A Show of Solidarity with Freedom Fighters Everywhere

This post was inspired by a conversation I had with Sepiru Chris last week on his blog e-Cuneiform scratchings (http://e-cuneiform.blogspot.com). I told him that we all need to stand in solidarity to push back against the bullies and oppressors of the world. I applauded him for showing support for the memory of those who died at Tiananmen Square, even though his post came several days after June 4. Today I dedicate my post to the freedom fighters in Iran who are risking life and limb to demand fair elections and freedoms in their country. I cannot do more than post this in support of them, but I offer this poem by Chinese dissident poet Jiang Pinchao to show that sometimes the smallest of gestures means much to a suffering freedom fighter.

In his speech to students at Cal State Long Beach on April 13, 2009, Jiang Pianchao described his arrest and incarceration for taking part in the June Fourth student protests in China in 1989. Like most of the students, Jiang was sent back to his school to wait for the results of the government’s investigations. Many of the students did not believe that their government would retaliate against them with such cruel measures until after they were arrested, interrogated under torture, and imprisoned. Jiang was encouraged through his sufferings by his memories of a small gesture: a handshake from one of his teachers just prior to his arrest. The other speaker at CSULB that day, Bob Fu of China Aid Association was not so lucky. His blood-sworn brothers, who had demonstrated with him at Tiananmen, sold him out and placed all the blame squarely on him to save their own skins. The disillusionment that he felt from being sold out by his friends almost caused him to take his own life. These examples show that in the heat of the battle against injustice the smallest gesture of support can strengthen the combatants to stand firm to the bitter end.

Handshake

By Jiang Pinchao
Translated by Teresa Zimmerman-Liu
Edited by Brian E. Hansen
Published in June Fourth Tiananmen Massacre Twentieth Anniversary Memorial Booklet

In the tree-breaking storm
you cared for the flowers
among the thistles in my path.
You did not avoid the thorns but
threw petals before me.
In my difficulties
I was lonely,
I needed understanding and support.
Your handshake
gave me what I lacked.
We did not speak at our solemn parting but
your eyes brimmed with pity, love, sorrow.

High walls, electric fences, guard towers,
blocked the desolate road ahead,
machine guns aimed at my thoughts, but
I know my responsibility.
When I am lost
I will remember your eyes.
When I feel lazy,
I will recall your hand’s touch.
Friendless,
I will remember.
Suffering,
I will rejoice.
Lonely,
I will ponder.
Terrified,
I will fight.

In this desolate wilderness
when life gave me a bitter drink
you allowed me to taste sweetness.
On this precipitous mountain road
where some would cut off my freedom
you whispered, “They are evil.”
On a freezing winter night
when history would lock me in a cold prison
you gave me a flame for warmth.

At the end of my life
I will have a rich harvest.
On this glorious journey
history will see a new dawn.
My fatherland will see
a day of democracy, a day of freedom,
a day of prosperity, and
I know this new day
will come because of you
because of your handshake.
As a zealous patriot for my fatherland
I etch your name
into the corner of our memorial.

March 23, 1990, Hanyang, China

Twentieth Anniversary of 1989 Chinese Student Protests

Today's post will be somewhat different in honor of the 20th anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang and the beginning of the 1989 student protests in China. I have been doing translation work for one of the student leaders from the protests in Wuhan, June Fourth poet Jiang Pinchao.

Today's post is my translation of one of Mr. Jiang's poems in his booklet June Fourth Movement Twentieth Anniversary Memorial with much thanks to my cousin Brian E. Hansen for his excellent editing work. Mr. Jiang (http://www.64culture.com/) with his friend and fellow student leader Bob Fu of China Aid Association (http://www.chinaaid.org/) came to my school (California State University, Long Beach) on Monday to give a memorial presentation about the 1989 June Fourth Student Movement and Tiananmen Massacre in China. It was quite well-received and there was a lot of press coverage in the international Chinese language media outside China. (http://www.epochtimes.com.au/gb/9/4/14/n2494779.htm) I did the translation and interpretation for the project, so I got my picture in the newspaper, too. Enjoy the poem!!

