Maryja Martysevich performing spoken word at the Jazz Poetry Concert, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

In her 2006 essay, “The Men We Choose,” Belarusian writer Maryja Martysevich audaciously describes the fate of the men in her country: “A Belarusian is a loser, there is no escape. Loser is the universal karma of every man who bears the tax duty stamp Belarus, it embraces the intellectual sphere as well as everyday life.” To this blunt observation she adds the paradox that Belarusian women seem to be irresistibly attracted to losers. She writes that the reasoning behind Belarusian women’s embrace of their countrymen is, “I pity you, therefore I love you.”

Martysevich is a poet, essayist, translator, and blogger. She is also the author of Dragons Fly for Spawning, a collection of essays. Martysevich is currently a participant of the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.

Recently she read her poetry at the annual City of Asylum Jazz Poetry Concert with the writers Yusef Komunyakaa (USA), Khet Mar (Burma), Horacio Castellanos Moya (El Salvador), and Hinemoana Baker (New Zeland).

In this interview, Martysevich shares her thoughts on cultural, gender, and political issues in her homeland and reflects on what it means to be a Belarusian writer.

Your writing is associated with the concept of feminEast. Can you tell us what this neologism means?

In my essay “The Men We Choose,” I describe Belarusian women as feminEasts. However, the feminEast phenomenon is not unique to Belarus. One can find feminEasts in other countries like Russia or even Egypt, where men are in power and women have to create special conditions for themselves in order to express their independence without open political declarations and demands. Unlike Western feminists, the feminEasts contribute to various cultural, creative, and political aspects of their country anonymously. Belarusian feminEasts, for example, provide sagacious support to the men who rule.

Maryja Martysevich performing spoken word at the Jazz Poetry Concert, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

In your work, the concept of feminEast contains a kind of ironic duality. On the one hand, it conveys a particular romantic “attraction to losers.” On the other, it shows a well-articulated recognition of the patriarchal tradition in Belarus that you seem to criticize. In “The Men We Choose,” you write, “There will never be a revolution in Belarus.” Because of their consenting resignation, are Belarusian women partially to blame for maintaining a tradition which is unfavorable to them?

There are many reasons for why we should not blame Belarusian women for their seemingly “consenting resignation.” As I mentioned earlier, even though women in Belarus don’t rule publicly, they actually rule informally. I describe it as an “underground matriarchy.” Belarusian women are experts in many fields ranging from economics to education and culture. In the post-Soviet society, we call them “small authorities” that have a lot of internal power and resources. They understand the shortcomings of their men, but they also understand where these weak points stem from.

Contemporary Belarusian women are aware of the fact that they are part of the culture that observes conservative customs. As paradoxical as it may sound to Westerners, women in our society still believe that it’s not their place to govern. They know they have a lot of power, but in most cases they don’t try to make it political. Many of them hold an orthodox belief that it would be indecent to do so.

Nevertheless, things have started to change in our country. A new wave of independent female art has recently emerged and is now flourishing. We also have many influential female journalists and social activists working in Belarus today. So I believe that soon we will start witnessing a better gender balance in the political sphere as well.

In 2003, Lyudmila Gryaznova, the Vice-Chairperson of the United Democratic Party of Belarus, was sentenced to 15 days in jail for organizing public protests. She said that the freedom of expression situation in Belarus “is generally very bad.” According to her, President Alexander Lukashenko’s regime suppresses the independent media. What are your thoughts about freedom of creative expression in Belarus?

As a writer, I try to characterize the Belarusian situation in figurative terms by using metaphor instead of engaging in contemporary political polemics. Even though Lukashenko has been in power for more than 15 years and is often informally referred to as bats’ka (“father”), I don’t think we have a complete dictatorship in our country: we can do what we want; we can travel wherever we want, and we can even write whatever we want, unless we openly oppose our leaders.

Politicians in our country are not that interested in micro-controlling the creative forces of their nation; they are too busy promoting their own political programs and securing their policies. As a consequence, they endorse the kinds of writing that are supportive of their own ideology. As for the rest of us, we either have to self-publish through the independent publishing houses or find alternative ways to promulgate our literary creations.

The image of the border often appears in your writing. Does this image refer to a specifically Belarusian experience or does it pertain to a more universal human condition?

In my writing I use two kindred ideas: border and birth. They both express the excitement of novelty, but also the anxiety associated with it. I could say that the experience of crossing the border, of leaving the country, and the unfamiliarity associated with it is a universal kind of adventure. Belarus is a very rich case in that it is surrounded by several fascinating countries, including Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Russia, and Ukraine. Thus, in my writing I focus mostly on what it means for a Belarusian citizen to arrive at the geographical boundary of her country.

The border can also be equated with “being in between,” a common metaphor in Belarusian pop culture and literature. The theme that I like to explore is the indigenous Belarusian feelings of ambiguity, adaptation, and nostalgia associated with the three moments of travelling: leaving, transition, and return.

You are also a translator. Since translation familiarizes you with the literary cultures of various countries, do you see it as related to the idea of crossing borders?

First of all, I think that translation is a distinctive art form. Translation is not a matter of technicality. It is a situation of deep analysis and understanding.

In some ways, translation is a kind of “border” experience; it is as if you stand in front of a new personality and try to feel what it is like to write like that person. It is an intimate encounter with the unknown that you finally start to grasp.

