“Killings, killings. No memories, no memories.”

June 4, 1989

A massacre took place in the capital city of the People’s Republic of China. The size of it shocked the world. Nobody knows precisely how many innocent people lost their lives. The government put the number of “collateral deaths” at two hundred or less. But many Chinese believe that it was more like three thousand innocent students and residents who were slain. 

I didn’t witness the killings in Tiananmen Square. I was home in Fuling, a small mountain town well known for its pickled and shredded turnips. When I heard the news, I was outraged. I composed an epic poem, “Massacre,” to commemorate the government’s brutality against its people. With the help of a visiting Canadian friend, I made a tape, chanting my poem into an old toothless tape recorder. My wife Axia was also present.

(Liao Yiwu, "Nineteen days", in Paris Review No. 189, traduzido do chinês por Wenguang Huang)

Lembrar para além de Liao Yiwu e Ai Weiwei, o Nobel Liu Xiaobo, o escritor Ye Du (Wu Wei), o activista e advogado Teng Biao, o escritor Liu Xianbin e o activista e advogado Gao Zhisheng. Mais sobre o Weiquan movement e outros activistas, aqui. O blogue do Falun Gong, (quanto a este admito ser reticente, contudo os seus membros são também alvo de perseguição) que publica e traduz, diariamente, algumas das notícias proibidas em território chinês. E todos os outros que ficam por nomear ou que desconheço, por ignorância ou por encobrimento.

Adenda: The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 2, aqui; Chinese poetry in times of mind, mayhem and money, aqui; Culture in the contemporary PRC, aqui. China in a polycentric world: essays in Chinese comparative literature, aqui.