Right now there is a sweet warm breeze flying all over southeast Asia…
A fragrant Freedom swells.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s freedom yesterday exemplifies the hope this breeze brings.
An overnight win of the greatest hopes for freedom and democracy, twenty plus years in the making…
You see it’s all related. The Beijing spring with the Burmese [client state] thaw towards democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s freeing by the Burmese junta, reinforces the idea that non-violent methods of freedom struggle work. She still stands tall after a long time home prison closure.
Further east in China’s mainland, Liu Xiaobo who is still in prison, is recognized for his reform struggles since Tiananmen square and now for being awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. And our kinship is great for Liu Xiaobo, who before he was anything else, such as a Tiananmen Square hunger striker, or state prison inmate, or dissident or human right’s symbol – Liu Xiaobo was a bookish literature professor and an essayist desperate to be able to write about politics, art and life without restraint. And because of that the Nobel committee awarded the Norwegian 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to him for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.
Liu Xiaobo represents human rights activists’ determination in struggling for the peaceful transformation of China’s political system. He was arrested in June 2009 and sentenced to 11 years imprisonment under the charge of inciting subversion of state power after he drafted ”Charter 08” which is a proposal for constitutional reform, and which was published in mainland China. In response to the award, the Chinese government, claimed that Liu is a criminal who has been found guilty in a Chinese court and that the Committee’s decision has violated the mission of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Do you know who the previous Nobel Peace Prize winner to receive the award while in jail was? Carl Von Ossietzky. And who was the ruler of his country at the time of this award? Hitler.
你知道上一位，获得诺贝尔和平奖的坐牢人士是谁么？卡尔·冯·阿希厄茨基。那时他的国家谁在执政？希特勒。
For those of You who don’t know of him – here is a reminder:
Carl von Ossietzky was a German writer, journalist and pacifist. He was convicted of high treason and espionage in 1931 after publishing details of Germany’s alleged violation of the Treaty of Versailles by rebuilding the Luftwaffe and training German pilots in the Soviet Union with Stalin’s forces – contrary to the Armistice agreements between Germany and the Western Allies… made after WWI – and participating with Franco’ fascist armies in fighting in Spain against the democratically elected Republican Spanish forces. Von Ossietzky ”was died” in Hitler’s regime Germany, in Berlin, under Gestapo police custody, on May 4th of 1938 as a precursor prophet angel, to the greatest bloodshed ever. The blood lust of WWII.
And Ossietzky accepted the Peace prize then much like Liu now – in prison. And what Carl had to say under duress and deeply ill, from a prison hospital bed is indelible by time and etched in the granite annals of History for ever: ”After much consideration, I have made the decision to accept the Nobel Peace Prize which has fallen to me. I cannot share the view put forward to me by the representatives of the Secret State Police that in doing so I exclude myself from German society. The Nobel Peace Prize is not a sign of an internal political struggle, but of understanding between peoples. As a recipient of the prize, I will do my best to encourage this understanding and as a German I will always bear in mind Germany’s justifiable interests in Europe.”
Like Ossietzky, now Liu to us is exemplary in our time. His dedication to writing has been his defining characteristic, those who know him say, and it’s what hauled him into politics — an intense and dogged desire for the freedom of expression. Everything else, the years of struggle against the Communist Party and his unveiling as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, flowed from that point.
Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989, by students and Beijing residents, are called 六四事件 ”Six Four Incident”, commonly called the “June Fourth Incident” or for the West it’s the Tiananmen Square massacres… and through Liu Xiabao, the students, the non violent victims and dead hunger strikers are remembered again. Awarding the Peace Prize to him is the international community’s recognition of the increasing free voices among the Chinese people. Individuals pushing forth the old society towards reforms while pushing China towards political, legal and constitutional freedoms.
And of course we welcome the release of the other Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi by the military regime in Burma, for we hope to see this as a precursor to a peaceful transition to Democratic rule. I extend my full support and solidarity to the movement for democracy in Burma and take this opportunity to appeal to freedom-loving people all over the world to support such non-violent movements because they bear wholesome fruit. They bear results that will vindicate all of us.
And if there were elections held today in Burma – Aung San Suu Kyi would be the democratically elected President without any question. Same as her overwhelming election win the military stole from the people of Burma back in 1999…
Yet with her party closed down [made illegal by the Miitary] and her followers ravaged, she has a lot of work ahead in order to reach the pinnacle of success and leadership. But make no mistake – that – she will do.
I further hope that the government of the People’s Republic of China will be woken up and taste the sweet fragrant air of freedom and release imprisoned Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience who have been imprisoned for exercising their freedom of expression. Because after this succession, China, could go either way… Back towards more totalitarianism or forth towards more democratic reforms. What happens this year is crucial…
And one can see this struggle playing out here: For if the government of Burma can call their territory a country, I guess they are widely mistaken because a group of people with their freedom barred or lawfully prohibited from any of the basic human rights – is not a country but a prison.
And it is mainly because there is no difference, from being inside a prison or outside of the prison – if you are without freedom and human rights. Sadly there are still far too many people who are imprisoned by the dictator regimes, despotic rulers, or occupiers around the world.
But still far more people are imprisoned by their own unwillingness act for their rights.
Their unwillingness to sacrifice their comforts.
Their unwillingness to reach deep in their hearts and act their conscience.
People are imprisoned by their minds first and by their jailers and oppressors second.
People across the globe and in your own home or neighborhood are imprisoned because they first fail to accept that freedom is a Human Right and one worth dying for.
For if people are truly free, then whatever happens to the body inside a prison is inconsequential.
They can jail our bodies but can never take our freedom – is what we believe to be the Human Spirit of Freedom.
Exercise that Spirit every chance You have. In your family against domestic violence, in your town hall against the local despots and in your community against the regimes that seek to wall us all in jails constructed of good intentions and from leaders knowing better. Whether they are walls of shame like the Gazan concentration camp wall or the one against Bangladeshi climate refugees, it’s all the same.
Fight them off…
Only then the despotic regimes will face up to reality and abandon their indecent hope of controlling people through violence.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
To that end we Thank the woman who still walks upright after such a long time..
She has all my respect.
