Original link: https://sehseh.substack.com/p/0f1
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Easy to read version of the official website
Text / Zanthoxylum bungeanum
About the White Paper Movement — or Revolution. I don’t mind using any one concept to describe it. It will bloom all over the world. It is really just that too many suffering Chinese people act spontaneously, instinctively, and simply; no matter what concept is used to define such an action, it is an exploration and blessing of possibility—why did it suddenly explode, and everyone even bravely shouted There are many people who have given answers to the slogan of “big rebellion” that almost no one from Hong Kong and Taiwan has ever publicly chanted. And what I want to say is also part of the answer: we have been here long before the blank sheet of paper.
Like the smoke lit by Peng Zaizhou on the Sitong Bridge in Beijing, it burned in everyone’s heart from that day until another fire in Urumqi trapped people to death. It’s a moment. Opening the door, people poured into the square with billowing, thick smoke. Everyone held up a white paper, and the wind was blowing everyone.
From the Sitong Bridge protest to the White Paper Movement, some of the slogans hidden in corners, toilets, billboards, stairs, nucleic acid kiosks, gates, and license plates in universities and cities in mainland China were collected; people.
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Thousands of “boats”
We are like the dust after being crushed by the giant wheel of censorship. Everyone has been lifted into the air and become an “isolated island” that has lost contact with everyone. For a moment—the weak here are the people, and the weapons are also the people.
This week, many people have been questioned by the police.
I saw it in countless WeChat groups, Telegram groups, Instagram and Twitter submissions; of course, there are also WeChat Moments. Compared with the last weekend that made everyone excited and trembling, there were fewer live broadcasts in various cities on social media in the past two days, and more about self-protection knowledge about how to face temporary raids and door-to-door registration.
“Tips for drinking tea: Kneel when you need to, and make a quick decision. If you have done something, just kneel and apologize. If you haven’t done it, insist that you haven’t done it. The other party may ask a lot of details and refuse to answer directly. That’s fine; the best way to avoid a vulnerable position is to apologize directly. But be sure to read any documents that ask you to fingerprint and sign… There is no shame in admitting (admitting defeat), you are already very brave… Survive Let’s talk.”
“Be sure to bow your head as soon as possible, don’t touch or procrastinate, and don’t communicate or persuade. There are machines in front of you. If it wasn’t for a machine, he wouldn’t appear in front of you.”
Long press to save, erase the censorship words, forward to all friends who can forward, all in one go. This is a habit that has been cultivated since 2020. The siege of the digital Leviathan and the state governance that restricts citizens’ movements in the name of epidemic prevention have spread over our torso at the same time. There are big heads standing in the rooms online and offline. elephants, and our only weapons are resilience and courage.
Weibo was bombed? Then buy ten or twenty accounts—so we have many “daily” and “monthly” friends. Every time these users post a Weibo, they will disappear for a month, or their accounts will be bombed on the same day. . Can’t post to Moments? Then take a screenshot, reverse, mirror flip, paint a lot of mosaics before posting—in order to catch a glimpse of the news, we open the photo editing software more often than bloggers; the pictures are also blocked? Then change the headline post and change the background of the circle of friends – the review of the headline post and the background of the circle of friends is slower than posting. The little time difference is to allow more people to see; still too few people see it? Then use AirDrop to randomly airdrop event pictures on the subway in the square to passers-by, then change positions and go to Tinder to modify the profile-opening Tinder is for the original purpose of “making friends” and back.
There is nothing that is not our battlefield, just as the state makes all of our lives a battlefield. The inspiration of anthropologist James Scott’s famous “Weapons of the Weak” can’t even keep up with the current situation in China. We are like the dust after being crushed by the giant wheel of censorship. Everyone has been lifted into the air and become an “isolated island” that has lost contact with everyone. For a moment—the weak here are the people, and the weapons are also the people.
My political enlightenment was very late, and anti-extradition can be regarded as a complete first lesson. In the past three or four years, countless friends who met online and offline left, went into exile, and disappeared, and countless partners met in the window of the cyber world with Morse code. Their encounters range from gender to labor, from the environment to human rights, from news to law, from China to Hong Kong and Taiwan, from Ukraine to Iran.
In every social hotspot, apart from human rights lawyers, citizen journalists, NGO social workers and other people who can name their professions and can conceivably promote the development of Chinese civil society, there are countless kinds of people who cannot be reported, cannot speak out, and More covert social actions: they are in psychological counseling rooms, theaters, mountaineering teams, sex education institutions, and villages; they make their lives a river, gently bypassing the checkpoints of public power, and gently wrapping every place Heavy, edged rocks.
But in fact, this is also the most paradoxical point: actors and insiders will never be able to specifically and publicly describe those action directions and strategies (in a normal society, this is an important experience that can be passed on for reference), because the Chinese public security may see it, and Use this as a clue to monitor and arrest this group of people; therefore, people who don’t know will never meet, ask, or find out, and everyone doesn’t know where their partners are; like the sharer of the 23rd issue of “I Don’t Understand Podcast” Kathy said of the dilemma: “I don’t know who else is standing with me.”
But even so, there are still, continue, and always are people in China who “come out politically” at great cost. In the past ten years, those who openly “politically come out” were often identified, taken away, and quarantined by the authoritarian authorities the moment they opened the cabinet door. Together with the blockade and control of the Internet, the radius of influence of each action is almost determined by the The time lag before the Chinese government reacted—this time, everyone stood there holding a bright white paper at a desperate price, and finally got two nights, dozens of hours of slogans, and many colleges and universities in multiple cities. The world has finally seen it; the slogan “No Nucleic Acid, Freedom” has really carried the boat across the ocean, mooring to the place where everyone is.
