Tiananmen Square

2003-1-25 05:57:00

Yesterday when I mentioned China, it reminded me of an article I had published in the Boise Statesman in 1989. I felt a very deep feeling for the Chinese students who had their quest for freedom trampled upon.

I thought you may enjoy reading it.

THE NEW REBELS by Joseph Dewey

Freedom.

How great is the price a nation must pay to obtain it.

How easy it is for rising generations (who did not participate in that payment) to take it for granted.

We who have this precious gift look on at the struggles of others and wish them well, but that is all we do.

We have empathy, but we do not really feel their pain.

We weep at our own little problems, but we do not share their tears.

We mourn our own dead who have lived out their lives yet we turn and look the other way so we are not reminded of the blood of youths which flowed at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.

For a moment in time it seemed as if history had been reborn. I thought I heard an Alexander Hamilton say "give me liberty or give me death." I swore I dreamed of one like Ben Franklin who comes forth to enlist the help of other nations and writes great words admired by all the world. It seemed that I saw Thomas Jefferson lifting up the Goddess of Liberty to inspire all who gazed their eyes thereon. Then, lo, out of a blaze of light, more real than the Sun I saw General Washington ride forth on a white horse gathering lovers of freedom by his side striking terror in the heart of the modern king George.

I felt I must have seen this vision alone, but no. Someone else saw it. Someone with the power of the apocalyptic beast straight from Revelations. Someone who demands the power to think for others. Someone who wants all power and honor and glory for himself and cannot allow the "little people" the respect they deserve. Someone who is threatened, rather than proud, of the best blood of a thousand generations and will destroy these lights because they eclipse his own.

Those who represent this power of the beast in Beijing saw the vision and believed it. They knew their seat of power was about to be ripped out from under them. They could not endure the cry of a Chinese Alexander Hamilton and they gave him death. They hated the words of Franklin, burned them and cast him into prison. They shook with fear by the inspiration of Jefferson and tore down his ensign for the people and declared him a public enemy.

Most of all they fear General Washington. Was he the one who walked into the path of the crushing iron tanks, made them stop by shear courage alone and held an entire army in abeyance without an ounce of steel upon his person?

Or was he shot as a mere youth of eighteen as he led others in crying for freedom?

Or is he yet alive in a dark prison with the sentence of death pronounced upon his head?

Yes, those with spirits like these valiant rebels were reborn in China to do their daring work even better than in history past, but the beast of authority feared the deliverers, and, like Herod did with Christ, tried to destroy greatness while it was yet a babe.

The Chinese person said it aptly in the Statesman on July 23rd: "Not even a prairie fire can destroy the grass; it grows again when the spring breeze blows."

The spring breeze will blow again. If the heroes are yet alive they will see victory as Lech Walesa in Poland is now savoring. If they have been killed then others will come forth with more power than the first and the lies, and atrocities, and murders which have damned up the truth will burst and be as if they have never been. Only the stream of freedom and truth will remain.

Let us at least contemplate how we can be a part of this great event.