[Reader-list] Ai Wei Wei and the Chinese State

[Monica Narula]

Avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei, one of China's foremost public  
intellectuals, was recently detained and beaten by police when he  
attempted to testify at the show trial of dissident Tan Zuoren in  
Chengdu. Harassment and threats are connected, in part, to his "Names  
Project," a performative intervention which aims to compile, publish,  
disseminate, and memorialize the names of the thousands of children  
who were crushed to death en mass in their "crumbling tofu  
construction" schools (the rotten fruits of official corruption and  
kickbacks) during the May 12, 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake, while  
neighboring government buildings stood intact. The State has strong- 
armed bereaved parents into silence, refused to investigate government  
corruption, and barred the victims' names from public release. Ai  
Weiwei's vocal defiance has led to his censorship, intimidation,  
threats and now arrest and beating.

  Having spent the first 2 decades of his life with his father, the  
revolutionary poet Ai Qing, in a cadre labor reform camp for errant  
intellectuals, Ai Weiwei understands that no one in China, no matter  
how "high profile" is ever "safe. Thus, he has chosen to push the  
State as far as he can in an attempt to reclaim the public sphere for  
critical discourse, and champion the cause of free speech and genuine  
citizen and human rights in China. As such, he has willingly put  
himself in a great deal of danger. His recent statement merits  
reposting. I hope that you will pass this on and share it with others  
who believe in the need to nurture and support critical public  
intellectuals, especially in places like China, where there are so few  
such clarion and courageous voices.

  "Watch out! Have you prepared yourself?" -- Ai Weiwei: "I am ready.  
Or, perhaps I should say that there is nothing to prepare, no way to  
prepare myself. A person--this is all of me--is something that can be  
received by others. I offer up all of myself. When the time comes when  
it is necessary, I will not hesitate, I won't be ambiguous about it.  
If there is anything that I am reluctant to leave behind it is the  
wondrous miracle that life has brought me. And that miracles are that  
every one of us is the same, that people are equal in this game, as  
well as the fantasies that come along with playing it, and our  
freedom. I regard every kind of intimidation, from any kind of  
'authority or power' [sic - the character is for quanli as in  
'rights', but from the context this appears to be a typo, perhaps?],  
as a threat to human dignity, rationality and reason--a threat to the  
very possibility of opposition. I will learn to face and confront this."


Monica Narula
Raqs Media Collective
Sarai-CSDS
www.raqsmediacollective.net
www.sarai.net