There was something vulgar about the way Chinese police detained a protester, as seen in a widely circulated video. A young man, he was carrying a sign that said, ‘Chinese people need to be braver.’
Three security agents apprehended him and dragged him into a police vehicle. I wonder how long it will be before he resurfaces.
Demonstrations against the strict Covid quarantines continue in various cities and the communist party will do whatever it needs to suppress them.
That was the bargain the Chinese people made with their rulers. You, the party, ensure us a measure of prosperity and we will surrender our voices.
But the Chinese people weren’t counting that the time would come when the communist party would say to them, ‘this is how it’s done, whether you like or not.’ And add, ‘we are the governing class. We get to decide what direction your life should take. Not you.’
Under the severe strictures of quarantines, the Chinese have had time to think. ‘Just what is so special about Xi Jinping and his followers? If Chinese people’s labor, intelligence and creativity have lifted the nation, why should we not get more credit for it? When difficult matters come up, why shouldn’t our voices be heard? Didn’t we just launch a rocket that will take Chinese astronauts to our own space station? That was Chinese brains and muscle doing the work, not the ideology of the communist party, or Xi Jinping’s Thought (the widely distributed booklet about the pure wisdom of the nearly celestial leader).’
‘Chinese people need to be braver’ said the sign carried by the protester.
It hit home with his fellow citizens. And so they are asking themselves, shouldn’t we have the right to have our own ideas as to how to govern ourselves?
Why can’t we have elections like other developed nations?
And just what has Xi Jinping done to deserve to be our leader?
The Chinese people are starting to think politically. They are squaring with the fact that they are at the mercy of the Chinese communist party.
Why should they surrender their voices?
Why shouldn’t their opinions be heard, or written in the blank, white sheets of paper that have become the emblem of the protest.
Communist party ideology now has it that China should rise to rule the world. But first they should take over Taiwan so that they can be whole as a people. But taking over Taiwan won’t make China whole. Just like taking over Hong Kong doesn’t either. There is nothing the Taiwanese are now doing that is interfering with the development of China. Nothing at all. The Taiwanese are just busy living their lives. And the small island is enjoying the distinction of being one of the world’s leaders in the production of microchips. They are no threat to any nation at all. But because the Chinese in the mainland have surrendered their political minds to Xi Jinping and his henchmen, the communist party can make the conquering of Taiwan an absolute necessity.
It is all lies.
So why did the courageous demonstrator hold up the sign saying, ‘Chinese people need to be braver,’? Because he wanted his fellow citizens to think. And he has risked his life for it.
We may never see him again. He will probably be sentenced to years in prison or end up in a reeducation camp, like Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, until he withers away.
But his fellow citizens would do well to remember his heroic act, and to ponder what he had written on the other side of the sign, the side we didn’t get to see because the goon squad took him away.
‘Chinese people need to be braver,’ said one side, ‘So we can find our freedom,’ said the other.
The winds of freedom are blowing.
They are blowing from Ukraine.
They have reached Iran.
Now China.
Fight on, brave Chinese, for the world is counting on you.
Oscar Valdes 