MCLC: confessions of a reactionary

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Anne Henochowicz <anne at chinadigitaltimes.net>
Subject: confessions of a reactionary
*********************************************************

Source: China Change (8/27/13):
<http://chinachange.org/2013/08/28/the-confessions-of-a-reactionary/>

The Confessions of a Reactionary
By Teng Biao, 

(The article first appeared in Life and Death in China (a multi-volume
anthology of 50+ witness accounts of Chinese government persecution and
30+ essays by experts in human rights in China). When I wrote it, Xu
Zhiyong was under house arrest; when it was published, he had already
moved to the Beijing Third Detention Center. I dedicate this little essay
to Xu Zhiyong and all those reactionaries whose homes have become prisons
or who have made prisons their homes. – Teng Biao 滕彪)

When Xu Zhiyong and I received the “Ten People in Rule of Law in 2003”
award at CCTV, the host Sa Beining (撒贝宁) asked us, “What is the power of
the rule of law?” I said, “it is when everyone will stand up fighting for
the rule of law.” At the time, neither Xu Zhiyong nor myself, nor the two
sponsors of the event — CCTV and the State Office for Disseminating the
Law — would have thought that, in a few years, the two of us would become
“rights activists,” “dissidents,” “elements of the New Five Black Types,”
or in short, “the enemies of the state.”

Meanwhile though, this outcome is so natural and inevitable.

The back story for the award went like this: Following the Sun Zhigang
Incident <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custody_and_repatriation> (孙志刚事
件) 
in 2003, Xu Zhiyong, Yu Jiang and I, known as the “three PhDs,” made a
public appeal to revoke the custody and deportation policy and, more than
that, to conduct a constitutional review of the policy. It was a
carefully-considered “open conspiracy” on our part, and we were prepared
for the potential risk in making such calls. To our wildest surprise,
instead of being punished, we were commended by the government. Honestly
I’m little embarrassed now that there was once a time when I was not
shamed of being praised by this government.
  
With a PhD degree from Peking University, a bar certificate, a headful of
ideas about freedom, democracy and constitutionalism that are deemed
“reactionary” by the party doctrines, a pen that can argue and incite, and
an inflated sense of self due to hype from domestic and overseas media
outlets, I became active and quickly known in China’s human rights
movement, thanks to the bountiful injustices found everywhere in the
country. I was involved in legal aid; I represented clients in human
rights cases; I founded Gong Meng (公盟) with two others and China Against
the Death Penalty (北京兴善研究所), two reactionary NGOs; I accepted
interviews by reactionary media outlets; I indulged in the reactionary
“foreign Weibo” (better known as Twitter), I wrote reactionary articles
and received reactionary payments for them; I either initiated, or
participated in, reactionary citizen signature campaigns; I took part in
street demonstrations and mass look-on protests (围观); I gate-crashed black
jails and brainwashing classes sponsored covertly by local governments; I
promoted the New Citizens’ Movement and hopped everywhere for dinner
gatherings. Step by step, I abandoned the party and its universal truth
and walked onto an anti-revolutionary path.
  
