Liu Xiaobo 1955 2017 Leo R Sandy Liu

Liu Xiaobo 1955 - 2017 Leo R. Sandy

� Liu Xiaobo (刘� 波) was a Chinese writer, literary critic, human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate who called for political reforms and was involved in campaigns to end Communist singleparty rule in China � He was sometimes referred to as "China's Nelson Mandela”. He was incarcerated as a political prisoner in Jinzhou, Liaoning. On 26 June 2017, he was granted medical parole after being diagnosed with liver cancer and he died on 13 July 2017

� Liu rose to fame in literary circles in 1980 s with his literary critiques and he eventually became a visiting scholar at several overseas universities � He returned to China to support the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and was imprisoned for the first time from 1989 to 1991, again from 1995 to 1996 yet again from 1996 to 1999 for his involvement in the democracy and human rights movement � He served as the President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, from 2003 to 2007

� He was also the president of Minzhu Zhongguo (Democratic China) magazine since the mid-1990 s � On 8 December 2008, Liu was detained due to his participation with the Charter 08 manifesto � He was formally arrested on 23 June 2009 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power” � He was tried on the same charges on 23 December 2009, and sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights on 25 December 2009

� During his fourth prison term, Liu was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize for "his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China” � Liu was the first Chinese citizen to be awarded a Nobel Prize of any kind while residing in China. He was the third person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while in prison or detention, after Germany's Carl von Ossietzky (1935) and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi (1991)

� He was the second person to have been denied the right to have a representative collect the Nobel Prize for him as well as the second to die in custody, with the first being Ossietzky, who died in Westend hospital in Berlin-Charlottenburg after being detained in a Nazi concentration camp � Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, blamed the Chinese communist regime for his death and said that "Liu Xiaobo had contributed to the fraternity of peoples through his non-violent resistance against the oppressive actions of the Communist regime in China. ”

� Liu was born on 28 December 1955 in Changchun, Jilin, to a family of intellectuals. Liu's father, Liu Ling (刘伶), was born in 1931 in Huaide County, Jilin Province. A professor of Chinese at Northeast Normal University � Liu's mother, Zhang Suqin (�素勤 ), worked in the Northeast Normal University Nursery School. Liu Xiaobo was the third-born in a family of five boys. � His eldest brother Liu Xiaoguang (刘�光 ), Dalian import and export clothing company manager, retired. He was estranged from Liu Xiaobo after the 1989 Tiananmen protests

� His second brother, Liu Xiaohui (刘�� ), is a historian who graduated from the Department of History of Northeast Normal University, and who became deputy director of the Museum of Jilin Province � His fourth brother Liu Xiaoxuan (刘�暄 ), born in 1957, is professor of Energy and Materials, Guangdong University of Technology � His youngest brother, Liu Xiaodong (刘�� ), died of heart disease early in the 1990 s

� In 1969, during the Down to the Countryside Movement, Liu's father took him to Horqin Right Front Banner, Inner Mongolia. His father was a professor who remained loyal to the Communist Party. After finishing middle school in 1974, he was sent to the countryside to work on a farm in Jilin � In 1977, Liu was admitted to the Department of Chinese Literature at Jilin University, where he founded a poetry group known as "The Innocent Hearts" (Chi Zi Xin) with six schoolmates

� In 1982, he graduated with a BA in literature before being admitted to the Department of Chinese Literature at Beijing Normal University as a research student, where he received an MA in literature in 1984 and started teaching as a lecturer thereafter � That year, he married Tao Li, with whom he had a son named Liu Tao in 1985 � In 1986, Liu started his doctoral study program and published his literary critiques in various magazines. He became well known as a "dark horse" for his radical opinions and sharp comments on the official doctrines and establishments

� Opinions such as these shocked both literary and ideological circles, and his influence on Chinese intellectuals was dubbed the "Liu Xiaobo Shock" or the "Liu Xiaobo Phenomenon � In 1987, his first book, Criticism of the Choice: Dialogues with Li Zehou, was published and became a non-fiction bestseller � It comprehensively criticized the Chinese tradition of Confucianism and posed a frank challenge to Li Zehou, a rising ideological star who had a strong influence on young intellectuals in China at the time

