I spent the 2010-11 academic year in Hong Kong on a Fulbright Scholarship. While there, the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China invited me to participate in a panel discussion to celebrate the anniversary of the United Nations Convention on Human Rights. Of course, a public event dealing with human rights could not be labeled such in mainland China, so the Consulate publicized the topic of the panel as “Fighting Discrimination.”
The panel included one other American Fulbright Scholar and two Chinese nationals. A woman discussed women’s rights in China while the other Chinese panelist described his work on labor rights. His talk was especially interesting. He left a lucrative legal position to start up a non-profit focused on defending the rights of migrant workers, a major issue in China. At one point, he was jailed after the authorities took offense at his work.
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When my turn came around, I began thusly: “The topic of today’s panel brings to mind the case of a towering defender of democracy and Nobel Prize winner who faced persecution and jail over his tireless work on behalf of freedom and justice.” At this point, the audience of around 30 Chinese individuals began nervously looking at one another, no doubt thinking “Is he really going to go there?” For a Chinese listener, my intro would be understood to refer to Liu Xiaobo, an imprisoned pro-democracy dissident who had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I later learned that the audience included four signers of Liu Xiaobo’s manifesto, Charter ‘08.
But puzzled expressions turned to smiles as I went on: “I refer, of course, to Martin Luther King Jr.” The audience appreciated my tacit acknowledgement that my own country, which so often preaches to others, has a dark history of its own. I touched on slavery and the treatment of native Americans as examples. But, I argued, the United States had been capable of overcoming unjust institutions and practices again and again by virtue of the strength of its civil society, combined with a Constitution that enshrined basic rights. I mentioned the abolitionist movement, the suffragettes, the labor movement, and the civil rights movement. In each case, the powerful resisted change but were forced to cede to the pressures exerted from below by ordinary people willing to take risks and make sacrifices in the pursuit of justice.
Many of those in attendance that day looked up to the United States, even as they understood its many faults. No doubt sentiment in China has shifted over the intervening years as relations between the U.S. and China have turned increasingly confrontational. But those in China who continue to admire the ideals they once associated with the United States – and there are many – have also become disillusioned by the authoritarian turn in our politics. Dark days are back again.
But we have been here before. Can we today summon the courage to defend the gains that prior generations fought to obtain? Will the civic traditions that underpin democracy once again triumph over the dark currents of American society? The answer matter not only to us and our children, but also to those abroad – in China and elsewhere – who have at times taken inspiration from what is best in America.
The Internationalist 