Not only did I walk on the wrong path, I went further and further. When
the Sun Zhigang incident occurred, I spoke out for all the migrant
residents and homeless people in China; when Peking University’s “yi ta hu
tu” bbs (一塌糊涂) was shut down, I protested on behalf of that reactionary
online platform; In the Cai Zhuohua case (蔡卓华), I lent support to the
underground Christian churches that were also one of the Five Black Types;
I was involved in forced demolition cases defending owners of “nail
households;” I went to Shanxi to defend the rights of enslaved brickyard
workers; I made appeals on behalf of victims of melamine-tainted milk
formula; during the Wenchuan earthquake, I condemned the tofu-dredge
projects; in the Wang Bo (王博) case and a few other Falungong cases, I
defended freedom of religion for those whose beliefs were branded as an
“evil cult;” after the March 14, 2008 unrest in Tibet, I organized lawyers
to provide legal assistance to arrested Tibetans; following the July 5th
incident, I flew to Urumqi, Xinjiang, to try to overturn the case against
Uighur journalist Gheyret Niyaz
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/07/23/us-china-uighur-idUSTRE66M1PF201
00723> (2010); in the Xia Junfeng case
<http://www2.amnesty.org.uk/blogs/countdown-china/liaoning-high-peoples-cou
rt-must-overturn-death-sentence-given-street-vendor> (夏俊峰案), I was a
defense lawyer for the street vendor in Shenyang (2010); in the
persecution of Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), I fought hard against forced
abortionists, law abusers, illegal detainers, and users of unlawful
violence; in the case of Tang Jitian (唐吉田) and Liu Wei (刘巍), I helped
these two rights lawyers to challenge the Bureau of Justice; and I was in
the Gao Zhisheng case and Hu Jia case, in actions opposing the
singing-red-and-striking-down-black campaign in Chongqing, the equal
education rights movement, the campaign for asset disclosure by officials,
direct elections in lawyers’ associations, Charter 08…….

In one incident after another, I have never chosen the right stand. This
cannot be explained away by rashness or accidental missteps; instead, it’s
clear that this is a person who has completely lost his class stand, who
hates the socialist slavery with Chinese characteristics, who has been
completely brain washed by the capitalist hypocritical notions of
political democracy and human rights, and who has no gratitude toward the
party-state’s generosity of educating him and not having murdered him. In
short, he turns against the cook after being fed full.
          
To be perfectly honest, I have done all these to make my life a little
better, starting from the Sun Zhigang case, to all my expressions and
actions thereafter. As for terms such as reactivating the constitution,
defending rights through legal means, non-violence, and the New Citizens’
Movement, all of them were mere disguises. In time, I learned that there
were a few blockheads in this world who felt awful when they saw others
being bullied; when they felt awful, they were unwilling to keep it to
themselves. So they shouted it out and wrote it up. Since they had no
lethal weapons, they summoned the spiritual weapons in their hearts, legal
tools in their heads, and took advantages of media outlets and the
Internet that “had no clue about the truth.” They hurled themselves
forward, huffing and shouting, determined to fight to the end without fear
of getting their heads cracked or shedding their blood, whether the other
parties were corrupt officials, ruthless power players, or naked officials
(officials who have sent their family overseas); thugs, legal illiterates
or illiterates; principals, bureau chiefs, or provincial heads; the
tall-big-and-perfect, the great-glorious-and-total, or the universal
truth. Among this small group of people were lawyers, scholars,
journalists, artists, petitioners, farmers, netizens, and humble and
anonymous members of society. They didn’t make a lot of money but they
risked a lot; they derived pleasure from their hardship. They were vastly
outnumbered, but every now and then they scored accidental victories here
and there. Sometimes they lost the battle but gained in morale, emerging
victorious from defeat. As a result, more discontented or naïve people
joined the ranks of the Five Black Types and became bad elements. For a
while, this contingency force was pretty geared up. Government
petitioning, online mobilizing, street demonstrating, court challenging,
they battled and lost and battled more and lost more. Short of an
insurgency, they had done it all.

Now, this was getting out of hand, and had to be dealt with.

First, they came to me speaking softly: “Look, you have knowledge, fame
and opportunities. Why mix with those people? You will enjoy many benefits
if you side with the party.” I didn’t listen. I continued.

Then came the warnings: “It’s very dangerous if you continue. Take our
advice, you’ll have a full belly. There will be consequences for giving
trouble to the government. Don’t you see? Professional promotions,
research funding, awards, you get none.” I didn’t listen. I continued.

Then they began to dress me down. They confiscated my passport, so that I
wouldn’t have a chance to experience the sufferings of life overseas. I
didn’t listen. I continued.

Then they disbarred me. The Chairman of the Beijing Lawyers’ Association
Li Dajin and the chiefs at Beijing Bureau of Justice hissed: “We must find
ways to smash the rice bowls of these lawyers.” I didn’t listen. I
continued. 