� In June 1988, Liu received a Ph. D in literature. His doctoral thesis, Aesthetic and Human Freedom, passed the examination unanimously and was published as his second book � That same year he became a lecturer at the same department. He soon became a visiting scholar at several universities, including Columbia University, the University of Oslo, and the University of Hawaii � During the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Liu was in the United States but he decided to return to China to join the movement

� He was later named one of the "four junzis of Tiananmen Square" for persuading students to leave the square and thus saving hundreds of lives � That year also saw the publication of his third book, The Fog of Metaphysics, a comprehensive review of Western philosophies. Soon, all of his works were banned in China � He upheld the notion of "aesthetic freedom" which was based on the individualistic conception of freedom and aesthetics

� He also strongly criticized Chinese intellectuals' "traditional attitude of searching for rationalism and harmony as a slave mentality" just as it was criticized by radical left-wing literary critic Lu Xun during the New Culture Movement � He also echoed the New Cultural Movement's call for wholesale westernization and the rejection of Chinese traditional culture � In a 1988 interview with Hong Kong's Liberation Monthly (now known as Open Magazine), he said "modernization means wholesale westernization, choosing a human life is choosing a Western way of life

� “The difference between the Western and the Chinese governing system is humane vs inhumane, there's no middle ground. . . Westernization is not a choice of a nation, but a choice for the human race. ” � During a visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, he experienced a sort of epiphany that crystallized the turmoil of his latest selfquestioning: he realized the shallowness of his own learning in the light of the fabulous riches of the diverse civilizations of the past, and simultaneously perceived the inadequacy of contemporary Western answers to mankind’s modern predicament

� His own dream that Westernization could be used to reform China suddenly appeared to him as pathetic as the attitude of 'a paraplegic laughing at a quadriplegic’ � He was also a strong critic of Chinese nationalism, believing that the "abnormal nationalism" which had existed in China over the last century had turned from a defensive style which contained "mixed feelings of inferiority, envy, complaint, and blame into an aggressive form of "patriotism" that was filled with "blind self-confidence, empty boasts, and pent-up hatred”

� The "ultra-nationalism", being deployed by the Chinese Communist Party since the Tiananmen protests, has also become "a euphemism for worship of violence in service of autocratic goals. ” � On 27 April 1989, Liu returned to Beijing and immediately became an active supporter of the popular movement. When the army seemed ready to violently eject the students who persistently occupied Tiananmen Square in order to challenge the government and the army that was enforcing its declaration of martial law, he initiated a four-man three-day hunger strike on 2 June

� Later referred to as the "Tiananmen Four Gentlemen Hunger Strike", the action earned the trust of the students. He requested that both the government and the students abandon the ideology of class struggle and adopt a new political culture of dialogue and compromise � Although it was too late to prevent the massacre which started on the night of 3 June from occurring beyond the square, he and his colleagues successfully negotiated with the student leaders and the army commander so the several thousand students who remained in the square would all be allowed to peacefully withdraw from it, thus preventing a possibly much larger scale of bloodshed

� On 5 June, Liu was arrested and detained in Qincheng Prison for his alleged role in the movement, and three months later he was expelled from Beijing Normal University � The government's media issued numerous publications which labeled him a "mad dog" and a "black hand" because he had allegedly incited and manipulated the student movement to overthrow the government and socialism � His publications were banned, including his fourth book, Going Naked Toward God, which was then in press

� In January 1991, 19 months after his arrest, Liu Xiaobo was convicted of "counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” but he was exempted from criminal punishment due to his "major meritorious action" for preventing what could have been a bloody confrontation in Tiananmen Square � After his release, he was divorced and his ex-wife and son eventually emigrated to the US � He resumed his writing, mostly on human rights and political issues but he was not allowed to publish them in Mainland China

� In 1992, in Taiwan, he published his first book after his imprisonment, The Monologues of a Doomsday's Survivor, a controversial memoir which contains his confessions and his political criticism of the popular movement in 1989 � In January 1993, Liu was invited to visit Australia and the USA for the interviews in the documentary film The Gate of Heavenly Peace. Although many of his friends suggested that he take refuge abroad, Liu returned to China in May 1993 and continued his freelance writing

