Courage on Tiananmen Square

Note: Originally published in the Journal "Compassion"

Starting in the fall of 1999, just two months after President Jiang Zemin issued a ban of Falun Gong in China, news reports first began to appear about Falun Gong practitioners making peaceful appeals on Tiananmen Square. Almost every day since that time, Falun Gong practitioners have appeared on Tiananmen Square, quietly assuming a Falun Gong meditation position or lifting banners above their heads, which read "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." In a matter of seconds, uniformed and plain clothes police pounce on these practitioners, beat them to the ground and drag them away to nearby police vans.

From Tiananmen Square, they are taken to detention centers, their "crime" of practicing Falun Gong is recorded and the fate that meets them next is often brutal, sometimes fatal. Many are sent back to their local regions where they are detained for long periods of time, some are sent to labor camps without trial; others are tortured or even killed while in custody.

Contrary to common belief, Falun Gong is neither a social nor political movement. It is a quiet spiritual practice; peaceful in nature, personal in experience. Yet, in China today, practitioners of Falun Gong knowingly put themselves in harms way to publicly appeal on politically sensitive Tiananmen Square.

Why?

Practitioners throughout the country have engaged in other activities, such as distributing flyers that reveal the truth of the persecution, posting signs and banners that call for an end to the ban or even mounting speakers in high or hard-to-reach places to broadcast information about Falun Gong or news reports from outside China on the persecution (virtually all international news regarding the persecution is blocked by state-run media in China) -- all of which can land them in a labor camp for three years or worse.

Why?

In the face of tremendous persecution resulting in the detainment and torture of tens of thousands of people, not a single case of violent retaliation or organized revolt has been reported.

Why?

Without the impetus of a social or political agenda, or the momentum of such a movement behind them, what could be the motivational force behind Falun Gong practitioners that gives them the courage to risk life and limb to defend their spiritual beliefs under such strict non-violent terms? The answer is perhaps more simple, and more powerful, than most analysts have yet to identify -- principle.

A Matter of Principle

In September, 1963, at the height of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, a church in Birmingham, Alabama was bombed during Sunday morning service killing four young African-American girls. The community was thrown into turmoil as they tried to cope with the sorrow and rage that followed this tragic event. Many spoke of "retaliation" and "revenge." The words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., however, offered people an alternative: "We need not use hate. We need not use violence. There is another way...a way as old as the insights of Jesus of Nazareth and as modern as the techniques of Mahatma K. Gandhi, ...it might bring suffering sometimes, it might get your house bombed sometimes, it might get you scarred up sometimes... it is better to go through life with a scarred up body than a scarred up soul. There is another way."

Principle.

As we have seen in countless examples throughout history -- from Socrates to Thoreau, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King Jr. -- when a noble principle touches people's lives, showing them a more virtuous and more benevolent way to live, it can ennoble the human spirit in miraculous ways. It can strengthen a weak conviction, it can embolden a timid disposition and it can broaden a self-centered heart. In short, it can move ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

When practitioners of Falun Gong step onto Tiananmen Square to unfurl a banner, it is interesting to note what is written on the banner. It is not a political slogan nor anything condemning the government, but rather: "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" -- the principle of the Falun Gong practice. It is this principle that has touched the lives of millions of people in China and around the world in a very profound and personal way. It is this principle that President Jiang Zemin's persecution campaign has sought to strip from Chinese citizens. It is this principle that constitutes the spiritual beliefs of practitioners of Falun Gong, which they not only seek to safeguard from persecution but also seek to adhere to in the midst of persecution. Thus, it is this principle that not only engenders the ability of Falun Gong practitioners to stand up for their spiritual beliefs, but also provides them with the strength and wisdom to strictly adhere to non-violence regardless of circumstances.

Principle is a difficult thing to "eradicate," as Jiang has declared he intends to do to Falun Gong, particularly when it touches the lives of so many in a highly personal way. One cannot ban what people hold dear, regardless of what enforcement mechanisms one may have at one's disposal. It was principle that held the community in Birmingham in check during the aftermath of their tragic loss, and allowed them to hold the course of non-violence, with conviction and perseverance. It is this same adherence to principle -- Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance -- that motivates practitioners in China to stand up and defend their belief. Armed with this principle, practitioners in China continue to make peaceful appeals on Tiananmen Square as well as work to let people around the world know about the grave injustice being dealt out by Jiang Zemin's regime. This is one of the primary reasons for the continued, persistent presence of Falun Gong practitioners' appeals on Tiananmen Square over the last two years.

But Why Tiananmen Square?

There is a branch of the Chinese communist government referred to as the "Appeal Office." Through this branch, citizens may legally file complaints or make an appeal regarding injustices done to them at the hands of the government. Access to these offices is a right granted to all Chinese citizens by the Chinese constitution. Shortly after the ban on Falun Gong, however, Falun Gong practitioners were no longer permitted to appeal at these offices. Those who attempted to do so were immediately taken away by the police. It has been reported that the appeal office in Beijing near Tiananmen Square even removed its sign from the front door.

Furthermore, other legal channels for making an appeal were promptly closed to practitioners shortly after the ban. For example, in the fall of 1999, the Chinese government began requiring all legal council to notify the central government before they represent a Falun Gong practitioner. This made it impossible for practitioners to find a lawyer in pursuit of justice for the numerous human rights violations they had suffered at the hands of Chinese government authorities. Soon landowners in and around Beijing were even forced to refuse renting their apartments and houses to Falun Gong practitioners. There are often police at train stations going into Beijing who stop and question passengers, search their bags or even require them to curse at a photo of the founder of Falun Gong before boarding a train for Beijing. Pressure was being applied from all sides.

Meanwhile, as more and more practitioners were being taken from their homes in the middle of the night, rounded up in stadiums and sent to labor "re-education" camps without trial, the voice of Falun Gong practitioners was completely absent from the media. In China, virtually all major T.V., radio and newspapers are state owned. In fact, the media has been one of the most powerful instruments used by the Chinese government to further their directives and policies, dedicating hours of airtime every day to denouncing Falun Gong and disseminating propaganda about those who practice it. Therefore, with the government forces mobilized against them, appeal and legal channels closed to them, and with T.V., radio and newspaper pieces disseminated throughout the country demonizing them, Falun Gong practitioners found themselves left with no channel to communicate with their fellow citizens, let alone the rest of the world.

Beijing's Front Yard, the World's Stage

Tiananmen Square is not only a favorite among tourists (both domestic and foreign), it is a symbol of China located in the heart of China's capitol city. Falun Gong practitioners turned to Tiananmen Square as a place that offered an opportunity amidst all of the closed opportunities. On Tiananmen Square, they found a place where they could make a peaceful appeal to the world and be heard. They found a place where a brief hint of the human rights violations they have suffered could be made known. They found a place where a small sampling of the brutality with which they are treated would be visible for all to see.

Most of all, they found a place where they could lift a banner above their heads and, in the hopes of breaking through the massive propaganda machine that has taken aim upon them, make known to passers-by and the world at large that the continued, non-violent struggle to practice Falun Gong freely in China is, indeed, a matter of principle. It is a matter of one's ability to believe in and peacefully practice "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." And at its essence, it is a matter that extends well beyond China's borders, for if today citizens of China are denied this right and the world stands idly by, who is to say which citizens of which country will be next?