I think it is more than awesome that the folks in Stockholm gave the most prestigious award for the promotion of peace to an imprisoned Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. First, like the award given the Burmese democratic activist Aung San Suu Kyi, it shines a light under the rocks of a tyrannical regime. The result - the Chinese are quite simply furious - is a wonder to behold. Every time we are told by some boob and yahoo that the promotion of a more open economic system can only result in a free, more open, eventually democratic China should shut up and consider the events surrounding this announcement. Liu is in prison because he wrote and circulated a document promoting peaceful, democratic change in the People's Republic. He is serving eleven years for doing what we on the internet do all the time - circulating a petition. For all those on the right who insist the Obama Administration is leading us on a path to communist oppression, we should remember what real totalitarianism looks like.
I remember well those fateful days in the early summer of 1989 when the young people of China were poised on the precipice of change. It was a year for political miracles, and it seemed history was on their side. There was a moment, just one brief shining moment, when it seemed the balance would tip in their favor. Pictures of soldiers joining the protesters in Tiananmen Square seemed to point to the steady erosion of support for the regime. It was not meant to be, and thousands died, thousands more ended up in prison or exile, and George H. W. Bush, within months, was kissing the ass of the bloody murderers in Beijing. Not a President since who hasn't written off the same young people who erected a monument to freedom that looked like the Statue of Liberty, betraying our most cherished values in the pursuit of filthy lucre.
Despite official Chinese rhetoric, Liu is a patriot. He loves his homeland, perhaps more than the average young Chinese. He loves his land so much he is willing to risk his freedom and his life to effect change in a place, historically, resistant to change other than the violent destruction of life, civil and human. Just as Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel has done, Liu Xiaobo reminds us that there are millions around the globe who yearn for the freedom and opportunity offered, not by capitalism, but by the very structure of civil liberty and political openness embedded in our Constitution. The same freedoms far too many Americans are all too willing to set aside in the name of convenience, and the false hope that by doing so we might gain a measure of security.
Congratulations, Liu Xiaobo. I know that you will not receive word of the award where you are. I know you will not be able to travel to Stockholm to accept the Prize, and speak on the promise of a democratic China, over a billion people loose from the shackles of a government that gives them bread in exchange for their souls. My hope is that one day, you or another who follows in your footsteps will fulfill the real promise of China, and remind everyone that dissent is the highest love one can have for one's country.
