US House Minority Leader honors Zhao Ziyang. Why Can’t Mine?

Awaiting a Democratic Hong Kong.

I found this article to interesting. A moment of silence for this man is symbolic, no matter where….

    WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined Chinese and human rights groups at Washington’s Mall to honor the late Zhao Ziyang, former premier of China.

    About 100 people held a moment of silence to honor Zhao Saturday night. Pelosi, D-Calif., said "but the more they tried to suppress his message and his courage, the stronger they make him." Continue

If some other government officials can pay respect, I don’t see why can’t the minority leader and their supporters in the Legislative council in a part of China cannot do it in an official space.

The SCMP editor "Harry" (as he likes to call himself,) said that the protest moment of silence in Legco made by the minority Democratic Party and Independent legislators made Hong Kong a "laughing stock."

I want to know whom those "laughing" people were. It wasn’t from me, it wasn’t from China, who had sent monitors from China to watch Hong Kong activities, nor International governments, such as US, Germany, Japan, Australia and the EU who all put out public statement of condolences.

I don’t see anyone laughing at Nancy Pelosi. If I recall correctly, she’s the member of Congress who stood against the Iraq war and the representative of Berkeley (Actually she’s San Francisco). I guess no one is laughing because she just doesn’t happen to be in a place where bowing your head to authority, and up keeping some silly rule for the sake of imaginary "face" is more important than making a statement and representing all the people in China who would like the government to pay due respect for Zhao Ziyang but cannot make ourselves heard due to the lack of universal suffrage and free speech.

Sometimes I think of becoming a cultural exile back to Northern Cal. So I no longer have to be in a city where papers like the SCMP who supposedly support the democracy movement is so up it’s own blind arrogance, that it’s unable to see the intricacies of China and Hong Kong politics. How important this step is in terms of proving our separate identity from the Central government. An official (if not sanctioned) act of remembrance a man who should be respected but instead have been written out of history. We remember him in Hong Kong. The university students in Hong Kong know who he is, we tell our children that an important man have died, and we know they can learn about him in time. Why?  Because we have freedom of speech, freedom of expression. and freedom of THOUGHT.

People complain about all the time that was wasted by this act. This act took one minute, the walk out that lasted all day had to do with the other side, the pro-government, non democratic camp refusing to go back to chambers. The people who support the wiping away of this man, and yet people are angry with the democrats who “caused” their behavior.

For according to people like the SCMP editor the act is wrong. Because rocking the boat is bad because it makes imaginary people laugh at us.

Ming Pao’s editorial was a little better. Although it did spend a while going on that the behavior of the legislators were out of order. The editor did add that the legislator’s action has everything to do with an unjust system of not having universal suffrage. As if we did have that, and our government actually respected ourselves and exercised the right of "One Country Two Systems." We would no doubt have had an "official" moment of silence. As Hong Kong people have great respect for Zhao. He was the man who helped create joint declaration with Britain and set China into the economic reforms that created the China we know today.

I don’t think the commentators and editors grasp how absurd the refusal to have an officially sanctioned moment of silence is. We should be flying our flags half mast. So now we leave the respect paying for other heads of government to do. Leave long obituaries and magazine covers for foreign news magazines to create. In order to remember a man who helped create the modern China in the last 20 years, and help it into a future. If it wasn’t for Hong Kong, to pay the respect due, to remember what will be forgotten, we as a country would have completely “forgotten,” a man others remember for us.

At the memorial last Friday, the organizers read translated letters from dissents, thinkers and other heads of government, paying respect to Zhao Ziyang. Missing of course was China. The country Zhao was born lived and was premier in.

The speakers kept reminding us. "This is the only place in China, where we can pay respect to Premier. This is the only place in China we can gather and speak. We respect him because he wanted those in China to be allowed to do this also.”

He spent the last 15 years of his life in house arrest because of that.  I don’t think people are laughing. I think people that understand what is happening understands what it is of this city that makes it important, and how that act means a lot to those who care.

The behavior of legislators within chambers isn’t even bound by law, but a simple "gentlemen’s" agreement. Rita Fan and the others who dismissed the motion of paying respect acted out with questionable motivation. They are the ones who broke their oaths of representing the people of Hong Kong.

The 24 Legislators who stood up and bowed their heads. Let people know, not everyone in power in China is willing to put an aging man who did good for our country behind a wall for the rest of his life. Then refuse people to pay respects if they wished. They let us know that they will against the power of the majority to do so.

Those who walked out, and refused to return to chambers, are the people who wasted time in Legco, but they also said indirectly that they would not support freedom against other considerations. They don’t care for our autonomy. I don’t understand why there is sympathy for these people. I don’t understand why we should respect them in any way. I don’t care if we inconvenience them. There was something important to say.

More on this Debate: Many did Support the Moment of Silence for Zhao Zi Yang in the HK Legco (please read comments)

Continue: One Minute of Civil Disobedience

Nancy Pelosi honors Zhao Ziyang
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/01/29/pelosi.zhao/

also

http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?StoryID=20050130-081046-8342r

WASHINGTON (CNN) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi joined a gathering of Chinese community and human rights groups Saturday to honor the late Zhao Ziyang, former premier of China.

Zhao, who had been under house arrest for refusing to shoot participants in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, died January 17 in Beijing.

About 100 people held a moment of silence for Zhao on Washington’s Mall and hailed him as "a great leader of China."

Tao Wang, spokesman for the groups, said international rallies were being held to say goodbye to Zhao and to "bid farewell to the Chinese Communist Party."

Pelosi said that the Chinese government has kept the circumstances of Zhao’s death a secret from its people "but the more they tried to suppress his message and his courage, the stronger they make him."

She said Zhao was like the young man who stood before the tank in Tiananmen Square: "a courageous individual making a statement for freedom" and "maybe in death his message will even be stronger than it was in life."

"Troops may crush a protest, but they can never extinguish the flame of freedom that burns in every heart, here and in China," Pelosi said, adding, "So when our administration says that we are going to take freedom to the darkest corners of the earth, I hope that includes the largest country in the world as well."

Other speakers at the rally called for the release of Chinese political prisoners and dissidents.