who staged a demonstration on the anniver
sary day of the June 5 massacre in Tiananmen
Square, with a simple poster that says, 'We
will never forget the blood of Tiananmen.'
Today, he is still serving in the Beijing
Psychiatric Hospital.”
Li said he eventually realized that free
dom was for everyone, not just himself.
“Had my own experience been a unique
one, there would not have been a student
protest,” he said. “All of my generation and
the young generation of China have gone
through similar experiences. They were bom
to the Cultural Revolution, We have seen the
suffering and we know for sure that we do not
want to repeat the lives which our parents and
their parents have led. We were able to learn
about Chinese in other places and Western
countries through books and television that
were not available before. We saw the differ
ences between what life was, is, can be and,
indeed, should be.
“For the first time in 40 years, there we
were: a whole generation who had glimpsed
the possibility of thinking independently. We
were infused with a longing for an independ
ent life, free from total and oppressive con
trol of the state. We have deliberately chosen
democracy and individual freedom as
ourideals.
“On the opposite side of the generation
of young Chinese is a group of old men in
their 80’s who fought a bloody civil war to
win power and tried desperately to fill seats
of power with their feeble hands and walking
sticks. In a very true sense, the whole
Tiananmen Square movement was a struggle
between a special group of old Communists
and a whole generation of young Chinese. “
On May 4, 1989, 100,000 students
staged a march in Beijing demanding free
dom. But on June 3 and 4, the movement was
crushed by the Chinese Army.
“We learned another painful lesson
about freedom,” Li said. “Freedom is not
free. It costs. For us in China it was a
proposition between life and death. But what
is our alternative? To continue our slavery
under Communist rule where the dream of
freedom is so clear and dear to our hearts? We
were prepared to fight. In a manifesto, we
declared that democracy is life’s greatest
safeguard to the preservation of our well
being. Freedom is a heaven-given right since
the beginning of man. We have to fight for it
with our lives. We have no other choice but
to go to the streets.
“I thought for a brief moment of my
life that something was missing. I had never
known the harmonious relationship of a
marriage, never had offspring. I was 23. So
that night I declared I was going to many
with my girl in Tiananmen Square. Some
30,000 students came to my wedding. So I
told them, we have come here not to seek
death. We have come here seeking a genuine
life. We need to fight. But we also need to
marry.
“That was the last time I saw my
bride.”
Li said that keeping the dream of free
dom alive had its cost, but dreams never die.
“I realized that even with guns, tanks
and bullets, the Communists have failed,” he
said. “They have failed to break the hope of
millions of Chinese for a better life. They can
control your life, but they cannot control
Susanna Gaddy speaks with Li Lu at a reception in the Student Union.
your mind. They can kill your body, but they
can’t kill your dreams. Ideas never die. Truth
lives forever.”
After the military crackdown, Li es
caped to Hong Kong, Paris and finally the
United States. He is now at Columbia Uni
versity in New York, simultaneously work
ing on degrees in economics, business and
law.
“After the massacre, I escaped to the
West, only to learn another lesson about
freedom. Freedom is neither easy to under
stand nor easy to achieve, and mostly diffi
cult to preserve.
“In China, we paid for freedom with
our lives. Here you earn freedom by voting.
How can freedom be preserved when half the
people don’t vote? How can educated young
men make responsible choices when a teen
ager has to risk being shot going to school in
the inner city? How can a great country with
such great wealth as the United States allow
pre-college education to continue to degener
ate at such a desperate rate?”
Freedom is not free. It
costs. For us in China it was
a proposition between life
and death. But what is our
alternative? To continue our
slavery under Communist
rule where the dream of free
dom is so clear and dear to
our hearts? We were pre
pared to fight.
Li’s last protest movement was a hun
ger strike he staged in 1991.
“The news came about a hunger strike
of two political prisoners in China,” he said
in a private interview. “I knew both of them
and respect them a great deal.”
But the hunger strike in jail was a
desperate and most likely futile event. To
help bring attention to their cause, Li decided
to fast as well — in front of the Chinese
embassy in Washington, D.C.
“It became a sensational event,” he
said. “The strike lasted 15 days. When I first
started, there were about 20 to 30 friends
supporting me. By the fifteenth day, I was
invited to speak in front of 300,000. I was
very moved.”
The prisoners were given the medical
attention they needed after the strike ended.
Li said.
Li said his fight for democracy in China
is far from over. He wants to eventually
return to China to reform the nation.
“I want to train myself to be expert in
economic affairs and legal affairs to eventu
ally reform the legal system and set up
economic institutions in China,” he said.
Will China be free someday? An audi
ence member asked this of Li Lu in a ques-
tion-and-ans wer session after his Bicentennial
speech. He answered with an ancient Chinese
proverb:
Once upon a time, a husband, wife and
child lived a comfortable life except that
there was a large mountain between their
home and their fields. So they decided to
move the mountain, piece by piece.
A wise man passed by and asked,
“How is it possible for you to move this
mountain?”
The man answered, “I have a child
helping me. He will have a child. And he will
have a child, and so on and so on. The
important question is not how to move the
mountain, but whether or not it should be
moved.”
Li said: “The mountain is still there.
Yet I believe it will be moved.”
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