As for Belarus, in the 20th century our culture experienced many curtailments as Modernism was extirpated during the ’30s in Belarus. I believe that translation from other languages is a kind of borrowing which helps us compensate for the lack of something in our current literary world. It also enriches and “completes” our culture as well as inspires us to become less prejudiced and more global.

Maryja Martysevich performing spoken word at the Jazz Poetry Concert, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

The Jazz Poetry Concert seems to offer opportunities for many kinds of border crossings with writers and musicians from all over the world coming together and sharing their work. What are your thoughts on the work of City of Asylum and how does Jazz poetry help you pass your personal creative message to the world?

Every writer knows her own culture and its traditions best. Therefore, she not only echoes the mood of her environment, but also anticipates authentic reception of her work from that environment. Unfortunately, some writers are forced by the local politics to write abroad because they speak against the criminal activities of the extreme regimes in their homelands.

I am lucky in that respect. I don’t need a refuge in order to speak my mind freely. Nevertheless, it is my great privilege to perform my poetry in front of the multicultural audience during this Jazz Poetry concert in Pittsburgh. It allows me to disseminate the peculiar characteristics of Belarusian culture outside its own region.

Read Rita’s bio.

Oliver Lake’s Big Band, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

“Ok fellas, listen up. My name is Heather Pinson. I have a Ph.D., and I teach at Robert Morris University; but tonight I’ll be taking out the trash and looking after you fine gentlemen. I’ll let you know when you go on stage, when your cues are, and the like, but I don’t respond to egos. Check those at the door. You’ve got fifteen minutes before places, so time to lock and load.”

These were the first words I spoke to a room full of the most talented musicians I have ever met. The seventeen jazz musicians comprised Oliver Lake’s Big Band and were scheduled to perform that night for City of Asylum’s annual Jazz Poetry concert. I had asked to work backstage, as I had the previous year, in order to rub shoulders with some of the most famous jazz musicians of our time. Besides, I had just recently published The Jazz Image (University Press of Mississippi), a book on jazz photography, and perhaps I had earned the right to hang with such esteemed performers. By dropping names of their predecessors and current critics, I might be able to pick their collective brain on the state of jazz today–a plaguing question for those in the modern jazz world. After all, these are musicians who are living models of success, capable of sustaining a career on their musicality alone.

My confidence was wiped clean, however, upon my arrival at Pittsburgh’s New Hazlett Theater where I read a brief bio on each musician found in the concert program. Many of the performers are full time music professors who teach at well-known universities such as Columbia, the New School, and CUNY in New York. In addition, they win awards, obtain endorsements from major music labels, tour regularly–nationally and internationally–and have performed with such pop stars as Aretha Franklin, Lionel Hampton, Lenny Kravitz, Rufus Wainwright, and Queen Latifah, not to mention jazz greats like Sun Ra, Dizzy Gillespie, Mary Lou Williams, McCoy Tyner, Billy Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Clark Terry, the Count Basie Orchestra, the Mingus Big Band, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and the Duke Ellington Orchestra.

Oliver Lake’s Big Band, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

I felt a lump rise in my throat as I entered into the green room where the musicians dawdled around, blowing through spit valves and rustling sheet music. Some were wolfing down dinner when my abrupt speech caught them in mid-bite. Some froze open-mouthed while I barked out orders in an attempt to shroud my intimidation through attitude and sass.

After my brazen announcements, the musicians perked up and began to sass back with endearing names as the “trash lady” or the “Heather Report.” Once on stage, the light and charismatic mood of the instrumentalists yielded to the serious nature of this evening’s program.

The mixture of five spoken languages intermingling with musical improvisation sparked a moment of the sublime in everyone in attendance. Words filled with imagery inspired the mind while sound filled with purpose inspired the soul. “What a night,” I thought. “What a gathering of talent.”

At 2am that same evening, I found myself promising to visit in New York and hugged my new friends as they headed back to their hotel. We exchanged books for CDs, words for jazz licks, and laughs for deep appreciation. I am not sure when I will be able to hear the majestic grooves of Oliver Lake’s Big Band again, but I know I will remember this night for a long time.

Heather Pinson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Arts at Robert Morris University
And author of The Jazz Image: Seeing Music Through Herman Leonard’s Photography.

Hinemoana Baker on the 2010 Jazz Poetry concert

Hinemoana Baker singing at the Jazz Poetry Concert, Photo © Renee Rosensteel

Ngā mihi tuatahi ki ngā iwi kāinga, ki ngā kaitiaki o ēnei whenua: tū tonu mai, tū tonu mai. In the first instance, I greet and honor the traditional owners of these lands: may you and yours flourish and thrive.

My trip to Pittsburgh, and the Jazz Poetry concert in particular, was something I’ll carry with me for a long time. Not the least of this was sharing the stage and the creative improvised moment, with Oliver Lake and his Big Band, some of America’s top jazz musicians. I had been anxious before I arrived that I didn’t have chord charts or a score for the song poem I wanted to perform (I can’t read or write music). When the rehearsal started, I spoke just a few words to Oliver about the grief in the song, and how I’d love the musicians to try some multi-phonic, extended playing, especially in the first part of my piece. Such brilliant listeners as they are, that’s all Oliver and the band needed.

