After the Tiananmen Massacre, I felt compelled not only to continue writing but to actively resist the restrictions placed on freedom of speech. I set up the publishing company in Hong Kong, with offices in Shenzhen in mainland China, and managed to publish works of fiction, philosophy, and politics by unapproved authors.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the importance of standing up for freedom of expression even in the face of oppression.
Ma Jian's quote highlights the resilience and determination to uphold freedom of speech despite the brutal repression experienced during the Tiananmen Massacre. His decision to establish a publishing company in Hong Kong, aimed at providing a platform for unapproved authors, signifies a courageous commitment to promote diverse voices and ideas in the face of governmental censorship.
In practice
In a public lecture on the importance of free speech.
To become self-aware, people must be allowed to hear a plurality of opinions and then make up their own minds. They must be allowed to say, write and publish whatever they want. Freedom of expression is the most basic, but fundamental, right. Without it, human beings are reduced to automatons.
Before the counter-culture revolutionary Li Lian was executed in 1971 for criticising the Cultural Revolution, pour policemen pushed her face against the window of a truck, lifted her shirt and cut out her kidneys with a surgical knife,’ Mau Sen said, his face stony and white. ‘I think that removing the organs of convicts while they are still alive is too much. It completely contravenes medical ethics.’ ‘This is a dissection class, not a political meeting,’ Sun Chunlin said.
What do you have to fear? Nothing. Whom do you have to fear? No one. Why? Because whoever has joined forces with God obtains three great privileges: omnipotence without power, intoxication without wine, and life without death.
I think nowadays it's so easy as an athlete to become a statistic whether or not you lose everything or having trouble or whatever it may be.
When I speak to a victim or their family, people who were left bruised and battered by someone, and can give them some small relief, I know I'm winning in some small way, and I'm part of a process that sometimes works.
Violence will prevail over violence, only when someone can prove to me that darkness can be dispelled by darkness
Are we willing and able to stand up to Islamophobia on days when there are not brutal terrorist attacks on Muslims in mosques?
She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create.
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