Incomparable suffering, and “we are together forever”
“I still had diarrhea that night. I was very uncomfortable at first, but I saw the news in the feminist group. At that time, I thought I would go even if I was wearing adult diapers.”
But when the movement spread widely and everyone finally saw and even had room to discuss the direction, the definition of revolution, and how to view this group of Chinese people with diverse political spectrums, the voices of these anonymous first batch of protesting citizens have been silenced . Yes, the time difference is really only one weekend. Cameras all over the country and decades of electronic monitoring inlaid in society can easily retrieve the personal information of most participants. Police warning calls, door-to-door registration, and even direct takeaway The cities where these activists live.
As of the moment of writing, I, an ordinary overseas Chinese student who has not participated in any actual sports and is not in many domestic communities, has lost contact with at least 8 friends in the circle of friends.
On the same day, a commentary article in Taiwan called on everyone to pay attention to the ” media literacy ” behind this movement: Because one of the main social media “citizensdailycn” (citizensdailycn) “is completely opaque in terms of origin, purpose, and operation.” Support and attention to this movement should be temporarily suspended, and Taiwanese people should “stop and think first”—thinking is important, but cutting off the context and ignoring the necessity of anonymous actions in a totalitarian state make people think It’s hard to imagine this author living in a land that also lived through authoritarian times.
Of course, the white terror and the “red terror” are not comparable. The sufferings of the two eras, the sufferings of Hong Kong, and the sufferings of South Korea’s democratization process are even more incomparable. To get close, and the advice that has often appeared in China in recent years, “You must see living individuals under the grand narrative.”
I saw individuals who took off their masks to call everyone to fight for the future, saw individuals who participated in demonstrations and sit-ins for “subversion of state power”, saw individuals who could not sleep at night and cried bitterly, saw individuals who knew there was a knife hanging over their heads and fought for freedom head-on, saw Individuals who reflect on their privileges and stand in front of all cameras without hesitation, see individuals who risked a huge price to part with their relatives and friends in their homeland, and supported Hong Kong and Taiwan to support everyone, and saw individuals who exchanged their years of imprisonment for a chance of change… Everyone heard The slogan “Give me liberty or give me death” that came from across the river was precisely sent by these individuals who followed suit “with their bodies as the measure”.
North Square Instagram post by an activist who was given tea by the police. In fact, everyone knows that there may be “inner ghosts” in those groups, but we still can’t say anything or do anything in the group because of this. Everything is a risk, and we can only be forced to choose between not so much risk and huge risk.
Last night, I listened to the experience sharing of participants in the White Paper Movement in various cities. During the Q&A, someone asked why she went to the event. A girl quickly replied, “It’s a very simple sense of justice.” I want to go even if I wear adult diapers.” In fact, this is really the case, because of the simple sense of justice, because of the long-term pressure of survival, and because of the predecessors who left fire and ignited the smoke in more people’s hearts, so everyone It is because of this direct and sudden convergence; the sports scenes at home and abroad also have mixed demands and constant conflicts.
“A healthy society has more than one voice.” To some extent, this is also a “healthy” movement. Although it is far from “mature” as a movement to seek appeals, the significance of taking the first step on the basis of countless people’s silent voices is believed to be far more important than judging success or failure prematurely.
The sharer also mentioned that in fact, everyone is not very good at singing the Internationale, and often there is no one to answer after the beginning. The most popular one is the national anthem, and the most vigorous one is the phrase “The Chinese nation has reached the most dangerous moment.” My friend and I would laugh from time to time when watching a recording of a scene in Beijing during one of the sleepless nights, “This is out of tune”, “Look at this man putting white paper on his hat for fun”, as if this kind of relaxation is in response to presenting flowers to the police The citizens of Shanghai, and the citizens of Beijing who talked with each other on the street (having fun while suffering is our specialty); then, when we heard the heart-piercing cry in the next second, we cried together.
A citizen sticks white paper on his hat. The temperature in Beijing that day was around 0 degrees, and the streets were still crowded.
May the fireworks never end, may the white paper be just the beginning
“Long live the great unity of the people of the whole country – long live the great unity of the people of the world!”
“Release the citizens of Shanghai”
“Go home together—let people go—go home together!”
“we will be together forever”
In the second half of the film , the people on the street yell “Come down!” to the residents upstairs—come down and come with us:
Be with Urumqi, be with Xinjiang and Tibetans, be with the first girl from Nanjing Institute of Communication, be with Zhengzhou Foxconn workers, be with Ukrainian and Iranian women, be with Guangzhou Kangle Village, Be with Burmese and Thai students, be with Korean and Japanese feminists, be with Hong Kong people and Taiwanese, be with all the people who fight against oppression in the world.
“I only have this life, and a little bit of bravery.” A Han girl said this when she posted about her boyfriend’s suffering as a Tibetan.
May the dead rest in peace, may the fireworks never end, may the white paper be just the beginning, and may everyone have a little bit of bravery again and again. (Finish)
Due to space constraints, this article does not mention the suffering of Chinese workers and peasants in the past three years (or even longer) and the living conditions that they had to deal with with resilience. Guangzhou released the unblocking signal on the evening of November 30th. If the blockade is gradually lifted in the future, please don’t forget those labors who are not good at network communication and building urban infrastructure when thinking of college students, street citizens and overseas solidarity those.
About the author｜ Zanthoxylum bungeanum (Chinese students who are sub-healthy because of the country)
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