� On 18 May 1995, the police took Liu into custody for launching a petition campaign on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre, calling on the government to reassess the event and initiate political reform � He was held under residential surveillance in the suburbs of Beijing for nine months � He was released in February 1996 but was arrested again on 8 October for writing an October Tenth Declaration opposing China’s threats to Taiwan

� In 1996, while he was still imprisoned in the labor camp, Liu married Liu Xia. Because she was the only person from the outside allowed to visit him in prison, she was called his "most important link to the outside world. ” � After his release on 7 October 1999, Liu Xiaobo resumed his freelance writing. However, it was reported that the government built a sentry station next to his home and his phone calls and internet connections were tapped � In 2000, while in Taiwan, Liu published the book A Nation That Lies to Conscience, a 400 -page political criticism

� In 2003, when Liu started writing a Human Rights Report on China at his home, his computer, letters and documents were all confiscated by the government � Liu's writing is considered subversive by the Chinese Communist Party, and his name is censored � He called for multi-party elections and free markets, advocated the values of freedom, supported separation of powers and urged the governments to be accountable for its wrongdoings

� When not in prison, he was the subject of government monitoring and he was also put under house arrest during times that the government considered politically sensitive � Liu's human rights work received international recognition. In 2004, Reporters Without Borders awarded him the Fondation de France Prize as a defender of press freedom � Liu was sentenced to eleven years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights by the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate Court on charges of "inciting subversion of state power”

� Liu argued that his verdict violated China's constitution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations � Liu's detention was condemned worldwide by organisations and other countries. On 11 December 2008, the U. S. Department of State called for Liu's release, which was followed on 22 December 2008 by a similar request from a consortium of scholars, writers, lawyers and human rights advocates

� On 18 January 2010, Liu was nominated for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize by Václav Havel, the 14 th Dalai Lama, André Glucksmann, Vartan Gregorian, Mike Moore, Karel Schwarzenberg, Desmond Tutu and Grigory Yavlinsky � On 8 October 2010, the Nobel Committee awarded Liu the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China” � China reacted negatively to the award, immediately censoring news about the announcement of the award in China

� Following the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrations in China were either stopped or curtailed, and prominent intellectuals and other dissidents were detained, harassed or put under surveillance � On 26 June 2017, it was reported that Liu had been granted medical parole after being diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in late May 2017 � On the early morning of 15 July 2017, a brief funeral service was held for Liu which Liu's body was cremated following a short mourning service. Liu's mourning ceremony and funeral were heavily stagemanaged as friends and supporters had been warned that public funeral or memorial would not be tolerated

� In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiaobo was awarded numerous accolades in addition to publishing several books

Quotes � My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China. But this has led me to overlook the flaws of Western culture �I now realize that Western civilization, while it can be useful in reforming China in its present stage, cannot save humanity in an overall sense �I must use Western civilization as a tool to critique China and my own creativity to critique the West

Quotes cont’d � In order to obtain "passive freedoms" (freedom from the arbitrary oppression by those in power), there has to be a will for active resistance. In history, nothing is fated � Gandhi was by chance, Havel was by chance; two thousand years ago, a peasant's boy born in the manger was even more by chance. Human progress relies on the chance birth of these individuals

Quotes cont’d � One cannot count on the collective conscience of the masses but only on the great individual conscience to consolidate the weak masses � The mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress towards freedom and democracy", and he declared that he had no enemies, and no hatred

Videos � I have no Enemies � Freedom of Expression in China � Liu Xiaobo – Nobel Peace Laureate

References � Freedom of Expression in China. Retrieved from https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=2 QJGu. POMPv. E � I have No Enemies. Retrieved from https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=I_UBVXK 63 JA � Liu Xiaobo. Retrieved from https: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Liu_Xiaobo � Liu Xiaobo – Nobel Peace Laureate: Retrieved from https: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=1 Mf. Aj. C 3 y-j 0

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