They brought mood, momentum, adventure, peaks and lulls, and a deliciously unresolved feel to both the spoken and sung texts. Performing with these highly skilled practitioners, who also know how to have huge amounts of fun on stage, was an honor. It was also humbling to meet the writers and learn some of their stories: of imprisonment and torture, of facing extraordinary difficulties and cruelties with courage, and the determination to continue creating work. This is not to say that there aren’t people in my own country of Aotearoa/New Zealand, including writers and artists, who have experienced brutality and oppression, both historically and today. One shocking incident in 2007 saw the remote indigenous community of Ruātoki locked down while the police Armed Offenders Squad in black riot gear raided houses in the middle of the night, holding machine guns to people’s heads. Though it is a place of enormous personal freedom for most of her citizens, in some ways my country still has a long way to go. But hearing the stories of the persecuted writers certainly gave me a new perspective on my own daily, writerly worries at home, which simply revolve around how to get time to write, how to get cash to write, and how not to let my neuroses get in the way of either. A privileged set of problems to have…

Having met Khet Mar from Burma and talked with her about her sometimes horrific journey, I still find it difficult to really imagine how her life has been, as a human being, let alone as a writer. However, I am immensely grateful for the opportunity to meet her and have that conversation, and to widen my world, and my world view, through an all-­‐too-­‐brief time spent in Pittsburgh, City of Asylum.

Read Baker’s bio.

Read Baker’s poems.

When Meena Kandasamy speaks about the contemporary issues of her native India, she incisively reveals the societal assumptions that assign specific roles to people based on caste or gender. When she turns her attention to the past, she deconstructs the heroes. She uses her poetry like a scalpel to dismantle stereotypes.

In 2009, Kandasamy came to Pittsburgh to read at City of Asylum/Pittsburgh’s Jazz Poetry Concert. Since then, Sampsonia Way has followed the career of this 26-year-old poet, translator, and creative writer.

Kandasamy’s work articulates the voice of the Dalits, the people at the lowest rung of India’s ancient caste system. Despite the fact that the Indian constitution abolished this system, the Dalits still face widespread discrimination.

Kandasamy recently finished her second book of poetry, Ms. Militancy to be published by Navayana Press in November. In this collection, she retells Hindu and Tamil myths from a feminist and anti-caste perspective.

In this interview she calls herself “an angry young woman,” attacks academic language, and relates how she has faced harassment from people who feel assailed by her writing.

In a recent interview with Sampsonia Way writer Horacio Castellanos Moya said, “if you have some kind of sensibility towards injustice, you know what rage is.” Your poems have huge doses of rage. How do you deal with anger when you are writing?

I am an angry young woman. The world has not seen enough of our kind, while we have had plenty of angry young men. Angry young men working among the people are killed early; angry young men becoming artists spend a lifetime in anonymity; and savvy angry young men turn into politicians and all the revolution inside them simply fizzles out.

However, society will not let angry young women exist, we will be labelled hysterics. As women, we are indoctrinated merely to accept our situation and be grateful for all the things we have. As women, we are told that it is bad behavior to be angry, we are told that we have to change ourselves because we cannot change the system. Those of us who refuse to comply are the shrews whom everyone loves to hate.

In all this social conditioning, we tend to forget that anger is only a reaction to something outside of oneself, a reaction to an oppressive system. I write as an angry young woman, even as it requires all my artistic skill to maintain that rage and to let it reflect in my writings.

Why did you choose poetry as your sword against discrimination?

Poetry is not caught up within larger structures that pressure you to adopt a certain set of practices while you present your ideas in the way that academic language is. Despite being an academic myself, I dread academia’s ultra-intellectualizing. Perhaps academic jargon does contribute a lot to philosophy—to late-night conversations in air-conditioned rooms with plenty of red wine and Swiss cheese. I can fake that routine, trust me, I pull it of like a real pro. Sometimes, I even subject myself to that horror for pure, wicked pleasure. But is it the language to speak of the oppressed? Is it the language in which any victim would speak?

However, you are a Ph.D. candidate in linguistics and English literature and recently completed your dissertation. How do you deal with academic language?

I often die a death within myself when I am asked to theorize my struggle and present it to scholars. In my mind, this image plays: I am an abused naked woman, I am through trauma, and I go around with a begging bowl. I am not pleading. I am not even fighting at this stage. I am out there collecting words, fancy words in a foreign tongue that I must reproduce in order to be heard, in order for my circumstance to be understood. The same thing happens when you are working with human rights organizations, with NGOs, and with lobby groups.

What kind of language should be used?

Whether it is the Dalits in India or the Tamils in Sri Lanka, there is immense discrimination, there is daily violence, there are unbearable tragedies. But to get people to hear, to get the international community to even blink in our direction, we have to learn a jargon-laden language that they will understand. We have to use a pacifist language that does not point and blame, a passive language that forces your eyes to become mere video-capture devices, a pointless language of emotionicide, a carefully-constructed language that pushes you into a paralysis. Consequently, we languish as a society.

So, do you see your poetry as the antithesis of this paralysis?

Yes. Poetry, it is raw. It is real. It is full of jagged edges. My poetry is naked, my poetry is in tears, my poetry screams in anger, my poetry writhes in pain. My poetry smells of blood, my poetry salutes sacrifice. My poetry speaks like my people, my poetry speaks for my people.

In the poem “Nailed” you write, “Men are afraid of any woman who makes poetry and dangerous portents.” How have men and members of the other groups you criticize responded to your work?

