For what can't be forgotten

In the last two or three years, this has always been the most important post every year to myself. Just try to remind people around me, and people who happen to see this post, that the tragedy happened 20 years ago shall never be forgotten.

And this year, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square pro-Democratic Protest, once again showed the world that how desperate our government wants to erase this day from people's memory, and at some level, they succeed. More and more youngsters in China have no idea of what 4th June means to this nation, more and more parents choose to hide this history from their children, in the name of protecting children from danger. Danger from whom? From their own country, their ruling government. How sad it is, those people died for the democracy of China, may end up with being forgotten by the new generation.

Fast growth of economy eases everyone's concern of their rights of free speech, voting, and other basic human rights that westerners take for granted. As long as we can have cars, houses, love, TV, Web, who cares what the ruling party did and is now doing. Sure, that is the situation. Swiftly, I become the weirdo among my friends, because like the students twenty years ago, I still care about those rights, not for myself, but for the people in this nation. Because, as far as I know, without the guarantee of these basic right, any one of us can easily become the victim of the machine of the nation. However, the tragedy is, unless one turns into the victim, he or she will never care about those rights, and that is what happening around me.

That is why I support those independent lawyers who are now fighting for the victims of the abusive power of the government, they stepped up to defend the protesters in Tibet, the victims whose houses are torn down without notice by the government, the girl who self-defensed herself when local government officials tried to rape her... the story of victims like this never ends in China. Many of them are never told. And any one of us can end up like them if we don't care about those basic rights. If we don't stand up for them, one day, when we become the victims, who would stand up for us?

The truth is, no friends would listen to me, look at what happened to those who protest 20 years ago, some of them died, some of them went to prison, and the rest of them have been suppressed in every aspect of their life by the government ever since. What good can you get from calling for democracy in China? Probably none. Most of my friends have very good family background, they never need to worry about life, may even have some good connections of people with governmental background, probably. They are the beneficiary of this structure of the society. And if you are the beneficiary, why should change come?

Well, the world is changing. Fatal medical drugs, tainted milk alerted everyone in China that we're not safe, because there are on independent institutes to guarantee the food production, even the most senior officials in the government, in the ruling party can corrupt for the sake of money. The government tolerate no independent organizations or activities, any organizations or activities must cooperate with the government in some form or other, and once independence is lost, corruptions sneak in, for they have the unrestricted power. No one can inspect them, for they are the inspectors themselves. And the tragedy of Sichuan earthquake can't be investigated independently, why? For once the truth is unraveled, massive scale of corruption might emerge from the poor quality of the school buildings that swiftly collapsed and killed thousands of children's lives. Independent lawyers are suppressed recently too in China, for they are defending for the people that government doesn't like, for any deeper investigation might jeopardise they own interests that can't be known to the outsiders. We all are actually the victims of this system, however, most of us just can't see, because our government, our ruling party have the absolute power to disguise all the "nasty" aspects, and show most of us the bright side, now just the current situation, but also the promising future.

I think, maybe Internet is the one thing that can plant the seed of democracy in China. I don't think that kicking the ruling party out of their position can solve thee problem of China. More important and more realistic thing is to cultivate the sense, the conscious of democracy, the value of freedom of speech, of press, of voting to the public. The Great FireWall might be able to reduce the power of the Internet, but with more and more people, especially the younger generation who are comfortable with ever changing technologies being able to access more diverse information from other than the government and ruling party, with more and more tools to break the Great FireWall, this nation will gradually change.

And what I can do, the most humble thing within my capability is, to keep on writing, for the sake of my beloved country, the people I love, and the people who died for their belief, our democratic China; to keep on expressing my support of those who are fight for the human rights in China; and to patiently repeat the value of democracy to the people around me. And one day, I will tell those students and citizens who gave their lives to this country that night, they did not die in vain, they will not be forgotten, their fighting is the spirit, the foundation of a democratic China.