whether there are still people willing to remember, to tell, and to pass it on. In an environment that encourages forgetting, memory itself is an action. It may be weak, but it is not without power.
Therefore, placing Easter and “June Fourth” together is not a simple analogy, but a deeper question: when an era attempts to bury truth, do we believe it can still return? The answer given by Easter is affirmative, but it comes with a condition: there must be people who refuse to treat the tomb as the endpoint. In an authoritarian society, what is truly feared is often not a single protest, but that kind of lingering memory—it does not immediately change reality but accumulates power over time. Because once people realize that what has been suppressed has not disappeared, and what has been forbidden can still be remembered, then the myth of “total control” will begin to crack.
Perhaps this is precisely the most realistic meaning of Easter today: you can bury a piece of history, but you cannot guarantee that it will not, one day, be seen again.