There are men who take great interest in writing obscene emails to me, but their lack of imagination makes for rather depressing reading. Others say that I am “terrorizing” the caste-Hindus with my writing. Very often I know that this anger is because of the political, anti-caste stand I adopt.

When I wrote an article attacking the anti-Muslim hatred in the novelist V. S. Naipaul’s writings, someone wrote, “Is Meena Kandasamy your pedophile prophet’s preteen wife?” on an internet forum. I bring on extreme emotions in people. I have been called all kinds of names. There are hate-mongers who write to me saying that they will come to my city and finish off my career.

It sounds like criticism has turned into threats.

Increasingly, the criticism has also become personal and malicious as well. There is a new breed of moral police who attack me for my writings. There was a woman who said that I write about my body as a way to garner male-attention and she blamed men who posted comments on my Facebook status updates. Sometimes, hatred can provide a lot of amusement!

Being a writer has made me blind and totally brazen. My family and friends are afraid for me. I have been stalked to my hotel and received anonymous threats. At times like that, I am a little scared. I later console myself and gain confidence with the fact that any physical attack on me will only draw more attention and garner a larger audience for my protest against caste discrimination and other issues.

In your poem “Mohandas Karamchand” you wrote to Gandhi: “Don’t ever act like a holy saint. / we can see through you, impure you. / Remember, how you dealt with your poor wife. / But, they wrote your books, they made your life.” What happened when you published this poem?

I was both cheered and reprimanded. To talk solely about the harassment I faced is to portray only one side of the story. Dalits welcomed the poem, Communists welcomed the poem, Muslims welcomed the poem and, above all, most women appreciated the poem. They could never come to term with Ghandi’s sexual experiments (which included sleeping next to naked young women to ‘test’ his vows of celibacy), or how hard he was on his wife, Kasturba. Gandhi supported the revival of the varnashrama dharma (the caste system’s insistence of people only working in their traditional occupations), and he used techniques of blackmail to prevent Dalits from attaining political autonomy and the right to govern themselves.

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” influenced me a great deal. When I saw what she had done, I thought, “Well, there’s a figure I would like to take on too.” Even today, it is my most popular (although no longer the most controversial) poem. The best thing about poetry is that it opens up space for discussion, a space for a critical revaluation.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, “Freedom of speech and expression in India is balanced precariously between the ever-present threat of direct, physical attacks from both security forces and social vigilante groups on the one hand, and the reassurance of protection from higher judicial authorities on the other. But the scales seem tipped in favor of the former.” How would you describe freedom of expression in India?

I am proud of quite a few things about my country. One is its constitution, which enshrines the right to freedom of expression for instance. But, is there a thriving freedom of expression? Of course not.

Films are regularly and brutally censored for their politics. Women poets are attacked when they write about sexuality by the so-called moral police. Tamil leaders are jailed when they speak of the right to self-determination and human rights for their people. The state labels them as “secessionists” and says they are a threat to national integrity. The state routinely criminalizes Muslim, Dalit, and Adivasi [indigenous people of India] leaders because they challenge the oppressive system. Journalists have been taken in for questioning and some end up being killed in ‘fake encounters’ by the state. As Indians, we are not totally shocked because our neighboring countries do much worse.

Look at Sri Lanka for example, it has one of the worst records of assassinating, abducting, incarcerating members of the media or anyone who decides to expose human rights abuses or the genocide of the Tamils. So, as Indians, we perhaps draw comfort from the fact that things are much worse elsewhere even as we fight hard to not to lose freedom of expression.

Read poetry from Meena’s Ms. Militancy.

Read Silvia’s bio.

Meena Kandasamy just finished the final manuscripts of her second poetry collection, Ms. Militancy.

Kandasamy poems retell Hindu/Tamil myths, in a feminist, anti-hierarchy, and anti-caste perspective. Some of the poems make the myths contemporary by locating it in today’s world.

Sampsonia Way presents this selection of poetry to be published by Navayana, New Delhi, November 2010.

Once my silence held you spellbound

(on reading bell hooks)

…..denial of democracy follows the assertion of authority
…..manipulating machinery of the state metes out violent punishment
…..or at patriarchy’s refined best doles out verbal harassment
…..likewise exploitation and entanglement and estrangement share
…..a common platform that is threatened by the fear of exposure
…..and the terror of betrayal and everything leads to devaluation
…..of the militating marginalized who seek to disrupt dismantle
…..and destroy the status-quo even as they struggle against
…..the erasure of identity that robs them of expression and
…..makes them exiles condemned to remain voiceless
…..speechless tongueless incapable of any transgress

You wouldn’t discuss me because my suffering
was not theoretical enough. Enough. Enough.
Enough. Now I am theoretical enough.
I am theatrical enough.

I have learnt all these big big words.
I can use them with abandon.
I can misuse them. I can refuse them.
I can throw them about and one day,
I can throw them out.
I am the renegade who can drop
these multi-syllable monsters
for stylistic, studied effect.
I am the rebel who can drop them altogether.
I invent new ones every passing day.
FYI, OED consults me. Roget’s Thesaurus
finds it tough to stay updated.

But because I use these bedeviled words
the way you use me never means
that I have stopped seething in anger
that I have stopped swearing.

