Barack Obama and Wei Jingsheng

Barack Obama and Wei Jingsheng
United Daily News editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
A Translation
October 14, 2009

Barack Obama's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize was met with a global outcry. Even he did not feel he deserved it. Meanwhile rumors that mainland democratic activist Wei Jingsheng and human rights activist Hu Jia might be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize have receded from public memory.
If one wishes to give one of these the award, Wei Jingsheng is probably more deserving than Hu Jia. Hu Jia's record is impressive. He is a high school graduate who made his appearance after the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. When Wei Jingsheng first appeared he was an electrician at the Beijing Zoo. Mao Zedong had just died. The ten year long disaster known as the Cultural Revolution had transformed mainland China into a closed society. During the "Beijing Spring" Wei Jingsheng unquestionably issued the most resonant grass roots "hu sheng" (outcry). Wei Jingsheng was born 30 years before Hu Jia. He is more representative of society than Hu Jia.

Wei Jingsheng often uses the term "outcry." In 1978, on the Xidan democracy wall, he posted a "Fifth Modernization: Democracy etc." He said that Deng Xiaoping, who resurfaced following the "Smash the Gang of Four" movement "should be grateful for the outcry that restored him to the political arena."

By outcry, he meant the voice of the people. Those who smashed the Gang of Four, who staged the coup d'etat, and who denounced the late Mao Zedong in 1976, were of course Ye Jianying and Deng Xiaoping. Theirs was an internecine struggle. But according to Wei Jingsheng, the real impetus originated with the people, with their outcry. They were the ones who gave this anti-Maoist coup legitimacy in the eyes of heaven and earth.

To this day, leftists on the mainland insist that the three decade long drama that began with the Smash the Gang of Four movement, and led up to the Reform and Liberalization movement, was all part of "socialism's superior self-correcting mechanisms." But the anti-Maoist coup was clearly not part of any "self-correcting mechanism." Deng Xiaoping and others responded to the people's outcry. They were compelled by the people's outcry to smash the Gang of Five (including Mao Tse-tung). That is why Wei Jingsheng said Deng Xiaoping "should be grateful for the outcries that restored him to the political arena."

Thirty years later, as one reads Wei Jingsheng's words, such as his "Fifth Modernization: Democracy etc," and his "Democracy, or a new dictatorship?" one cannot help being moved. Even today, Wei Jingsheng's personal controversies should not detract from his Beijing Spring era achievements. Wei was a 28 year old electrician and a high school graduate. He had just emerged from the closed society of the Cultural Revolution. Yet he spoke of Rousseau and Locke. He foreshadowed the developments of the next three decades. If a young electrician could hold such views, that meant there was no shortage of people among the vast population of China who held the same views. The only difference was that most of them dared not express their views quite so openly. Thirty years later, grass-roots attitudes in China are probably the same. They dare not speak, but in their hearts they know what they believe. The outcry continues to reverberate.

Today's China is not the exclusive achievement of the Deng Xiaoping/Hu Jintao "palace coup." Is is also the achievement of Peng Dehuai, Liu Shaoqi, Lin Biao, Hu Yaobang, Zhao Ziyang and millions of other middle and upper level political figures. It was paid for by the tens of millions who died of hunger for the "Three Red Banners," and the hundreds of millions who were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution as "feudalists, capitalists, and revisionists." It was paid for by the victims of the 1978 Beijing Spring and the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. The result was an outcry inspired by the people's suffering. Today's China is not the result of any "socialist self-correcting mechanisms." It is the result of the CCP regime's lack of alternatives. The CCP was forced to forsake class struggle and instead champion a harmonious society.

Today, the sentiments and reasoning behind Wei Jingsheng's outcry three decades ago may sound somewhat anachronistic. But in fact the buzzword "reform and liberalization" goes back to his "Fifth Modernization." Today Beijing is taking the path of reform and liberalization. But it still characterizes the reform and liberalization advocated by pro-democracy and human rights activists as heresy. If it is merely indulging in power games, that is understandable. But Beijing's leaders surely realize that it was precisely such outcries that enabled them to remain in power in order to promote reform and liberalization. The CCP has rehabilitated Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi. The latter died a nameless corpse. The CCP can hardly ignore the outcries from the grass roots during the Beijing Spring and 1989 pro-democracy movement. Without such strong and sustained outcries today's China would not exist. Peng Dehuai was in fact an insider version of Wei Jingsheng. Wei Jingsheng was conversely, a grass-roots version of Peng Dehuai.

