Sheep City

It was raining as I wrote this- nineteen years ago a young Chinese journalist Yu Dongyue joined the fateful protest in Tiananmen. He threw painted eggs at the gargantuan portrait of Mao Zedong, a grave insult that was beyond the imagination of his communist masters. That was the last Yu Dongyue saw through his sane mind and what happened in the next few moments were equivalently maddening.

Chinese soldiers, backed by tanks, on June 3-4 killed hundreds of activists who had rallied for weeks in and around Tiananmen Square and in other Chinese cities calling for greater pluralism. China faced international condemnation for the crackdown, which in 1990 then-President Jiang Zemin dismissed as “much ado about nothing,” according to Human Rights Watch.

Yu Dongyue was taken into captivity for seventeen years of which two years he spent in solitary confinement. He was tied to an electricity pole, left in the sun for days, submerged in pits of sewage water and all the horrors of torture. That broke him down and drove him mad.

Till this day fifty to a hundred Tiananmen activists are still in prison. Their only crime was the call for democratic reforms. The communists were relentless in meting out their dose of justice.

Today in Singapore, two siblings are serving time in jail for their crime of criticizing the ruling government. In the process of the defamation suits, they were charged with contempt of court. Dr Chee and his sister Siok Chin decided to drop for appeal and serve their sentences.

In another scene, US blogger Gopalan Nair, an ex-Singaporean lashed out against the judiciary in which he claimed to be corrupt and unfair. Unlike Yu Dongyue, he did not throw eggs but his words and expression seemed too offensive for the rulers of Sheep City. Mr. Nair was swiftly arrested, denied bail and currently in remand prison with no access to his lawyer.

Perhaps the Sage of Baltimore was right when he mentioned that judges are like law students who mark their own examination papers.

Though it is very disheartening to see these developments for those who believe in democracy and freedom, we can take heart and pride from these fearless titans. Not only from this nation but the struggle for democracy from all over the world, past, present and the future. Aldous Huxley once said:

Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them.

I am on the shoulder of giants. The view is so much better up here and it has already stopped raining and the sun has returned. Yes, it cannot rain all the time.