We Must Not Let Terror Become the Prevailing Culture

In early October of this year, the National Security police in Shanghai illegally and secretly detained Lin Xiaokai, a Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner, for twenty days. The first thing Mr. Lin asked his wife when he returned to Taiwan was, "Can I trust you?"

This reminds me of a TV series, "Nowhere Man," which I used to watch eight years ago. The story began by showing the negative of a photograph. A professional photographer named Thomas Veil exhibited the photograph which showed military personnel executing a civilian, a photo which he had taken by accident. A few days later he was having dinner with his wife at a restaurant. She disappeared while he went to the restroom. When he got home, his wife opened the door, but acted like a total stranger, and a man appeared from inside the house claiming to be her husband. None of Thomas's friends or relatives recognized him. He found that all his records were destroyed. He was forcibly taken to a psychiatric hospital, which he soon discovered was part of the plot as well. Holding the secret in the negative, he escaped from the hospital with the negative and became a fugitive.
"Nowhere Man" is not a horror movie in the conventional sense. But people should be alert to the profound shock that the sudden distrust among people can cause. I have seen numerous horror movies with ghosts and monsters, but only this non-horror movie left me with such a vivid memory of "horror." Even Bruce Greenwood who played Thomas in the movie said with lingering trepidation: "Suddenly when I look into the mirror, I do not know if I am the one that I think I am, or if things that I think have happened really did in fact occur." This is a realistic portrayal of how Lin Xiaokai felt when he asked his wife, "Can I trust you?" on returning to Taiwan.

Mr. Lin's recollection

"The first day after I returned to Taiwan I dared not go home, because I was afraid that the phone at home was bugged or something bad might happen. So I dared not let people know that I was back while I stayed at the hotel. I only went home on the second day, but dared not take any phone calls, for fear that it might be from Mainland China asking me to do things.

"I met a Taiwanese businessman in Macau, who asked me to help him resolve some problems with his plane ticket. I was a bit scared, not sure if he was an agent sent by the Mainland to watch me. I helped him with his plane ticket, had a meal with him and boarded and debarked the plane with him. But I was feeling awful all the time. I could not help but keep an eye on him to see if he was an agent who had come to monitor me.

"I have an email message in my computer containing an article that I sent to a Dafa website, which was not published. What truly puzzles me is that somehow the Chinese authorities got hold of it.

"I could not stand it; under the circumstances I was a stranger there, not knowing anybody, and they meticulously plotted everything. I did not know whom to trust. I was very confused throughout the whole process. I did not know whether I should believe anything they said, and I was constantly nervous about what they were going to do to me next."

In contrast to "Nowhere Man," a fiction, Mr. Lin's experience in the Shanghai National Security Department is real. In "Nowhere Man," all the acquaintances could not recognize Thomas, and all the horror was confined to one individual. In Mr. Lin's case, people recognized him but he was rendered too fearful to acknowledge them, as part of the attempt to spread fear and terror to others through him.

The terrorist tactics of Jiang's regime are unparalleled

Mr. Lin believes that the infiltration of the Taiwanese Falun Gong group by the Chinese party special agents has reached a frightening stage; they have obtained information on at least 80% of the practitioners.

The real intention behind why the Shanghai National Security Department terrorized Mr. Lin for twenty days is so that he would externalize his fear and foster the terror that they had carefully planned, spreading it to the outside world.

Why did Jiang's regime apply such tactics to Falun Gong practitioners?

This is actually an indication that Jiang is loosing his grip on the suppression of Falun Gong.
Several years ago when Jiang was at his most rampant, there were arrests and sentencing without cause in China, brainwashing, burning of Dafa books, guilt and punishment by association, expulsion from work and schools, the staging of suicides, homicides and the staged self-immolation incident to frame Falun Gong. They deceived the whole nation into criticizing Falun Gong. Outside China, practitioners received threatening messages and were beaten up by hired thugs; their cars were set on fire, telephones were bugged, homes and offices were broken into and possessions were stolen. Falun Gong websites were attacked and inundated with junk mail. The persecutors acted viciously as though no one could do anything to stop them.

But every time they do a bad deed it is an opportunity for us to expose their wickedness to the world. Over the last several years, Falun Gong practitioners' persistence in their peaceful resistance and efforts to clarify the truth have allowed more and more people to see the evil nature of Jiang Zemin. Jiang's new trick is to apply "terror to individuals," to create a "pervasive atmosphere of fear." Though this tactic is venomous and wicked, it shows that Jiang is failing overall. He is no longer able to carry out large scale "acts of terrorism" as he had wished.

In Mr. Lin's case, their ploy was to have a Shanghai National Security agent posing as a practitioner go after Mr. Lin, who was clarifying the truth about Falun Gong to people on the Mainland. The agent gathered all of Mr. Lin's personal information, exploited his innocence and good nature, and tricked him into going to Shanghai. Then they arrested him and showed him the detailed information they had on him in order to instill fear in him. It was especially unnerving that they knew so much about Mr. Lin, because he usually kept a low profile. This made him believe their lie that they had acquired detailed information on 80% of the Taiwanese practitioners.

Mr. Lin was frightened mainly because he had always lived in a normal social environment, and had not experienced the kind of cultural struggle prevalent in Mainland China. Over the past several decades, through one political movement after another, the ruling party on the Mainland has accumulated a wealth of tactics to deal with people. It is unimaginable that it could be this evil. But it also provided Mr. Lin and other Taiwanese with a clearer picture of the evilness of this persecution, and therefore it inspired them to work harder to expose to the world the Chinese government's persecution and to condemn and stop Jiang's acts of terrorism.

Lately, the Chinese authorities have started to attack practitioners' computers with viruses, thereby generating a sense of fear on the Internet. Some agents spread rumours on the web that they could easily monitor practitioners' cell phones and described how easy it was to infiltrate the practitioners' circles.

In fact, the transition from the former bold and open attacks to today's covert manoeuvring indicates that Jiang's regime is approaching its end.

The last time I wrote an article, "When Hate and Enmity Turn Into a Political Culture" I made the point that Jiang's regime fabricated and spread lies and propaganda in an attempt to incite hatred and induce external pressures to bear on Falun Gong, thus lending support for his suppression. This time, Jiang's regime created an "atmosphere of terror" among Falun Gong practitioners themselves, causing practitioners to distrust each other, and then spreading this atmosphere to the entire society. They caused the practitioners to feel frightened so that they would stay quiet, and they inhibited others from speaking out for Falun Gong. They used terror to obliterate people's consciences, their morals, and their longing and support for righteousness.

It can be said that Jiang is creating a "culture of terror" in an attempt to control people's spirits, to stop independent thinking, and ultimately to achieve control of people's behaviour.

China has a 5,000-year-old culture, one which emphasizes kindness, righteousness, civility, wisdom, trust, and harmony. To suppress "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance," Jiang's regime has endeavoured to create a "hate culture" and a "culture of terror." It is equivalent to infusing a slow acting toxin into the bloodstream of the Chinese culture. It is truly degrading our cultural spirit.

An atrocity can destroy a single generation, but poison infused into a culture will harm many generations to come. I hope that all Chinese people can awaken in time and not harbour any illusions about the originator and promoter of the "culture of terror." Whether a society can protect the basic human rights and the security of its citizens depends on whether each member of the society can choose according to his or her own conscience.