Prayers to the red slayer

hey, villain who willed our deaths
son-of-a-guest who scribbled it on our foreheads
maniac who birthed this chaotic universe and the castes
(and who, according to reliable sources
raped your own daughter)
four-faced dour-faced father figure
who fucked up our lives . . .

the world will know your story
after you’ve been made landless
and locked out of every place of worship,
every place worth entering.

then, try becoming a civil-rights activist,
try fighting to gain attention, grow old and weary
shouting slogans and if you are ever called
to pose for the camera, or give those interviews,
drop that pen and stop writing our story
as if it were your own.

Most of the poems were written when Kandasamy was a writer-in-residence at the International Writing Program University of Iowa.

Read our exclusive interview with Meena.

In mid-April 1989, thousands of Chinese citizens poured into Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, mourning the death of prodemocracy leader Hu Yaobang. Over the next seven weeks, the peaceful, student-led demonstration swelled to more than 100,000 people—one of the biggest confrontations to the Chinese Communist regime since 1949.

Late on June 4, the army entered the capital fortified with tanks and fired upon the unarmed protestors. No one knows how many unarmed protestors were killed and wounded.

For many Westerners, the sight of a single man facing a row of army tanks is a lasting memory of the massacre at Tiananmen Square. But how do those Chinese who supported the pro-democracy movement twenty years ago feel about the legacy of Tiananmen Square?

In the United States, there are three programs that provide refuge for persecuted writers abroad: City of Asylum Las Vegas, Ithaca City of Asylum and City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. All three have given sanctuary to writers from China who were in the country during the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Sampsonia Way invited the writers to reflect upon China then and now.

Translated by Michelle Yeh

1.
So far away
only broken pieces of paper flying
So close by
right underneath the feet
It’s always the same moment
Ever since that night
all has lost its meaning
the giant city drifts away like smoke
Ever since that moment
all have gathered around at a certain place
to gaze up at the deceased
waiting for them to speak

2.
Silence, more silence
All words
have turned to nil
The blood after death
has become harder with time
The living with their guilt
have grown old and feeble
no longer can they hope for that day
The continuous tracks of power
still occupy the wounds
They leave the hurt to the mothers
letting them
cry as they please in the putrid ruins

READ AN EXCERPT FROM YI PING’S BOOK,
The Speech of Pebbles published by Vista Periodista

READ THE 2003 ITHACA COLLEGE QUARTERLY ARTICLE.

Yi Ping was born in Beijing in 1952, he came of age during the Cultural Revolution. He was part of the demonstrations at Tiananmen Square and witnessed the government murder of protestors there. Soon after the 1989 demonstrations, he was relieved of his job at a Beijing university and forbidden to teach or publish. Even his previously published works were banned.

About his experience in Tiananmen Square, Yi Ping once wrote in the November 2001 issue of The Bookpress: I came, at that moment, to understand Tiananmen Square as an altar for the Chinese nation, its towering stone monument
a link between heaven and earth, between fresh blood and starlight. The murdered are our sacrifice for the future of China.

In 1991, Yi Ping and his wife, translator Lin Zhou, escaped to Poland before obtaining asylum from the United States government. A playwright, essayist, novelist and poet, Yi Ping edits the web magazine, Human Rights in China.
In 2001, he became the first persecuted writer to be sheltered at the Ithaca City of Asylum.

When asked to reflect twenty years after the bloody protests at Tiananmen Square, Yi Ping was moved to poetry:

LISTEN TO YI PING READ “IN MEMORIAM—ON THE TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE TIANANMEN MASSACRE” (IN CHINESE)

Read Yi Ping’s bio.

Translated by Michelle Yeh

On April 25, 2009, I received a phone call from Sampsonia Way asking me to comment on the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre (or “June Fourth” to the Chinese).

First of all, let me say that massacres are not rare in China. The 1989 incident shocked the world because it unfolded center-stage in the spotlight of international media. In the dark corners far from the stage, massacres had never stopped, unknown to the outside world.

For instance, even after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the crackdown in 1983 killed more than 300,000, most of whom were young. My estimate is that over the course of four decades (1949-1989), the number of “unnatural” deaths approximates 80 million. When we contextualize the 1989 Tiananmen massacre this way, it doesn’t appear as unique.

Democracy movements in China are not unique, either. The democracy movement that ended with the massacre on June 4, 1989, is part of a century-long grass-roots movement in China. This year marks not only the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre but also the ninetieth anniversary of the May Fourth Movement. The May Fourth Movement was characterized by the 1919 student demonstrations supporting the ideals of democracy, science and cultural enlightenment. The official government version of the May Fourth Movement is a narrowly defined “patriotism,” which serves the government’s need to cover up the deepening conflict between those in power and the people, between the ruler and the ruled.

The fact is that there is continuity between the 1919 student calls for cultural reform and the 1989 student calls for thought liberation. Whether it is the “Gongche Petition to the Emperor” in the late Qing Dynasty or the so-called “Little Hungary” incidents of 1957, the April Fifth protest of 1976 or the Democracy Wall and underground journals of 1978, they all belong to the same historical trend.

