Day: June 6, 2014

Text of my ‘When Worlds Collide’ column published in Ceylon Today newspaper on 6 June 2014

One man against a mighty army – Tank Man in Beijing

This week marks the 25th anniversary of the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown on protesting students at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

In our media saturated world, with hundreds of mainstream and citizen journalists bearing witness to key events, one image often stands out as symbolic. It’s that one which gets etched into our collective memory.

There was such an iconic image from Tiananmen Square. It shows a solitary, unarmed Chinese man standing up against a column of battle tanks rolling down a street.

Captured by several photographers snapping away from a nearby hotel balcony, it is one of the best known moments in 20th century photojournalism.

Perhaps the most widely seen photo was taken by Jeff Widener, an American photojournalist who was…