The Persecution of Falun Gong Is a Spiritual Disaster for All Chinese People

Since the downfall of the "Gang of Four," Chinese people consider the Cultural Revolution as the "Ten-Year Calamity." After the Great Cultural Revolution, a great deal of "scar" literature [i.e., that revealing the atrocities and detriments caused the Great Cultural Revolution], films, and literary commentary emerged. A lot of secret materials were also uncovered regarding the Cultural Revolution. From these materials, people found out that Liu Shaoqi, who had been labelled by the Chinese Communist Party as a "traitor" based on "solid facts," was actually a "good Party member," a "good husband," and a "good father." After several years of reflection, the Chinese people now seem to view the Cultural Revolution as a horrible dream, saying, "The Cultural Revolution won't happen again. Even if it does, nobody would believe it anyway."

But a small number of intellectuals don't agree. In their opinion, the Chinese have not genuinely reflected on the deeper elements behind the "behaviour of betrayal" that occurred in more or less every family. What's more, the Chinese people haven't reflected at all on their responsibility for what happened in the Cultural Revolution. China is a nation that insisted on its beliefs and principles during the past several thousand of years of history. During the shifting struggles in the Cultural Revolution, however, sons betrayed their fathers, friends became enemies, husbands and wives divorced, sisters and brothers reported on each other, and these events occurred on a large scale. Some scholars have indicated that reflections on the Cultural Revolution have been so shallow and superficial that the deceptive nature of the Chinese Communist Regime hasn't been touched at all. The damage to traditional Chinese culture caused by Marxism and the degeneration of national spirit due to the materialisation of the society haven't been mentioned, either. If the Great Cultural Revolution happens again, it will damage the society even more.

In July 1999, Jiang's Regime launched an overall suppression against Falun Gong practitioners. At the time, over 100 million people were practising Falun Gong. Counting their family members, relatives and friends, many more people have been involved in the suppression.

The stories concocted by the Chinese Communist propaganda machine to frame Falun Gong are very superficial. A little bit of digging quickly reveals the lies. It is not very difficult to see the truth of Falun Gong. However, since the suppression of Falun Gong launched by the Chinese Communist Party is closely related to violence and the Party's self-interest, people who feel sympathetic towards Falun Gong may lose their official positions, their jobs, or their properties or even be jailed. Faced with these brutal facts--that hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners have died in detention, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners' families have been broken up, and many Falun Gong practitioners have become destitute and homeless--people become generally very indifferent and naturally cover up their feelings with lies instilled in them by the Chinese Communist Party. Some people are unwilling to help the persecuted in order to protect their own interests. Some know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people but, against their own conscience, still participate in the persecution for money and power.

Because media reports demonising Falun Gong have misled public opinion, non-practitioners avoid any connection with Falun Gong practitioners for fear of being implicated. Such isolation, together with invisible pressure and prejudice from family members, work units, friends, and neighbours--the entire network of human relations--Falun Gong practitioners in China are unable to live a normal life. If they insist on their belief, they are facing endless spiritual torture. Such torture is invisible but exists everywhere. Such misery far exceeds the misery caused by physical torture. Falun Gong practitioners in China, as an apolitical group who only want to be good and healthy people, have endured an enormous disaster as victims of Jiang's Genocide.

At the same time, the catastrophic consequences of this Jiang-inspired, nation-wide suppression of Falun Gong has surpassed the scope of Genocide. It is damaging to the benevolent nature of human beings. It is sabotaging the conscience of humankind.

Superficially, this persecution targets Falun Gong practitioners. But given the excessive use of torture employed in this persecution, we can see that Jiang is poisoning human souls, encouraging them to view this type of betrayal and base behaviour with indifference. By promoting purely materialistic values Jiang is distorting the relationships among human beings, turning them into little more than relationships among animals. Human beings are becoming accustomed to betrayal and heading towards an overall collapse of social morality.

During the four years of this persecution, the price of human dignity in China has been high. Jiang's suppressive policies encourage people to betray their conscience and report on their own friends. It encourages using violence to deal with kind people. It encourages lies to fool others, including the liars themselves. It encourages indifference in the face of brutal killing. In such an environment, the soul of the Chinese people is once again being distorted and degraded.

Although Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to give up their belief have suffered a great deal and even sacrificed their lives, their spirits are noble and free. On the contrary, for those who betrayed their conscience, even though they did not suffer physically, their souls sink in misery. In fact, since the Chinese Communist Party's rule began, the conscience of the Chinese people has been battered and diminished again and again from coercion and fear. Eventually, they have become indifferent and have lost their ability to distinguish good from evil.

Therefore, the persecution launched by Jiang is a spiritual disaster for all Chinese people. The harm brought about by this persecution in some respects exceeds that caused by the ethnic massacre during World War II.

The repercussions of this disaster are far-reaching, because physical wounds only affect one generation while the spirit and culture of a country are passed on from generation to generation and to other nationalities as well. A shallow conscience that is unable to reflect may be passed on to the next generation as well as to one's peers. As a result of the political campaigns in the fifties, sixties, seventies and eighties, and including the current persecution, the Chinese have become more and more indifferent and only care about themselves.

World War II was a profound lesson for people all over the world. Due to a few people's irrationality, thousands lost their lives and thousands of families were destroyed. To prevent such a tragedy from re-occurring, the United Nation and the International Court were established to protect the ever-lasting peace of the world.

Since there wasn't an appropriate legal term at the time to describe the massacre of the Jews during World War II, the term "Genocide" was created and used by the legal system to bring the German war criminals and perpetrators to justice. Law, as criteria to regulate human behaviour, is usually based on historic experience. Since human society is constantly changing, it is impossible for a law to be suitable for all time. Degeneration of human behaviour requires the law to adapt.

The "Genocide" law used to bring the war criminals and perpetrators during World War II to justice has been used again today to file a lawsuit against the Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin. Jiang is being sued because he is responsible for the inhumane genocide and torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China and for violations of the basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners outside China during the past four years.

Some people may compare the lawsuit against Jiang with the massacre of the Jews during World War II. As of now, it has been confirmed that over 760 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death during their detention. Looking only at that number, it seems that Jiang's crime is not as serious as the murderer's in World War II.

However, the definition of "Genocide" in International Criminal Law is as follows:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Viewed from the above definition, Jiang's nation-wide suppression of Falun Gong completely conforms to the crime. In China, the goal of the persecution is to deprive Falun Gong practitioners of their basic rights and dignity as human beings. Falun Gong practitioners in China who haven't suffered from any personal violation are still living in a extremely unnatural and constrained environment every day, let alone those who have been arrested, detained, jailed, sent to forced labour "re-education," tortured, or died from the persecution.

In one sense, the purpose of suing Jiang Zemin is to follow legal procedures to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners' basic human rights. In another sense, the lawsuit against Jiang exposes to society as a whole the harm caused by the suppression of Falun Gong, thereby leading people, especially Chinese people, to spiritually reflect on the true ramifications of this persecution. "Genocide" cannot adequately describe the horrific nature of this persecution. Legal professionals may need to do more research to find a proper term for the crime committed by Jiang and his regime.