Therefore, on this sad day, what I think about is not only 1989 but the tragic heroism of all democracy movements in modern Chinese history: from Qiu Jin, Tan Sitong, and Li Dazhao, to Lin Zhao, Zhang Zhixin, Yu Luoke, and numerous nameless martyrs of thwarted aspirations; from such pioneers as Liang Qichao, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, Lu Xun, and Hu Shi, to the clarion—soon silenced—of the Democracy Wall and underground journals of 1978. Let’s not get hung up on the philosophical differences among the pioneers, the flaws of individual thinkers, or the wrong turns that Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu took in their groundbreaking careers. As vanguards in search of light in the dark, their independent thinking and fearless resistance have planted enduring seeds of fire. As we memorialize the Tiananmen Massacre we must never forget them.

Next, I must say that slogans like “reverse the verdict,” “apologize,” “let the truth be known,” “make amends” are moderate and reasonable, but in essence they legitimize the totalitarian regime. As a strategy, these requests might be acceptable if they would lead to gradual democratization. But, the information that we are receiving on this is that the government has increased its military police patrols and enhanced the use of the “messenger system.” (Consider this analogue: the Dalai Lama has given up the demand of Tibetan independence, but he continues to be labeled by the Chinese government as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”)

There is nothing wrong in being moderate and reasonable, but it is a mistake to ignore the nature of this regime. Since 1949, victims of persecution number tens of millions. Who has ever received recompense from the government? In the past, we heard the excuse from the government that it had no money. Now, China is rolling in dough. The Olympics in 2008 and the space launches have impressed the entire world. But recompense is denied not just to the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre.

In the past two decades, China, like the rest of the world, has experienced massive changes in lifestyle, the environment, earth, and outer space. But some things never change. Fundamentalism is a living dinosaur equipped with modern technology. Chinese totalitarianism today is no different from the time of Chairman Mao.

Why is it that after WWII Germany could repent, apologize, and recompense its victims but Japan could not? The reason is simple: Hitler was dead, but the Japanese emperor system was left intact. The transformations of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe also began with regime change. Gradual reform should not be a one-sided wish. If we cannot practice multi-party democracy and adopt a system of checks and balances, “moderate and reasonable” will only fail repeatedly and even hamper the original intent.

Finally, I don’t believe that the hard power of the military and economy can necessarily overcome the soft power of morality. Compared with the past, the Chinese people are much more enlightened. Once they recognize the nature of the regime, they will be open to choices. Instead of fruitless communicating with the govern-ment, people should have dialogues among themselves, advance their rights as citi-zens, promote the “Charter of 2008” (issued by 303 signatories on the sixtieth anniversary of the World Human Rights Day on December 10, 2008), and investigate the number and identities of the victims of the Tiananmen Massacre. These efforts are difficult to begin, but they bear great responsibilities, have profound significance and an equally profound historical impact. The influences of many progressive media and outstanding thinkers and groups in the private sector cannot be underestimated. For example, the website New Century News and the Hong Kong-based Open Magazine (Kaifang) have an impact no less than that of any private organization. I am also deeply moved by the unity and persistence of members of Falungong in defending their freedom of religion.

I believe all of the above are the best way to memorialize the Tiananmen Massacre.

Living alone in a foreign land, I pay the highest respect to the signatories of the “Charter of 2008,” the “Tiananmen Mothers,” the civil rights lawyers, as well as the progressive media, civilian leaders, courageous writers, and members of Falungong.

LISTEN TO AN INTERVIEW WITH ER TAI GAO.
on “One on One,” KNPR, Nevada Public Radio

READ AN EXCERPT FROM ER TAI GAO’S FORTHCOMING MEMOIR,
In Search of My Homeland

LISTEN TO ER TAI GAO READ “THREE THOUGHTS ON THE TIANANMEN MASSACRE” (IN CHINESE)

When Er Tai Gao published his 1957 article, “On Beauty,” he found himself railing against the Communist position on aesthetics and objectivity. The article landed the 32-year-old in a camp in the Gobi desert, where he served hard labor for three years.

Even during the rise of the Cultural Revolution, he remained committed to his humanist views. He was fired from
his position at Lanzhou University and forbidden to write or publish. The Communist regime imprisoned him twice more between 1966 and 1989. Prison, however, did not quench the creative spirit of the painter, art critic and writer.

Following the Tiananmen Square protests, Er Tai Gao was again imprisoned for almost a year. In 1992, he and his wife, painter Maya Gao, escaped to Hong Kong. In 2003, he became the first writer in exile at the first United States City of Refuge at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He is currently a fellow at the International Institute of Modern Letters at the University of Nevada. His memoir, In Search of My Homeland, is forthcoming from HarperCollins.

When asked to provide Sampsonia Way with a reflection about China twenty years after Tiananmen Square, he offered the following reflection.

Read Er Tai Gao’s bio.

In November 2004, a friend asked Pittsburgh dentist Owen Cantor, “Do you want to see a poet read a house?” He had no idea it would change his life.

“There on the north side, a Chinese poet had painted his poetry on the outside of a house,” said Cantor. “He was reading it so dramatically, it was operatic. I don’t understand Chinese, but I comprehended every word.”

The event was sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh (COA/P), a non-profit organization that provides refuge for writers who are being persecuted abroad. The poet was Huang Xiang, then 62, who had spent more than a decade in prison for painting his political poetry on a wall in Beijing. Often compared to Walt Whitman, Huang became a resident of COA/P in 2004, where he received free housing, a two-year stipend and plenty of freedom to be himself.

