By Fengsuo Zhou, Yaxue Cao, published: June 11, 2014<\/p>\n
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(Henry Degroot is a student at Newton North High School, Massachusetts. He wrote a pro-democracy note in a Chinese student\u2019s notebook during an exchange program in Beijing and signed it. A Chinese teacher found out. Henry was detained for five hours, forced to apologize by his American teachers, and, back to America, the school barred him from prom.)<\/p>\n
As two naturalized Chinese Americans and democracy advocates, we feel compelled to offer our perspectives on Boston Globe\u2019s recent story Newton student penalized for democracy notes in China. Fengsuo Zhou was a student leader during the Tian\u2019anmen Square democracy movement in 1989, No.5 on Chinese government\u2019s wanted list when the movement was crushed by tanks and machine guns, and imprisoned for one year after he was captured and paraded on China\u2019s state-run national TV. Yaxue Cao founded and edits ChinaChange.org to bring news and analysis about China\u2019s democracy movement into English.<\/p>\n
First of all we want to ask: Did young Henry Degroot do anything wrong? He wrote in a Chinese student\u2019s notebook, \u201cDemocracy is for cool kids;\u201d \u201cdon\u2019t believe the lies your school and government tell you;\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s right to rebel.\u201d One does not have to look further than the recent Tiananmen commemoration to see that the Chinese government lies to its people and the Chinese schools teach lies to its students. Is it wrong to rebel against lies and repression? Is it wrong to extol democracy?<\/p>\n
The Newton School officials said Henry violated a code of conduct, insulted his Chinese hosts, showed disrespect for the Chinese, and failed to adhere to the standards of the exchange program.<\/p>\n
We want to ask: What code of conduct is it that discourages our students from expressing a moral attitude in perfectly decent words? To whom did Henry show disrespect, the people of China or its totalitarian government\u2019s practices? Who did Henry insult when he voiced an objection to government-engineered lies? What are \u201cthe standards\u201d of this exchange program anyway? To teach our children to be tame, fearful, unthinking, and muzzle their thoughts so as not to offend a morally repulsive host?<\/p>\n
Mr. David Fleishman, the Newton School Superintendent, spoke of the \u201cthe intricacies of Chinese culture and social norms.\u201d There is nothing intricate about right and wrong, freedom and bondage; and it should be no one\u2019s norm to deprive human beings of their God-given freedoms and reduce them into sub-humans.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years ago, Chinese communist party crushed protesters with tanks and shot them with machine guns. But for nearly sixty-five years, the regime has never stopped crushing free thinking and free expression. In the 1950s, hundreds and thousands of intellectuals were persecuted for expressions. In 1970, a young Beijingese by the name Yu Luoke (\u9047\u7f57\u514b) was executed for writing a pamphlet arguing against persecution by family association. Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo has been serving a 11-year sentence since 2008 for drafting the Charter 08 that spells out a blueprint for a free and democratic China.<\/p>\n
We can go on with a long list of Chinese citizens who are serving long prison sentences, often tortured and mistreated, simply because of a few articles or poems they wrote.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Chinese communist party issued a document known as \u201cDocument No. 9\u201d highlighting \u201cseven perils\u201d to its rule, including ideas about Western constitutional democracy, universal values of human rights, freedom of the press, civil society, liberal ideas of free markets, and criticisms of the party\u2019s traumatic past.<\/p>\n
In China, internet censorship nowadays is such that you will not be able to express any dissent without your account being deleted. You can register 100 times and you will be deleted 100 times. Every day the Party\u2019s propaganda department issues directives to all media outlets across China, traditional and digital, to conceal truth or stem public discussions about anything that might veer towards criticism of the party, whether it is a speed train accident, an environmental protest, or an alleged terror attack.<\/p>\n
Last week, on June 3rd, Fengsuo slipped into China \u2013 he is still banned from returning China to see his relatives \u2013 to visit Tian\u2019anmen Square on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the 1989 democracy movement. He succeeded in taking a brief look at the heavily-policed square devoid of any sign of activities, and he was apprehended soon after he returned to hotel, detained for 18 hours and deported.<\/p>\n
On Monday, June 9th, we learned that a 22-year-old Chinese Twitter user had been arrested for tweeting a proposal to use fake base stations to spread the truth about the June 4th massacre.<\/p>\n
We understand why the Newton school officials are so upset with Henry: Jingshan School is perhaps the most prestigious school in all of China attended by the children of the most powerful and the richest, and Newton School cherishes its exchange program with Jingshan school above anything else. That\u2019s precisely why we shudder at the choice our educators make. We believe that the Newton School community \u2013 the students, the teachers, the parents, and the taxpayers \u2013 deserve a debate about the incident and the meaning of the exchange program.<\/p>\n
In fact, America needs a debate about its China policies. As a nation, we have acquiesced to China\u2019s atrocious human rights abuses for too long. Such acquiescence has emboldened communist repression, and made the fight for democracy in China much harder. With China representing 1\/5 of the human race and under an increasingly aggressive one-party dictatorship, the stakes are high not just for the Chinese people, but also for the world.<\/p>\n
Finally, to the Newton School officials, we quote Mr. Slade, the fictional protagonist from the movie \u201cThe Scent of a Woman\u201d whose words however should not be treated as fiction: \u201cWhat is your model here? \u2026.I say you are killing the very spirit this institution proclaims it installs. \u2026 There is nothing like the sight of an amputated spirit, and there is no prosthetics for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the young people in Newton School, in China and everywhere else, we say, \u201cDemocracy is for cool kids. And it is right to rebel against lies.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fengsuo Zhou, Bay area, California<\/p>\n
Yaxue Cao, Washington, DC
\nFrom:http:\/\/chinachange.org\/2014\/06\/11\/a-letter-to-the-newton-massachusetts-community\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Fengsuo Zhou, Yaxue Cao, published: J … Continue reading