An Eye on China
Remarks at an award ceremony.

By Jay Nordlinger, NR managing editor
July 9, 2001 8:25 a.m.

Editors’ note: On Saturday, July 7, Jay Nordlinger received an award from the Chan Foundation for Journalism and Culture, U.S.A. The foundation, and award, were established in the name of Zhu Xi Chan, a Hong Kong newspaper owner who used his pages to expose events in Mao's China, including the murder of journalists. The award is meant to honor and encourage journalists "who use their talents to work for freedom and democracy in China." The ceremony took place in Chinatown, New York. In the audience were Tiananmen Square leaders, Cultural Revolution survivors, journalists and scholars, and dissidents generally. Mr. Nordlinger's remarks appear below.

riends,

Thank you for this honor. I am deeply grateful. We should never write or work in the expectation of thanks and praise; but when recognition comes, it is undeniably sweet.

I feel there is no sense in being a journalist if I can't do things such as shine a light on China. You will not think me proud when I say that too few journalists are willing to shine a light.

We are accustomed to thinking of China as a normal country. This is one of the evils of a tyranny that lasts a long time: We begin to see it as normal, we get used to it. China's one billion people are condemned to live under a brutal Communist system — that's that. Russians and other peoples were under the rule of the Soviet Communists for over seventy years. That came to seem normal. But we should resist thinking of tyrannical, illegitimate rule as normal, because that can blur into acceptance.

When a country is first taken over by tyrants, that seems an emergency. But then, the tyranny settles in, and the sense of emergency inevitably passes. In a sense, however, a country under tyranny is always in a state of emergency. Think of the North Koreans who starve and are denied all rights — that seems the natural state of things. It has been that way in North Korea for a long time. But this condition is not natural: It should never cease to alarm and rouse us. God means for man to be free.

Not long ago, I was talking with a man — a great man — who bears a very great name. It is a name synonymous with freedom, and resistance to tyranny, and the indomitability of the human spirit: Solzhenitsyn. This was Ignat Solzhenitsyn, one of the writer's sons, and he is a pianist and conductor. We were talking about China, and he said, "Sometimes people ask me, 'Have you performed in China?' And I say, 'No. I will not perform in a Communist country, a country with a vast gulag system, one that denies its people basic rights. You've got to be kidding.'" And, continued Ignat, "They look at me as though I had just come from the moon. They really cannot comprehend what I am saying. They regard China as a perfectly normal, legitimate state. They travel there as they would to Canada or the Virgin Islands — they think nothing of it." But China, of course, is not normal.

I myself would be reluctant to enter a country whose own people are forbidden to leave. That seems to me fundamental. Perhaps the first right of an individual is to leave a country that is dangerous to him. A government that will not permit its citizens to leave — in part because it fears what these individuals might have to tell — is a government that should be opposed with all our strength.

All of us, over the last couple of decades, have appreciated and rejoiced over what loosening has occurred in China. Every gain is to be cherished. But we would not be responsible, we would certainly not be brotherly, if we forgot the political prisoners, and the immense suffering, and the denial of rights that most people I know take for granted. A couple of years ago, I was stirred by Harry Wu's photos from Laogai. I was glad to see them, for the reminding they did. Often, we see pictures of markets in Shanghai — and I am delighted that there are markets in Shanghai. But how goes it with our people in the camps?

I have written from time to time about China, and I have done very little. I have hardly lifted a finger. Yet Chinese people seem grateful to me — inordinately so. This disturbs me, because it means that most other people are doing even less than I. Cuban people, too, are grateful for the little I have written about their country. I have simply offered a few crumbs — and they have responded as though to a great feast. Again, this disturbs and depresses me. To point out that a government is brutalizing innocent people should not be remarkable. To cock an ear to the screams of the tortured should not be abnormal.

Right this second, U.S. citizens — leave aside Chinese citizens for a moment — U.S. citizens are being held in Chinese Communist jails. We know little of their conditions; we can only guess and fear. They are, of course, guilty of nothing. And yet Americans seem unconcerned. The mainstream media hardly breathe a word. It is almost beneath notice. The U.S. administration has just declared itself neutral about whether Beijing should be granted the 2008 Olympic Games — at a time when the regime is cracking heads, hard, and banishing our own citizens to the dungeon.

No, China is not a normal country, deserving of such plums as the Olympic Games. No one should be lulled into thinking that it is. This lulling is something I try to work against in the journalism I do. The journalism that rouses — even if people would prefer to sleep — is an important kind of journalism.

How asleep are we? I'm sure you noticed, the other day, that Luciano Pavarotti sang a duet with Jiang Zemin. Yes. This makes it hard for people like you and me to rouse. After all, how bad can a country be whose head of state Pavarotti joins in song? Now, Luciano Pavarotti is not a bad man; he is just a fool, in this area of life. And we should point this out.

More and more, I am aware that the press has great power. It has power to harm or help. It has power to tell the truth or lie. Lies in the press can sometimes seem more powerful than any peep of truth. But I have learned, too, that a little truth-telling can go a long way; it can be the lump that leavens the whole loaf. A whisper of truth can have a surprising resonance.

When I am at my most optimistic, I believe that Americans can be made to care about the victims of Communism. I am often asked, though, why this should be so difficult. The question comes from Chinese people, and Cuban people, and people from eastern Europe (although this happens less often now, with the fall of the Berlin Wall). I sometimes despair of giving a satisfying answer. I can only say, first, that it is a rare person who cares about other people's problems, and, second, that the pull of the Left is very strong in this country. Certainly the feeling against anti-Communism is intense, and almost violent. In some quarters — I know, because I have lived and moved in them — anti-Communism is regarded as a kind of disease, or a mental defect. When I was in school, an anti-Communist was the craziest thing you could be. There was hardly a word spoken against the government in Beijing. Pictures of the great murderer himself, Mao, were everywhere; so were pictures of the great idol, Che Guevara.

