A Heart for Freedom: The Remarkable Journey of a Young Dissident, Her Daring Escape, and Her Ongoing Quest to Bring Justice to China by Ling Chai

Author:Ling, Chai [Ling, Chai]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Christian Life, RELIGION / Religion, Religion, Personal Memoirs, Inspirational, Politics & State, RELIGION / Christian Life / Inspirational
ISBN: 9781414362465
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2011-09-01T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

The next morning, May 27, I came to our Headquarters tent, where the broadcasting center was. I remember sitting along the outer edge, where part of the fabric had been lifted up to let in some fresh air and light. There was a bit of tension between Li Lu and me, which might have been due to the fact that I had agreed with Yang Tao’s idea the night before. We were sitting two or three people away from each other, and there was an awkward silence.

Then a student sitting across from us asked a question.

“So what are we hoping for? What can we achieve?”

I had been thinking about that myself.

Li Lu responded calmly and quietly, “What we are actually expecting is a crackdown.” (In that context, I assumed he meant in public.) “When the government runs out of tricks, like a dog trying to jump over a wall, and has to face the people with a butcher’s knife—when the Square is awash with blood—only then will the people of China be awakened and united to overcome this government.”

I saw the student’s face light up at this shocking and powerful insight. Now I understood Li Lu’s reason for rejecting the “empty campuses” idea. Both he and Ren Wanding shared a strong conviction that if the government were able to move the students away from the spotlight, the same kind of crackdown would take place in the darkness, out of the public eye, and the truth would be covered up. That would be a tragedy, because all the sacrifices the students and citizens had made to this point would be lost. That morning was the first time I realized what some of the scholars had been saying about the April Fifth movement, in 1976, when the government had sent plainclothes police into the Square at night to beat and arrest people who had gathered in memory of Zhou Enlai.

Phrases such as “dogs jumping over a wall,” “butcher’s knife,” and “awash with blood” may sound horrible to an English-speaking audience (I felt the same way as a Chinese speaker when I heard the English phrase “drop-dead gorgeous”), but these were common phrases when we were growing up in the Communist Chinese culture. Still, I was shocked by what I had just heard. For the first time, I began to realize that our hope for a dialogue with the government and a reversal of the dong luan verdict was gone and we were now facing an inevitable crackdown. Even so, I did not think Li Lu was talking about a massacre.

Before I could process it any further or ask any questions or discuss it, a man poked his head into the tent and changed the subject. It was one of the tall representatives from the intellectuals.

“Here you are, Chai Ling, Li Lu. I’ve been looking for you guys all morning. We need you to come. The meeting is starting now. Come quickly.”

Before I could respond, Li Lu waved his hand at me and said, “I’m not going.

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