We are not writers, we are hostages
-Speech at the 71st Congress of the International PEN, Bled, Slovenia, June 14-21, 2005

Wang Yi (Chengdu, China)

Honorable president, ladies and gentlemen from Pen Centers all over the world:

Good afternoon.

I am grateful to have this opportunity to speak to you in my own language – Chinese, because this is the first time after the “June 4th Massacre” in 1989 that a mainland Chinese author has come back to attend an International PEN conference. This is the first time in 16 years, that the voice of a Chinese writers’ group can be heard, a group that is independent or at least strives for its independence, that is free or at least longs for freedom and that tries to perpetuate the freedom of expression in the face of great political pressure.

I come here, not because the bloodstains have already faded, not because the government has reduced its pressure on individuals and allowed them to regain their freedom and dignity. It is not like what French President Mr. Chirac has said, that “June 4th” already belongs to history. No, I come here heavy-hearted without blessing, because there is no reconciliation between a free writer, an independent intellectual, and his government.

I come to Bled representing Mr. Liu Xiaobo, the president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, and to bring you his respects. Our sincere thanks go to the “Writers in Prison Committee” of International PEN, which shows constant concern for and tries to rescue its imprisoned members all over the world, including the Chinese writers, reporters and intellectuals who have been taken into custody.

I come to Bled representing those who have been disgraced, who have stood in the shadow of terror and the peril of political oppression, and who have yet never resigned but have insisted upon their freedom of speech and writing, such as Mr. Liu Xiaobo, whose work has been not allowed to be published and who has not been allowed to go abroad. I also come for myself, who experienced in the sixteen years after Tiananmen a long period during which memories have been erased forcefully and silence has been ordered. This has been a time during which mothers, who lost their sons and daughters at Tiananmen, have not been allowed to weep. We write, not to record the gospel, but to write down the elegy. Yet we do not have enough courage and faith to inspire people. We do not even have enough Zola-like anger to write down accusations against the despotic and those thought to be like Satan.

But we have rejected the Cynic at least. We have rejected nihilism. Why do we write? To buoy our dignity. In the time of globalization, how humble we are. We started from ground zero and try to live as free people. In our country the so-called writer is someone who has the ability, through his or her writing, to live like a man and not like a dog.

A friend of mine undertook a position in 1979 as editor-in-chief of a non-official literary publication, “Wild Grass”, and he worked all the way up to 2004. Then his house was searched and his property was confiscated, just because of one issue of the magazine. When he was interviewed by an overseas literature researcher, he refused to disclose the real name of his colleagues. He talked about “the art of using a pen name”. For dozens of years, he only used a pen name to communicate with friends and in business, and his real name was almost unknown in the outside world. In fact, his original name exists only on the documents which the government issues, it stays in the domain that is controlled by the despotic authorities. In other words, when he appears under his real name, he is not a writer, he is only a hostage. His pen is not a pen, but a shackle.

The self-selected pen name protects the writer from political harassment, helps him to avoid worldly humiliation, allows him to live in a spiritual new land. Living under a system in which free writing is not allowed, the pen name is the only ID which coexists with his soul. He or she lives by another name in the world, meaning that he or she has at least one innocent part of life that does not submit under the political suppression, that has not been controlled and ruled.

To me and my colleagues, writing is a rescue plan for the hostages. Writing means dignity and freedom, it is a kind of belief. But we cannot rescue ourselves, even when we have courage and when justice is on our side in the face of institutional arbitrariness. For the past 16 years, 56 years, 2000 thousand years, we have not been able to rescue ourselves. Our salvation depends upon that higher community, depends upon common universal values that we share as writers, as free people and as intellectuals. It is the source of liberty and imagination. For me, I call it God.

Yet our world has changed. A part of the universal values have been dispelled, the position of states has been highly valued; the institution is prosperous, but the intellectual has started to wither away in the worn-out world. Some free-world writers have returned to the left-wing standpoint, which is in disorder, infantile and coquettish. Writing essentially is degenerating into a kind of expense. These writers in the West also seek the dignity in writing. But this kind of dignity is only a sort of daily necessity for their inner world. They also lift up high their criticism, but their criticism is only a vitamin for their soul.