I hope that most people who defend or excuse Communism are merely ignorant. But make no mistake: Some simply like the oppression of human beings for the sake of Communist ideology, or for the sake of standing against the anti-Communists. That is a hard truth that I have only fairly recently swallowed.

Robert Conquest, the great historian of Communist terror, jarred me recently. He pointed out that human testimony — testimony coming out of the Communist countries — has always been disbelieved. Western elites have preferred to believe false propaganda produced by the regimes. This was true from the beginning: Reports of Soviet oppression were dismissed as "rumors in Riga." After Mao took over, refugees began to stagger into Hong Kong, having suffered the worst deprivations, having made a harrowing journey — and they were branded "warlords" and "bandits." The exiles from Cuba could not be trusted, either: For one thing, they were suspiciously pro-American, too grateful for their refuge, even as they longed to be back in their homeland, freed of Communism. They were — and are — damned as zealots and fanatics.

One great trick of the Cuban Communists and their supporters is to pretend that political prisoners in Cuba are bad characters from the old regime, the Batista regime. Recently, I interviewed and wrote about a Cuban dissident named René Montes de Oca. He is now somewhere in Castro's prisons, or at least he is presumed to be; his family has been allowed no contact with him, no information. After my articles appeared, Castroites and pro-Communist apologists in this country said that Montes de Oca must be a bad man from Batista days, deserving of whatever Castro gives him. Please understand that René Montes de Oca is 38 years old. He was born in 1963, four years after the Communists seized power. The Communists and their allies will never, ever give up this lie about Cuba's prisoners. But it is our privilege, of course, as well as our duty, to point out that they are, in fact, lying.

I have come to believe, very strongly, that the ignorance excuse can only go so far. Anyone can learn the truth about what takes place in countries like China — all it requires is a grain of curiosity and an accompanying grain of good will.

I did not, to put it mildly, grow up in an anti-Communist environment. But I noticed things. I remember, when I was very young, seeing a picture of a small mountain of skulls in the Christian Science Monitor. It turned out to be from the Communist genocide in Cambodia. That told me something. Later I learned about the Soviet Union, and knew there was a man named Solzhenitsyn: His testimony would seep into my consciousness. In due time, I found William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review, and Norman Podhoretz and Commentary. These two organs countered for me a crush of false or faulty material. I got hold of Simon Leys; I saw that Edgar Snow was not telling the whole story — far from it. I read books and articles by Conquest and David Pryce-Jones and Paul Johnson. I read journalists like A. M. Rosenthal. In relatively short order, I simply found out about Communism. You do not need to know the particulars of nations and situations if you know about Communism. Whether in China or Korea or Russia or Cuba or Yemen or Mozambique — it is all the same. The same stamping boot, the same war against the spirit, the same river or ocean of lies.

Speaking of lies, I must say that the Communists are lying brazenly about Falun Gong. It is very important that we pay attention to Falun Gong, and defend them. They are not separate from us; they are, at the moment, bearing the brunt of the evil that the Chinese Communists have to mete out. One might be tempted to say, "These Falun Gong have nothing to do with me. They are a strange sect, performing strange exercises in parks, reading strange books, believing strange concepts, making trouble." But we should swarm around Falun Gong, in protection of them, and also in protection of ourselves. Let me explain: To stand up for Falun Gong is not only the right thing to do, morally, it is the selfish, or self-interested, thing to do: The authorities may be attacking Falun Gong today, but, tomorrow, they could be attacking us. This is a cliché, but perfectly true.

There is no one — no one — I admire more than the person who will stand up to the bully. I am in awe of those who have displayed the necessary courage: political courage, moral courage, physical courage. I think of Solzhenitsyn and Armando Valladares. I think of Harry Wu and Wei Jingsheng. There are countless others, less famous, or not known at all. These men have risked everything, sacrificed everything — they have not cowered before evil.

And the journalists I admire? They are the ones who search out the dark places, who subdue their fear, and who do not yield to discouragement. I admire journalists like Justin Yu, who is untiring, truth-determined, and impossible to intimidate. I mourn with you all the recent loss of his mother, another one to admire, another model to follow.

As I have admitted — it is only the truth — I have done next to nothing. But you might say that at least I have not done nothing. I will do more. I am astonished and moved to receive an award named for Zhu Xi Chan. He who publishes the truth, as Mr. Chan did, is a priceless servant — especially when that truth is not readily accepted, and constantly and deviously opposed. I am told that the Chan award is meant to encourage journalists. Well, I can happily report to you: I am encouraged. Let me say further — and this is a delicate matter — that it is good that you provide such an award; the world, by and large, is not eager to bestow laurels on people who expose or publicize abuses in Communist countries. We are generally regarded as nuisances, or exaggerators, or even liars. We are generally accused of — and here I reach for a phrase from the Cold War — "poisoning the atmosphere of détente."

I myself am all for trade and war-avoidance and harmony among nations. I understand the requirements of diplomacy and geopolitics. But I will not, personally, accept a deceptive and treacherous peace, wherein human beings are persecuted by the state unseen and unheard. I will not forget Laogai or Tibet or even the simple truth that no one, including the Chinese people, should have to live under tyranny.

I will also remember another simple truth: that this tyranny cannot possibly survive. It stands no chance. It was doomed from the beginning. Truth is not obliterated, and God is not dethroned.

Friends, I love what you stand for, I love the work you do, and I am honored beyond my ability to tell you to be in your company.