Postcard devlivering people's will (8/19/2009)

No matter speaking of the verse “who delivers it from up cloud” by Li Qingzhao, or “a letter from a female stranger” by Zweig, they are both concerned with things romantic. The recent concerning gathering online and practical delivery of card in real life to right-defender, however, has little to do with romance, but a lot to do with freedom and democracy, dignity and rights.

Half a month ago, a slogan online “Jia Junpeng, you mother calls you back to eat” became flourishing almost all over the internet unreasonably, leaving many who research the internet stunned. Through further investigation, it is lately discovered the reason goes to imported online games; some of them could not be continuously played without governmental permit. This is a sign that the government has become more and more concerned about these online games with which the western values of freedom and democracy are bonded. Playing these games, they might possibly think, will render Chinese young players to be affected insensibly by the values and cultures hidden in the games. Such imperceptible “education” will make their propaganda of obscurantism less effective, thus challenging their target of brainwashing.

As known to all, most of Chinese youngsters surf online only for games, caring little about other things in reality than themselves. It seems that such things are too far for these obsessed young netizens to pay attention to as the harms brought about by power or continuous societal unjustness. They have no clue, however, that even you stay away from politics, it still comes to interfere with your life in other ways. In another word, you don’t care about catastrophe, it comes knocking your door voluntarily; nobody could avoid, which is the cruel reality of China. If you expect to sidestep like a hermit, it doesn’t work. I thus believe, the slogan “Jia Junpeng, you mother calls you back to eat” is a sort of protestation, implicit or even silent.

Due to the governmental oppression, latitude for Chinese traditional media to express has been unprecedentedly stifled. The governmental paws have also stretched out to the internet; things are happening all the time such like deletion, blocking, removal of the website or, even, arresting the dissidents. It gives rise to, as a consequence, other ways of obscure expressions; this is the actual setting for the pervasive slogan “Jia Junpeng, you mother calls you back to eat”. And only under such situation in which straightforwardness means danger could the reasonless prevalence of this slogan online be understood.

In the early morning of July 15, at the moment that Twitter user Amoiist (Guo Baofeng) was to be arrested, he sent out a message asking for help throughTwitter immediately: I have been arrested by Mawei police, SOS. While it is nothing new to hear about abusive arrests by Chinese police, such a terrifying call for help from a person distant away has never been encountered. That a compatriot cried out for help in an abysmal situation extremely touched many Twitter users who had been panicked but indignant at the same time. Thus proposed by some who know Guo Baofeng like Yue Han and Bei Feng etc., many people sent out over hundreds postcards to the imprisoned Gro Baofeng, in order to express support and comfort.

Coincidentally, the arrest came across the abovementioned flourishing slogan starting from July 16, which could be used as the expression for the jailed Guo Baofeng too. Subsequently, “Guo Baofeng, your mother calls you back to eat” became the central words of the postcard delivery activity. It is of great fortune that after 16 days of imprisonment, Mr. Guo was “called” for unsure reasons, and had relatively more freedom. To the netizens who have involved in postcard delivery, there could be no better comfort and encouragement than this. Naturally, netizens start thinking of many more rights-defenders imprisoned and have decided to carry on this postcard delivery activity.

People might get disappointed, as their postcards, even reaching the jails, might not reach their addressees. In the case above, said Guo Baofeng, there were so many postcards delivered to his jail that other correspondences were affected (in fact he did have the chance to see those cards in jail, he saw them after he got out through pictures taken online, which chocked him with sobs). This is, of course, an effrontery of the government, but it does not by any means indicate the fault of postcard delivery. That is because freedom of correspondence is the basic right of criminals; anybody including his/her family could write to him/her as being part the freedom. (Abridged)

As far as the checking of correspondences by jails are concerned, we could keep the evidence before sending out, such as delivering by express or registered letter. If in future the prisoners approve they didn’t receive the correspondences, we could sue the jails to defend and respect our laws. This is the point where the significance of postcards delivery lies in my opinion.

Concerning the initiative postcard delivery activity to imprisoned rights-defenders, human rights lawyer Tang Jingling said “postcard is a card of people’s will”, and asserted “democracy starts with postcard”. The two sentences he expressed actually pinpoint the meaningfulness of this activity which looks like an action art. “Postcard is a card of people’s will” (in Chinese, “postcard” and “people’s will card” share a similar pronunciation) is a harmonic tone easy to remember; “democracy starts with postcard” points out the fact that many, previously being silent, have expressed their opinions at the least cost and with almost zero risk, which is also a sign that we will no longer keep silence.

The life of human being is a life of expression; how could you prove your vigorous existence if you have no expression, nor attitude? Living in such an era has presented us with many helplessness and hopelessness, but we need to be aware that the process of pursuing democracy is like an engagement in a disaster film, in which we might not escape from death, we might die without a burial place. But all these just demonstrate that life is a process. Could there be a better process than combating for dignity and freedom? I think the quality of our living embodies in the process we continuously express our opinions; although so far most of time our words are insignificant, we should not be pessimistic and we should even enjoy this tough trip of effort. Thus the postcard delivery activity is part of our expression and effort. Let us use the postcards on hand to speak for the people who have suffered for standing out to combat for democracy and freedom, for dignity and rights. Such tiny expression of respect and support, representing in the postcard delivered, will let them know that they are not lonely on their tough road of progress.