Then they closed down my blogs, my Weibo accounts, and my reincarnated
Weibo accounts. I was barred from media interviews and college lectures.
Upon swiping my ID, the screen would display “key stability maintenance
target.” Some of the people who knew me wouldn’t dare to dine with me or
even call me anymore. I didn’t care. I kept going.

Then they used thugs to follow me and attack me when I was away from home
working on cases. Around the country’s sensitive dates, regular or
circumstantial, I would be placed under house arrest by the domestic
security police, or taken to travel in their company as they attempted
patiently to give me their political persuasions. I was obstinate, sinking
only further and deeper.
  
Then, to save me, they used kidnapping. In the middle of the night, they
covered me in a black hood, hand-cuffed me, and threw me in a little black
car, took me to a black jail, and locked me in a little black room for two
days and two nights. They threatened to throw me in jail for inciting
subversion of state power. I didn’t repent. Instead, I wrote articles,
acted as a citizen deputy in case after case and organized NGOs to assault
the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics. If I stopped at
any given point, repented, reinvented myself, I could still have had a
great future. 

The Jasmine flowers blossomed quietly in the early spring of 2011, and the
bad people were all rounded up. Their education of me also escalated.
Again, in a black night, with a black hood, handcuffed, in a black car,
thugs kidnapped me and threw me in a black jail, this time adding fists
and face slapping. No communications with the outside world, no sleeping,
no receiving information, no freedom to stretch my arms or legs. During
the 70 days in detention, I wore handcuffs 24 hours for 36 days, I was
forced to stay in one position, facing a wall, for 18 hours for 57 days.
Physically and mentally tortured, I began to write statements of
repentance and statements of guarantee. I had to rewrite them over and
over to improve my sincerity. Never so profoundly did I experience the
super power of “the people’s democratic dictatorship.”

They had known all along, it turned out, the thing that I feared under the
surface of bravery. They knew it from the very beginning and I should have
known.

I feared for the people I love. Once my wife and daughter were hurt and
faced with more threats, I was immediately caught in a dilemma. “Are you a
responsible man or not?” In an irresponsible system, for a person wanting
to be responsible, family responsibilities and social (historic)
responsibilities are in direct conflict with one another. If you end up in
prison, you will not be able to take care of your family; but to walk this
path that I do, you will inevitably end up in jail or alternatives of
jail. Away from this path, you may fulfill your family obligations, but
you not only have to abandon your ideals, your children will continue to
live in the same irresponsible system, and they too in the future will
face the choice between family obligations and social responsibilities.
Not to mention that it’s irresponsible to leave what we ought to be doing
to the next generation.

All right, I would continue doing things, but not get myself in jail.
Learn to restrain, to retreat, to use tactics, and to hitchhike. But the
problem is, that you-know-who organization observes no clear rules and
follows no particular patterns when it comes to arresting people. If there
are predictable rules, we would have been more or less living in a regular
society. But no, the totalitarian rulers are very much like a spoiled kid.
Tactics you consider safe are not necessarily safe. Shi Tao (师涛) was
handed a 10-year sentence for an email, Yang Chunlin (杨春林) a 6-year
sentence for a slogan, and Wang Yi (王译) one-year reeducation-through-labor
for a 5-character tweet. On the other hand, there were people who had made
waves non-stop without being thrown in jail. For example, before 2008, Dr.
Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) had written knife-sharp articles worth several million
words and done many bad and provocative things, but he was fine. But being
spared today doesn’t mean you will be spared tomorrow, and in the end, he
did himself in. Will famous people be spared prison? Well, Gao Zhisheng (高智
晟), Hu Jia (胡佳) and Ai Weiwei (艾未未) were all pretty famous when they
were snatched away. Will you be safe if you don’t organize political
parties, don’t touch cases involving Falungong, Tibetans and Uighurs? Most
of the political prisoners had nothing to do with these taboos. Oh, the
handicapped and the elder will be spared. No, not so, just look at Chen
Guangcheng (陈光诚), Luo Yongzhong (罗永忠), Yan Zhengxue (严正学), Zhu
Chengzhi (朱承
志). Examples abound, and at least two people in their 80s were sent to
re-education-through-labor camps, and countless more elders were locked up
in black jails.

