It was a spontaneous reaction. On July 13, Samantha Wood, poet and managing editor of The Berkshire Eagle, learned that Chinese poet and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo had died of cancer while under detention by the Chinese government. Wood decided to hold a reading in his honor, and three days later about a dozen people met at Poet’s Seat Tower in Greenfield to read poems by Xiaobo and his wife, Liu Xia, also a poet.
Xiaobo had long been an advocate for human rights and democratic reform in China. He was in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops used weapons and tanks against students protesting for democratic reform. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians were killed (estimates vary widely) in what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Xiaobo, well-known as an advocate of non-violence, was responsible for bringing in Taiwanese pop star Hou Dejian to negotiate with troops to end the showdown and allow students to leave the square. He was imprisoned from 1989 to 1991 for his role in the protests, and twice thereafter. His most recent incarceration in 2009 was his fourth.
The 11-year sentence Xiaobo received in 2009 was for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power.” The evidence against him was Charter 08, a document he co-wrote that demanded basic freedoms of expression, assembly and religion. Charter 08 also called for a legislative democracy to be created through elections, an independent judicial system, a free press and a social security system that would guarantee all Chinese citizens basic security in education, medical care and employment.
In a statement for his trial, Liu Xiaobo wrote words fitting for our own times: “Hatred can rot a person’s wisdom and conscience. An enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation and inflame brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a country’s advance toward freedom and democracy.”
Xiaobo received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, while in prison.
It seemed fitting that our reading for Xiaobo was held at Poet’s Seat Tower, a structure built to commemorate 19th century poet Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, and the site of a previous reading Wood held when Xiaobo was imprisoned in 2009.
At 10 a.m., the sun was already strong and we took refuge inside the tower’s shaded second floor. Some elements of the architecture — the rough stone walls and barred openings — conjured images of jail. Wood read a short background of Xiaobo and Liu Xia, who has been subjected to frequent house arrests and extreme police surveillance. Much of each poet’s work has been generated in conversation with the other during Xiaobo’s imprisonments. In an informal round, we took turns reading poems by both poets.
The Greenfield gathering was part of a worldwide remembrance of Xiaobo initiated by, among others, Tiananmen Square survivor Rose Tang. Tang, now based in Brooklyn, is a Chinese-born journalist, former CNN producer and founder and editor of the Free Liu-Xiaobo Facebook page. In an email exchange, Tang wrote that the remembrances had become “a global movement.”
Most of the readings, like ours, had been spontaneous, Tang wrote.
They had been organized by, “Chinese, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Taiwanese, Uyghurs, Mongols and westerners who have been active working on human rights related to China. Some activists are from current or former Communist countries such as Vietnam, Cuba and the Czech Republic,” Tang wrote.
I asked Tang why it was important to hold readings.
Tang wrote, “Liu was a man of words. He was a well-known cultural critic in the ‘80s, long before he became a political activist. He earned China’s first PhD in Literature since the Communist Party took power. His daring essays, interviews and speeches influenced at least two, or even three, generations of Chinese, including many young Chinese in the ‘80s, including myself as a teenager. Charter 08, a manifesto of China’s democracy he penned with a few other Chinese intellectuals, will continue to make its marks in history.
“The best and most passionate honest writings by Liu are his love poems to his wife Liu Xia. The words show the beauty and strength of a deeply passionate and truly authentic man, a man sorely needed in China and the rest of the world. Reading his words not only helps the reader and the listener know and understand this truly remarkable man and China, carries on his legacy, but also helps us appreciate beauty, honesty and the passion and compassion of humanity.”
I told Tang that I had read a piece she had written that was published in the Hong Kong Free Press on June 4, the 28th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. One paragraph had gripped me.
Tang wrote, “I had a dagger in my pocket — I was willing to fight the troops and die for democracy. In my mind’s eye it was a romantic heroic epic with a happy ending: a Utopia of love and peace where everyone is equal and free, like our tent city in the square, or our role model, America.”
I was moved by Tang’s description of herself at 20, bicycling to Tiananmen Square with a dagger in her pocket. I asked if she had really expected to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
Tang replied, “Of course I was planning for hand-to-hand combat. My generation of Chinese grew up watching war movies (made in China and other Communist countries, such as Yugoslavia). War movies and novels were our only entertainment during the Cultural Revolution. I wanted to fight to death that night. Many people on campus were saying something big would happen that night. I was playing tennis when my fellow students were stopping military trucks on a road outside one of the gates of our college. I went there to persuade troops to turn around. Then I saw my boyfriend (not a student but an avant-garde artist living on campus) who had just cycled back from Tiananmen Square. He told me the number of students was dwindling and they needed backup. So I rushed back to my dorm, changed into a black T-shirt, black jeans and took a black jacket for night camouflage. I took my dagger I had hidden in a suitcase (I like collecting daggers but never use them. I’m not a violent person). I wrote a farewell letter to my boyfriend and asked my roommate to pass it on to him if I didn’t return the next day.
“I prepared to die as a hero, for democracy. I was reciting Jack London, ‘I’d rather be ash than dust,’ when cycling the 25 kilometers to the square. I had wanted to use the dagger to fight the soldier holding a machine gun in the tank that I crawled over when retreating from the square at the crack of dawn on June 4.”
Tang wrote that realizing that using the dagger might incite violence toward other students retreating from around the tank kept her from using it.
“It’d be unfair for others to die because of me,” Tang wrote.
Also in reference to her quote from the Hong Kong Free Times, I asked Tang how she felt about America as a role model now.
Tang wrote, “I was disappointed and disillusioned by the U.S. and the West as a whole for a long time, not long after I left China for good in 1991. The so-called free press was actually an ‘industry,’ the media industry. People’s misery is just material to make news products. The so-called democracy is full of loopholes (gerrymandering, the two-party system, etc.).”
Tang wrote that after moving to the U.S., she shifted her focus to include human rights and democracy in the U.S.
“I have to defend my home turf, human rights for me and my 11-year-old daughter,” Tang wrote. “On election night, I returned home from a 17-hour shift as a volunteer at a Brooklyn polling booth. My daughter couldn’t sleep. She was very worried and depressed. I gave her a big hug and tucked in and told her, ‘I’ve seen much worse in China. You know Mommy was almost killed in Tiananmen. Always remember, shit happens in life. Tomorrow if Pussy Grabber gets elected, we’ll deal with it. We must live on and keep on fighting. Now, sleep. We gotta take care of our health first.’
“Since then, I joined the Women’s March in DC, and a number of protests and rallies in New York City. During the election I exposed on social media my former CNN boss who sexually assaulted me. I’ve never been this proud to call myself a feminist. I formed a music band in May because I see my musician friends dying to make their voices heard. I see such expressiveness everywhere I go in the U.S. and Europe.
“I kinda thank Pussy Grabber for uniting all of us in the world. It’s a global grass-roots political and human rights movement and renaissance that no politicians or rich people can stop or control. They seem to be gaining power now, but this is their last hoorah. No one can stop the tsunami of history. Finally, history is turning a corner. So we either join the movement, or be left behind by history.”
Check the Free Liu-Xiaobo Facebook page for updates on Xiaobo’s widow, Liu Xia. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chair and co-chair of the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, have urged U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad to invite Liu Xia to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to “… better understand her current situation and long-term wishes, as well as to provide a space where she is able to speak her mind freely …”