Some thoughts on an anniversary we ought not forget.
23- years ago last Monday the Chinese government crushed the
public student expression of democracy in a place called Tiananmen Square. Some
estimates say several thousand people died.
The world of early June 1989 watched the beginning of the
tension and the defiance on television, but then abruptly, the signal was cut
off.
To this day, the Chinese Government continues to deny that
anyone but soldiers died in the weekend massacre. The collective heart of
humankind, however, knows the truth and weeps.
On Wednesday of last week, Li Wangyang was found dead
hanging from a window frame of a hospital ward where he was under political
detention. Two days earlier he was interviewed by Hong Kong television for a
feature on the 23rd anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.
Li Wangyang was a activist and participated in the student
uprising. He was jailed for 22-years. He started a hunger strike in prison and
was tortured. Guards pulled out his teeth, blinded him and made him partially
deaf.
Do you think he committed suicide after all those years of
enduring pain and detention? I doubt it. He was imprisoned and probably
murdered because he spoke defiantly of democratic reform in China?
There is another sadness, beyond his loss of life. It is the continuing shame that again in the human
experience, an oppressive authority, used and uses force to prevent the
empowerment of the people.
Force will never conquer the desire, or the active quest for
freedom in all its forms. History
validates that truth, over and over again, on the crumbled actions of failed
oppression. Truth and tolerance,
compassion and education, common courtesy and common sense are the only values
that will sustain a government in power and elevate the condition of its
people.
No comments:
Post a Comment