At the performance, Huang’s wife, writer Zhang Ling, helped interpret as Huang read the white calligraphy he’d painted against the dark clapboards of the urban row house. Huang often shouted and gesticulated grandly, his long hair flying, as onlookers huddled in the chilly alley of Sampsonia Way.

VIEW VIDEO OF HUANG XIANG’S HOUSE PERFORMANCE.

Afterwards, COA/P director Henry Reese asked for volunteers who could provide free health care for the Huang and his wife. Cantor immediately stepped forward.

“There wasn’t any question,” said Cantor, who had been a Pittsburgh dentist for more than 30 years. “I wanted to be a part it. I want City of Asylum to thrive.”

VIEW OWEN CANTOR ON WHY HE VOLUNTEERED.

The writing on the wall

Soon after the reading, Reese asked if Cantor would treat Huang for his severe dental problems.

“In fact, as soon as he got off the plane in the United States, Huang had said, ‘I need a dentist,’” said Reese.

At first, Cantor assumed that he would be doing routine check-ups and cleaning. But one appointment with Huang and he knew that he was being asked for much more. During his years of imprisonment, Huang’s torturers had knocked out his teeth with a rifle butt.

“He later told me that his interrogators were very crafty,” said Cantor. “By knocking his teeth out, he would be reminded of what they did to him every time he looked in the mirror.”

VIEW HUANG XIANG TALK ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCE.

The dentist threw himself into the difficult treatment, consulting with his staff and other area dentists, including Rebecca Pounds and Peter Masterson. It would eventually cost him tens of thousands of dollars.

“The only thing that made me think twice about doing the work was the technical difficulty of the job,” said Cantor. “It wasn’t a natural mutilation that comes from drinking too much Mountain Dew or not flossing. It was like building the
Golden Gate Bridge in someone’s jaw. I had to invent a new template.” More than that, he wanted the poet to be able to effectively perform his work. “He’s an oral poet,” said Cantor, thinking of the moment he first saw Huang perform the reading of his house. “I wanted him to be able to speak clearly again.”

VIEW OWEN CANTOR TALK ABOUT FIGHTING OPRESSION WITH DENTISTRY.

Cantor appreciates the power of art. A classical musician, Cantor played the French horn through dental school and still teaches adult education music classes at Carnegie Mellon. In 1981, he founded a classical music Summerfest that he produced and presented for 14 years. He continues to be a generous supporter of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

It’s an artist’s sensibility that Cantor brings to dentistry, taking pride in seeing his dental work in the smiles of his clients. It was all the more special as he realized how much trust that Huang had put into a complete stranger.

“I had to remember that Huang was not used to the most routine dental care,” said Cantor. “Even the most minor, non-threatening pieces of equipment seemed like instruments of torture to him. He was still in post-traumatic shock.”

The language of peace

Unable to communicate with his patient, Cantor relied on the very thing that had brought them together in the first place—their common humanity.

“He had touched me deeply when I heard him perform, despite the fact that I didn’t know what he was saying,” said Cantor. “I decided that he would do the same with me. He’d understand my good intentions from the way I used my body language and emotions.”

As Cantor began treating his patient, Huang was recording his experience in his diary. He wrote on December 8, 2004, as first published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

To see a dentist is far from easy. After checking my mouth, Dr. Owen asked his assistant to take pictures. I couldn’t recognize the tools he was using, but I was told to stick my head in a piece of special equipment, with something moving around my mouth taking photographs.

For me, it was like acting, as if my head were part of the metal instrument. The round thing moved through an entire circle in my mouth, making me worry that it might take off my head!

Fortunately, it stopped when it reached almost to my ears. Without clicking a button or making a flash, a picture was taken of half of my head. I was astonished when Dr. Owen showed me the negative. A skeleton! The human head is as ugly as that? Disgusting!

Until Huang’s journal entries were published, Cantor had no idea how difficult it had been for the Chinese dissident to trust his American benefactor.

Huang wrote:

I was thinking, what is the relationship between Dr. Owen and me? Why did he do so much for me? I benefited from the check-up; he did not. He had to spend time and energy and even lost money to do it. It is hard for a Chinese to understand this, let alone do it. We often want everybody to know that we did something for others…it is anything but pure kindness that drives us to do something for others.

One dentist takes on a repressive regime

Why did Cantor devote himself to the reconstruction of Huang’s jaw and mouth?

“On a soul level, we are brothers,” said Cantor, who still stays in touch with Huang even after the poet moved to New York City.
But the explanation runs deeper.

“With Huang, I saw the sense of cynical impunity that torturers have,” said Cantor, who also has been treating subsequent City of Asylum writers from El Salvador and Burma. “Torturers may not kill the person, but they kill parts of the person forever. I was able to reverse the effects of torture,” said Cantor, who smiles when he remembers how Huang jumped with joy as he beheld his restored smile in the mirror. “I’m some guy in Pittsburgh who was able to chip away at the Communist regime.”

VIEW OWEN CANTOR TALK ABOUT HUANG XIANG’S REACTION.

Not only did Cantor feel that he had done his part to fight oppression, he had also helped liberate an important, global, literary voice.

“I respect Huang as a writer,” Cantor said. “I would have paid them for the chance to do this work. It’s an honor to get a human being like that up and running again.”

Read Desiree’s bio.