President Ma Ying-jeou's National Day speech noted that today's Taiwan must affirm the decades long fight for democracy and human rights waged by Lei Chen with his "Free China" movement and by "party outsiders" during their "Kaohsiung Incident" movement. Hu Jintao and other leaders in Beijing may not be able to openly affirm the views of Wei Jingsheng and Hu Jia. But they must allow their outcries to echo in their hearts.

從歐巴馬想到魏京生
【聯合報╱社論】
2009.10.14 04:32 am

歐巴馬獲得諾貝爾和平獎，舉世譁然，連他自己都覺得受之有愧。於此同時，多年來大陸民運人士魏京生，與維權人士胡佳可能獲獎的傳說，則再次消失在人們的想像中。

若要給獎，魏京生可能較胡佳更有資格。胡佳的表現確屬不易，他是高校畢業生，是八九天安門事件後的人物；魏京生初露面時，則是北京動物園的電工，當時正值毛澤東死，中國大陸仍是文革十年浩劫造成的封閉社會，魏京生的「呼聲」，無疑是當年「北京之春」裡最令人震懾的草根吶喊。魏京生出道比胡佳早三十年，他的社會代表性也比胡佳土，比胡佳深。

「呼聲」是魏京生的用語。他在一九七八年西單民主牆上貼出的《第五個現代化：民主及其他》裡指出：當年在「粉碎四人幫」後復出的鄧小平，「應當感謝那個把他推上台的呼聲」。

呼聲，是指人民的聲音。若依魏京生的看法，一九七六年「粉碎四人幫」對毛澤東的鞭屍政變，固然是葉劍英、鄧小平等發動的黨內鬥爭；然其底層的真正動力，卻是來自人民的「呼聲」，使這場鞭屍政變取得了順天應人的正當性。

一直到今天，大陸的左派仍在說，三十年來從「粉碎四人幫」至「改革開放」的巨劇，是出於「社會主義」內在的「優異的自我糾錯機制」。然而，顯然那是「鞭屍政變」，而不是什麼「糾錯機制」。鄧小平等人是回應了人民的「呼聲」，或迫於人民的「呼聲」，而粉碎了「五人幫」（包括毛澤東）；因而，魏京生說：鄧小平等「應當感謝那個把他推上台的呼聲」。

即使在三十年後展閱魏京生的文字，如《第五個現代化：民主及其他》、《要民主還是要新的獨裁》，仍令人心靈震動。即使今日對魏京生的私行有些議論，但應當無損於他在「北京之春」的表現。當年魏是二十八歲的電工，高中畢業，剛經過文革的封閉社會；但他的吐屬，居然有盧梭、洛克的況味，不啻也預告了嗣後至今三十年的歷史走向。我們可以想像，當年一名青年電工有這種政治見解，其實在中國廣大基層民眾間亦不乏有此見解，只是他們不會或不敢像魏京生這般地表達。我們也相信，三十年後今天的中國草根基層仍是如此；不會說，不敢說，但心知肚明，也就是「呼聲」仍在迴盪。

就此以論，中國有今日，不全緣於自鄧小平至胡錦濤的「宮廷政變」；也是因彭德懷、劉少奇、林彪、胡耀邦、趙紫陽等萬千中上層人物的罹禍；更是因「三面紅旗」數千萬餓殍，及文革數億「封／資／修」被鬥者，以至一九七八「北京之春」，到一九八九天安門事件，所付出的民生苦難及因苦難而發出的「呼聲」。鐵一般的事實是：中國有今日，並非因為「社會主義」的「自我糾錯機制」，而是中共政權已經再也沒有不改弦更張的餘地，必須從「階級鬥爭」走到「和諧社會」。

回顧魏京生在三十年前的「呼聲」，其中的情緒與邏輯雖不免略有時空的落差，但其實不妨逕將「第五個現代化」一詞改作「改革開放」的今日流行語。但是，今日的北京政權，走的是「改革開放」路線，卻仍將主張「改革開放」的民運或維權人士視為異端。這若是緣於統治權謀，尚可理解；但北京主政者卻不可不知，正是這種民間「呼聲」，使當局得以繼續挺住及推動「改革開放」。中共既然漸次平反了犯顏直諫的彭德懷，和死時成為無名屍的劉少奇等；當然也不能抹煞「北京之春」至「八九民運」的民間「呼聲」。沒有這股強大而持續的「呼聲」，中國不會有今日。彭德懷其實是朝廷裡的魏京生，而魏京生則是草根的彭德懷。

馬英九總統在國慶談話中指出，台灣有今日，必須肯定從（雷震）「自由中國」，到（黨外運動）「美麗島」數十年來爭取民主人權的志士。北京當局胡錦濤等領導人，也許一時做不到在口中認同魏京生、胡佳等的見解，但應當常使這類「呼聲」在自己的心中迴盪。