|
|
|
Events >> The Democracy Award >> 1998 Democracy Award
|
 Acceptance Speech 1998 Democracy Award |
Delivered by Li Shuxian.
Ladies and Gentlemen: As you know, Wang Dan cannot receive his award today because he is in prison. At the request of his mother, Wang Lingyun, I have the honor of receiving his award for him. She has asked me to make three points today to the National Endowment for Democracy and to all friends. First, she sends her sincere thanks for this award, which not only will strengthen Wang Dan, but symbolizes your solidarity with his determination to persist in his beliefs. Second, she sends thanks to every organization and person who has felt concern for Wang Dan. Third, she wants it known that on her last prison visit, Wang Dan said that "no matter what I have to go through I am going to stand with my belief in democracy. I want to emulate a great tree, facing everything without being bent." As a mother, Wang Lingyun wishes that all organizations and every fair-minded person will feel concern for Wang Dan, her beloved son whose body has now grown weak from lengthy imprisonment but who is, and always has been, innocent of any crime. Let me introduce more words from WD: 1988, at the first "Salons on the Lawn" he told the crowd: "Beijing university's traditions of science and democracy, are the reasons I wanted to come here for college. If China is going to catch up with the world we're going to have to build on these ideals, and I for one am ready to devote myself to the cause." After 6.4 massacre, he writes in his Prison Memoirs that "... I had prepared to die, and imagined that even as I faced rifle fire, I would still feel calm inside, since I had done nothing to regret. ... Afterwards, however, I still felt a heavy burden of guilt about the citizens and students who had fallen, because I should have been the first to fall, and yet here I was, surviving.... The second sentence in prison was a tremendous blow to Wang Dan's family, especially to his mother. She, too, was arrested without cause at the time of Wang Dan's first arrest. She was held for over fifty days at a detention center, where, for no-clear reasons, her left leg suffered muscular atrophy that led to permanent paralysis. Now her son is imprisoned in Liaoning, which is far from Beijing and difficult of access. Neither ice of winter, heat of summer, nor burdensome cost deters her from the steady patronage of the Beijing-Liaoning rail line for monthly prison visits. As we speak today, Wang Lingyun is again out in the wind and snow of north China, headed to see her son. She is going to tell him about today's event. China's struggle for democracy has been unusually difficult. Countless Chinese have sacrificed themselves for it over the past century. For every day that China remains undemocratic, dictatorship continues to threaten the natural rights of it's citizens. But I remain convinced that the ideals of freedom and democracy, will some day be victorious. This is more possible today, now that Chinese pursuit of freedom and democracy has caught the attention of the international community. Wang Dan's backdrop is the entire democratic world. I wish to thank the National Endowment for Democracy for allowing me to speak about Wang Dan today. His birthday is February 26. Let us here, half a world away, in this atmosphere of freedom that we enjoy and that he so treasures, join in sending him our best wishes. Li Shuxian February 4, 1998 |
|
| |