Iconic Image: Lone Man Faces Column of Tanks Approaching Tiananmen Square
“That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.” ~ Neil Gaiman, The Wake
I know that I closed yesterday with a note that I would write more about the ongoing saga at my mother’s house, but I found a reference to the following on my Tumblr dashboard and felt compelled to post it along with a few insubstantial remarks.
It’s truly remarkable that this man, who has been imprisoned for so long, is still able to pull up from deep within his most primal instincts such a passionate passage to his wife. After everything that he has been through, everything that he has lost, everything that has been stripped from him, he still retains his humanity, still fervently clings to his dream of freedom for his nation, his countrymen.
For so many, this man has become a symbol of the fight for a basic freedom that too many of us around the world take for granted. And in the midst of one of the dirtiest, most vile, misinformed, hate-mongering political campaigns in recent memory, Liu Xiaobo’s words resound like a clear bell tolling on the water: This is what freedom of speech is supposed to sound like. This is how love and dedication echo. This is the heart of truth.
Would that we were able to hear without hate, to speak without spite, but most of all, to recognize truth when it stands before us in all of its simplicity.
“the spirit-cell you built
without a door without a window
without a thread of a crack
locks you in solitude
to rot” ~ Liu Xiaobo, from “Greed’s Prisoner
I Have No Enemies
From the final statement of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo’s, issued just two days before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Christmas Day, 2009.
The following excerpt is from a statement that was originally published by the Hong Kong-based NGO Human Rights in China, based on a translation by J. Latourelle. The original Chinese text is here.
If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia. She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you, my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it has always been. Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.
My dear, with your love I can calmly face my impending trial, having no regrets about the choices I’ve made and optimistically awaiting tomorrow. I look forward to [the day] when my country is a land with freedom of expression, where the speech of every citizen will be treated equally well; where different values, ideas, beliefs, and political views . . . can both compete with each other and peacefully coexist; where both majority and minority views will be equally guaranteed, and where the political views that differ from those currently in power, in particular, will be fully respected and protected; where all political views will spread out under the sun for people to choose from, where every citizen can state political views without fear, and where no one can under any circumstances suffer political persecution for voicing divergent political views. I hope that I will be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisitions and that from now on no one will be incriminated because of speech.
Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth. To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.
In order to exercise the right to freedom of speech conferred by the Constitution, one should fulfill the social responsibility of a Chinese citizen. There is nothing criminal in anything I have done. [But] if charges are brought against me because of this, I have no complaints.
Thank you, everyone.
Daybreak by Liu Xiaobo
for Xia
over the tall ashen wall, between
the sound of vegetables being chopped
daybreak’s bound, severed,
dissipated by a paralysis of spirit
what is the difference
between the light and the darkness
that seems to surface through my eyes’
apertures, from my seat of rust
I can’t tell if it’s the glint of chains
in the cell, or the god of nature
behind the wall
daily dissidence
makes the arrogant
sun stunned to no end
daybreak a vast emptiness
you in a far place
with nights of love stored away
June 30, 1997
Click here to read more about Liu Xiaobo
More later. Peace.
Music by Antony and the Jonsons, “River of Sorrow”
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