Translated by Michelle Yeh

Before the Tiananmen Massacre took place on June 4, 1989, I had been engaged in literary activities at five universities in Beijing. In 1987, I was charged with “disturbing peace of society” and incarcerated in Wang Wu Labor Camp in Guiyang, Guizhou Province. After the Tiananmen incident, I was placed in solitary confinement and not allowed to receive any visitors. I only learned about the incident when I heard demonstrators shouting outside the barbed-wire prison walls.

As a poet and independent thinker, I have insisted on “singing solo” since the 1950s. I have maintained this attitude throughout my life and have never wavered from it. Ever since my youth, I have had nothing but disdain for the “great chorus”—the entire people singing praises of political leaders—nor have I taken part in the “little chorus” of cliques motivated by utilitarianism and self-interest. However, I have never abandoned social conscience or shunned moral responsibilities, whether directly through my action or indirectly through my writing. My spiritual life can be defined as standing alone between Heaven and Earth, in pursuit of a poetic life of authenticity. I have no desire for power; I seek only freedom, and I defend every citizen’s legal rights—including the freedom of expression, in speech and writing, and the freedom to publish.

I embrace society and the boundless life of the universe, not to be restricted to any party, organization, or group. I pursue the meaning and value of every individual existence, the true premise of any collective entity.

China’s progress and interaction with the world should not depend on political movements that have been repeated in a vicious cycle throughout history. Instead, it should be based on the humanist spirit to increase communications between the East and the West, transform the national soul, and elevate the national spirit. China needs to complete the social and cultural reform that was spearheaded by the May Fourth Movement in 1919.

In 1978-1979, the Democracy Wall nurtured a Democracy Wall culture: re-assessing the leadership of Mao Zedong, rejecting the Cultural Revolution, raising the issue of human rights in a global context, openly founding civilian organizations and journals for the first time in the totalitarian system. All of this had universal relevance and social-cultural significance. Ten years later, socially concerned college students protested against corruption, but the government suppressed them in a bloody crackdown. On the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, society and history are still owed justice. As late as it is, people today are still owed clarity of historical responsibility.

We don’t want to be clay oxen mired in the mud of history, but neither can we forget the bloodshed. We must remind ourselves of the lessons of history. What we leave to posterity should be neither fiction passed off as history, nor murkiness of right and wrong, but truth that no history should turn its back on.

Compared with the Cultural Revolution period, the Chinese people now enjoy a lot more freedom to express themselves verbally. But there is still control of the freedoms of thought, speech, and publication. Dissent is still not tolerated. This is the general situation. In my personal case, all my writings and art are still banned. For half a century now, none of my works can be published in mainland China. As a Chinese citizen, my work of a lifetime has been rendered invisible. This situation is hardly changing in a society that emphasizes “harmony.”

Recently, I was interviewed by a Japanese TV station. One question posed by the journalist was sharp, realistic, and truthful. He said, “In 2008, before the Olympics in Beijing, China opened its doors to you. Your physical body was allowed in, but what about your ‘cultural body’? Please give me an honest answer.”

I answered flatly: “No.”

As a young man, my rage led me to express resistance in both spirit and action. To this day I have not given up the fight for individual freedom and the freedom to write, but my heart is at peace. What I feel is an unbearable sense of shame for a nation and an era.

Recently, China launched the “National Plan of Action for Human Rights.” It deserves positive recognition. I hope this is not another case of “talking the talk” without walking the walk” that we have seen in the past. I hope this time unity of words and actions will win the people’s trust and let these universal values become a reality in China.

As a poet, my highest ideal is global harmony. So long as the world is filled with bloody struggles motivated by ambitions and desires, it is the poet’s right to face such evils by taking on the moral responsibility of challenging them. Anyone who compromises on principles is a hypocrite.

READ HUANG XIANG’S POETRY AT Well Founded Fear,
POV on PBS

LEARN ABOUT HUANG XIANG’S EXPERIENCE AT CITY OF ASYLUM/PITTSBURGH.

READ ABOUT OF HUAN XIANG’S NEW BOOK,
A Lifetime is a Promise to Keep

THE WISP OF LIGHT

A new poem in sixteen lines

There is a kind of space
that’s a different vastness

There is a heavenly body
that’s a different great arch

Each cell in my body
is an unattainable distance

The unreachable constellations
find shelter in my flesh in my blood

Death, not to be denied
rises as it slowly falls

Life, not to be denied
advances as it rushes away from us

Under the luminous sky over this
world of dust
I grow old day after day

In the space beyond space
alone, I blossom like a child

Huang Xiang has been called the Walt Whitman of China. Born in China’s Hunan Province in 1941, he has been writing poems since 1950 and has suffered several imprisonments and torture because of his work. In 1978, Huang Xiang founded an underground writers’ society and a literary magazine both named Enlightenment. He posted the magazine articles calling for human rights and demanding a reevaluation of the Cultural Revolution in Tiananmen Square, an action that would lead to his arrest and sentencing to three years of labor nearly a decade later. Due to near-constant police harassment, Huang Xiang and his wife have lived in exile in the United States since 1997. He was a resident at the City of Asylum/Pittsburgh from 2004–2007, and he and his family now live in New York. Here are his reflections upon the massacre at Tiananmen Square:

LISTEN TO HUANG XIANG READ “LETTER TO THE CITY OF ASYLUM/PITTSBURGH” (IN CHINESE).

Read Huang Xiang’s bio.