We are disappointed to see that some European governments are gradually abandoning free values and lessening their criticism of the despotic regime in Beijing. For a common benefit they abandon the writers, reporters, dissidents and orators who are imprisoned. Let me name some of them: the poet and journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison because he disseminated the information that the Chinese authorities wanted to prohibit the commemoration of the 15th anniversary of “June 4th”; the journalist Zhao Yan, who has been in custody since last October; the recently-arrested Lu Jianhua, Zhang Lin, and the cyber-author Huang Jinqiu; the Tibetan writer Jampel Changchup, the Ven. Ngawang Phulchung, the Uighur Tohti Tunyaz, and the Mongolian writer Hada are all in prison. According to the Independent Chinese PEN Center, more than 50 writers and reporters are currently in jail. They all belong to the international writers’ community, and they all deserve your concern. Neither their different language and culture nor the authoritarian regime under which they live and national borders can divide them and their tribulations from you, because we all share the same universal values.

I try to view Western intellectuals, as well as the goal and achievements of the International PEN, through my views as a mainland Chinese writer. I want to mention two points: the first one is the belief that through writing, we can enlighten and preserve basic human values. Second, there is a global realistic linguistic environment. These two points make me think that the persecution of Chinese, Tibetan, Uighur and other minority writers, reaches across borders to become an international issue. The fate of a North Korean or Cuban writer deserves the same concern as that of a Chinese writer. There is no typical Asian, Islamic or African case of persecution. There is only the suppression of the right to freedom of expression and the persecution of human beings, which needs to be rooted out, and the victim needs to be consoled and supported.

One hundred years ago, French writer Emile Zola wrote “I accuse!” in his novel Affair Dreifuss. This text was a landmark in the fight of the intellectual against state power in our modern time. Now Dreifuss is everywhere. In China, in Vietnam, in North Korea, in the Arabic world and on the African and Latin American continents. I want to say that in this sense, our world has not changed so dramatically. In a globalized landscape, the components of barbaric and despotic evil, as well as the expansion of state power, have even surpassed those of Zola’s time. Each Dreifuss case is a shame and failure of civilized society, and shows the malfunctions of international organizations.

The Chinese government’s suppression of writers has accelerated in recent years, since the beginning of the Internet era. The Nazi regime would admit its inferiority in comparison with the technology that Chinese officials have applied in the cyber landscape. Thousands of keywords have been established in the Internet provider system, so that Chinese citizens’ emails are under constant surveillance. Hundreds of thousands of cyber police are working around the clock to filter private e-mails. Viruses have been spread, and websites have been hacked, if they have not been in favor of the regime. China’s news and publication department implements the strictest censorship, with the strictest quota limit. Beginning this year, the so-called “publish with one’s true name” system has been implemented, without precedent, in some publishing houses. Authors are required to provide a copy of their identification card. Pen names and pseudonyms are prohibited. With this act, the last bastion of self-protection is destroyed.

very morning, the Communist Party’s propaganda department issues a list of prohibited news to the media. Whoever dares to break the taboos will get into big trouble. As the government stifles the mouths of the media and betrays the public, it also tampers with the truth in historical textbooks and deceives the children in school. An increasing number of courageous writers, reporters and public figures are daring to challenge the status quo, so more and more of them have been thrown into jail on charges of committing the crime of “instigation and subversion of the state” or “disclosing state secrets” to “hostile forces”.

It is extremely difficult for the Independent Chinese PEN Center to build up its base inside China. However, despite the harsh conditions we face, 50% of our members are living in mainland China. Since last year, our members have been taken into custody almost every month, and our members undergo detention, arrest, subpoena and surveillance. We try our best to give the persecuted some help, no matter how weak this help is. Among the harassed and persecuted are also the president of ICPC and his deputy, Mr. Liu Xiaobo and Mr. Yu Jie. Under such circumstances, you cannot but regard the Chinese writer as a hostage.

China today trumpets its economic boom, yet politically it holds fast to despotism. Not a single day passes without a new Dreifuss calling and longing for a Chinese Zola, Solzhenitsen or Havel to assuage their suffering. They call for help not only to their countrymen, but also to their international colleagues.

I come to Bled hoping to present myself as a writer, but I am indeed only a hostage. But I did arrive at this and not another world. One of the reasons that I definitely wanted to come is that I believe we all belong to the same world. In this world, the state, the glory and the lawful right all belong to that higher spiritual origin that makes us, without regret, proud to be a writer.

Thank you.

Last updated: June 16, 2005