Foolishness
for Mei
By Jiang Pinchao

Cut and bruised by
chains, burned by
electric shocks,

I’m shredded by wounds—
outwardly
inwardly.
Mei, I was tortured
until nothing remains
but my will.
Snow blows outside, and
inside my solitary cell is icy.
Pit toilet, dining table, bed
cram into five meters square.
The stench of urine and feces
stabs my nostrils.
A thin prison quilt covers me,
I lie on top of my prison clothes
curled up in a ball on the
concrete and wooden bed with no mattress.
I blow on my fingers,
unable to stop shivering.
Mei, I’m so cold.
The sores on my back and legs
numb in my cell’s icy air.
Brushing my wounds is
like touching someone else.
I wonder if I am dead.

Mei, you told me to protect myself
to stop making trouble
but I couldn’t when they
beat Tang, my comrade in suffering.
They beat him with electric wands that
burned his flesh.
His eyes rolled into his head and he
fell to the ground
foaming at the mouth
without any chance to explain.
When he opened his mouth
my comrade could make no sound.
I held up my hands but
he could not count my fingers.
He had been sitting with the felons
but near the doorway.
He did not hear the guards knock
before they exploded into the cell
accusing him of keeping them outside
so he could secretly
commit illegal acts inside.

Mei, they beat my comrade in suffering, Pan, until he
screamed like a dog being slaughtered.
The felons had forced him to carry
bags of plastic powder in the prison factory
while they jeered him.
He came from Hunan and
had a scholar’s scrawny physique
so he could not do the work.
He returned to prison from solitary full of anger.
The wardens believed a false report
and cited him for refusing labor reeducation.
The guards instructed the felons
to beat him until he confessed.
They kicked him and
punched him in the mouth until
blood dribbled from his lips.
He screamed piteously.
Mei, if you heard him
your heart would be bruised and ripped.

Yeh had been trying to help by
sweeping the guards’ offices
but he broke a rule:
political prisoners
cannot go anywhere alone
but must line up three in a row
with a felon to lead them.
They beat Yeh, my comrade in suffering
until his eyes bugged out.
He stood as a grown man
who had never shed tears
before his leaders and students in school,
but as he endured the illiterate felons’
swinging fists
he could not keep from crying,
not because his body ached
but because his heart did.

Mei, I live among the tortured,
I am one of those punished for their ideas.
We eat, sleep, walk, exercise,
enter the metal door where we rake the plastic,
carry one hundred pound bags,
burn our flesh as we heat each piece,
work the red-hot blobs of plastic,
get brainwashed in the pig-sty meeting room, and
urinate and defecate as a group.
The salted eggs you gave me
became a special treat for all of us.
My comrades never forget to share
their cigarettes with me.
Our eyes shed the same tears
and the same blood courses through our veins.
The law, the prisons, some felons, the wardens,
isolate us
to squeeze the life out of us.
They use slaves to crush slaves
to break down our will
to push us to survival’s brink.
Atrocities against my comrades
are my sufferings, too,
Mei, I cannot stop caring for them

We went on strike,
refused to attend meetings
so we were isolated and beaten.
Mei, I did not listen to you and
embroiled myself in another fight.
Being honorable gets me in trouble,
because honor offers no protection:
our enemies do whatever they please.
Their poisonous acts are no better than those of Jiu San
and we suffer no more than Li Yuhe.
When will we be judged honorable,
when will our guards and wardens be
judged criminals and
hated by all?
Now we are confused with them
mere targets for their fists and wands.
I do not know if
they enjoyed being lords
of our mistreatment.
I held my breath
under their blows
until my weakness
became my strength.
Mei, I know I was wrong
not to take care of myself,
I made you suffer.

Do not say we no longer have a future
do not say we will never see our friends again
do not say we will never regain our lost youth
do not say we have paid the price of loneliness
and do not say no one will remember us
even if we shout to people
from the depths of our hearts.

I do not want us to die
in the iciness of reality.
My comrades and I howl like wolves in the wilderness
facing an encircling wall of spears with
our tongues, the gift of life, lolling out.
As we face death the wilderness screams and
we rely on each other for survival.
Before our eyes the hunters prepare to
execute us but we summon all our hate and
will not accept this fate.

Mei, I know this resistance is wrong but
I must help my comrades.
I know I am foolish but I cannot escape their pull.
Mei, I am so tired
I want to return to your arms
I want you to dress my wounds and
see you weep for me.
Mei, do not scold me
because I must be foolish again.

December, 1991, Hanyang Prison

The events discussed in the poem actually happened to Mr. Jiang and his fellow students during their four-year imprisonment after the Tiananmen Incident. For more information see: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/commission/thematic51/34.htm.