The system needs such fogginess to emanate its menacing power.

All right, how about stepping back? Well, in terms of society as a whole,
to trade freedom for safety, one will likely get neither in the end. But
individuals do become safer when they don’t cause trouble for the
government. The question then is: To where can you step back? When you
feel it’s not safe enough to step one step back, you will need to step two
steps back; still feeling unsafe, you step further back – all the way back
to the point of pretending you are deaf and blind. You feel safe then. But
if everyone is stepping back, the criteria by which they arrest people
will change accordingly: Even if everyone protests in muffled voices, they
will still find the loudest. If they couldn’t find it, they would
fabricate one. Do you think the government will stop arresting people and
the CCP-brand meat grinder will cease to work if we all turn into Li Zhong
Ke (理中客, short for “reasonable, neutral and objective”), obsessing over
strategies of how not to exasperate the authorities? If no one criticizes
openly, they will arrest those who criticize privately.

Arresting people is a must, and the criteria depend on the overall level
of the potential offenders. The extent of political tolerance on the other
hand is expanded by the acts of those who have been imprisoned. This is
precisely the twist and the trap of this system, and it also seems to be
the destiny of democracy fighters and human rights defenders in China: one
loses freedom for loving freedom; one fights for freedom by losing it.
Those who realize this have no place to retreat.

Okay, for the sake of safety, let’s sing the praises of the party. But
here a problem arises too: Praise singers are not always safe either;
after all there is only one Shen Jilan (申纪兰), the only bipedalism who has
sung the right songs over decades, and that’s kind of hard to emulate. To
be like her, one surely will wake up from the Chinese dream with a fright!
Others are selling themselves cheap; if your price is higher, no one will
buy you. Of course if you mean to take part in the Chinese intellectuals’
contest for lowliness, well, that will be another story.
……
Liberty will not fall from the sky. One inch of blood is for one inch of
liberty. Li Wangyang (李旺阳), Li Hong (力虹), Sun Zhigang (孙志刚), Xue
Jinbo (薛锦波), Qian Yunhui (钱云会), Tang Fuzhen (唐福珍), Tapey (扎
白)……bad 
elements are like chives, cutting down one batch, another batch grows.
Last year I visited dissident writer Mu Chuanheng (牟传珩) in Qingdao. He
was 
imprisoned for his writings. But in prison he continued to write
reactionary articles and managed to send them out to reactionary magazines
overseas. What are they going to do with a man like him? Sentence him
again? To stop him from writing, the only way is to destroy his physical
being. But if they destroy his physical being, they would have helped him
make his body his last work against totalitarianism. Most of the political
prisoners, when released from prison, were not repentant. They continued
their criminal actions for which they were repeatedly thrown in prison.
This is probably beyond the comprehension of the invincible communist
vanguards. Open murdering can be problematic; perhaps assassinations are
called for.

In the end, the spiritual resistance against totalitarianism will
inevitably become physical resistance against it. We are calculating, at
any given moment, the ratio of the spirit and the flesh in our lives. I am
scared of death but am courting it; I’m indomitable but fainthearted at
the same time. Every moment of my life is brimming with happiness, but
just as much of it is imbued with pain. Such are the confessions of a
reactionary.  
                   
Night of June 3, 2013

Teng Biao (滕彪) is one of the best known human rights lawyers and legal
scholars in China. He founded Gong Meng 公盟, orOpen Constitution Initiative
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Constitution_Initiative>, along with Xu
Zhiyong and Guo Yushan
<http://chinachange.org/2013/08/10/civil-disobedience-in-sodom-a-letter-to-
xu-zhiyong/>.   
(Translation by ChinaChange.org)