Answer:
Please imagine if you were in the period of the Great Cultural Revolution and you were classified as the right wing and facing the state police and military forces. Being a person with righteous characteristics, what else could you have done apart from continuously pursuing peaceful appealing? It just like the film “ Chiou Jyu” [making a lawsuit]. People with a grievance had the right to appeal. In the film, a woman travelled over a thousand miles to appeal since she trusted the government. If someone indecent suffered the same as Chiou Jyu, he would have adopted the method of “an eye for an eye ” to commit acts of terrorism, such as assassination or bombing and so on. However these are not the acts of a good person. Can you therefore say that this country lady, Chiou Jyu, was making trouble against the government? As regards Falun Gong, Jiang XX has been utilizing the government to suppress Falun Gong for over two years. Have you heard of any cases in which practitioners have harmed other people? Falun Gong practitioners did nothing wrong and their appealing has been totally lawful. They have done nothing illegal or disturbed the social order. No matter how practitioners were tortured by the police, they never fought back. There have been almost 100 thousand people who were illegally detained and severely persecuted. At least 300 people were tortured to death, including the elderly with grey hair and an 8 month old infant. They experienced all conceivable hardships in order to reach Tiananmen Square in the capital of China. The only purpose was to appeal to the government to stop the persecution by the Jiang XX group. Has there been any troublemaker in the history who acted like those practitioners? For they trusted the government who can uphold justice and correct the mistake, they dare to risk their lives to appeal. From this point of view they are genuinely good people and good citizens. But the authorities have been treating such good people as enemies and oppressed them. It is a most unjust event. Such a situation should never have happened.
There is a popular concept in China nowadays that it would be considered appropriate even if you killed a person for the sake of keeping the stability of the country. But what is “the stability”? What they called “the stability” now is to maintain the interest of those corrupted officials. The common people could not question it and those officials would take even more advantage then. This is a dictatorial power, which the officials use to set up the law and label people as guilty at will. To put it frankly, they are trying to prevent this unstable, shaky regime from collapsing. If a house is broken, what is the point of keeping it in the broken state rather than repairing it? Was this situation any different from the movement of two “whatever”(i.e. whatever policy decided by Mao Zedong , we must insist on supporting it and whatever Mao Zedong directed, we must always obey forever) during the Great Cultural Revolution? How on earth can they take many people’s blood and lives in exchange for “the stability”, only advocated by the very few of them?
Nowadays people do not behave in accordance with moral principles. One could do anything, no matter good or bad, as long as it would profit oneself. How could the authorities arrest people who did not commit crimes? How could they suppress Falun Gong just for being popular. Regards the appeal on 4/25/’99, practitioners stood by the wall on the sidewalk orderly and quietly. Once they had reported the truth to the authorities they simply left. The central government had also declared clearly that they could go home, to continue their cultivation practice as they wish. The government said they would not interfere with such issues concerning personal interests only. Unexpectedly, Jiang XX did things against the advice of others. He protected those corrupted officials from being arrested. Why must he push the people to the opposite side of the government? His action was a result of his jealousy, wasn’t it? He is also a mean person who assumes that other people should think the same way as he does. He believes that political power is worthier than people’s lives . However cultivation practice is to get rid of human attachments for fame, fortune and sentimentality. If so, would there be any cultivator who is interested in politics? After the experience of two years, the fact has proven that Falun Gong has nothing to do with politics. The only purpose is to request a legal cultivation environment.
2. The US and "foreign support"?
The United States has its immigration policy. Whoever meets their requirements is qualified to enter the US. Teacher Li [the founder of Falun Gong] has brought to over 100 million people good health and has promoted high moral standards. He is surely welcomed everywhere. Falun Gong’s activities in overseas countries are to urge all good people and governments in the world to offer their humanitarian support. We never requested any financial donation or any form of political interference on this matter. In whatever place, either home or abroad, Falun Gong is just a civic group, which is totally independent and would never rely on any political power. Many western governments support Falun Gong, which has proven that Falun Gong is good. The Chinese government also used to support and honour Falun Gong since its public introduction, didn’t they ? The cause for the Chinese government to start this brutal campaign of strife between the classes was only personal jealousy. This is a sign of regression.
As to whether Teacher Li returns to China, we firmly believe what we have done is right, and that someone has been manipulating the government to do bad things. If Teacher Li does return to China at the present time, the unscrupulous persons would gain what they wanted. The situation would be the same as those practitioners who went to appeal. Practitioners are good people, but Chinese government said that they were bad. We couldn’t do anything but stand up to tell people the truth. Like many illegally detained practitioners, since we didn’t commit any crime, we shouldn’t stay in the jail. So we went on hunger strikes to protest and to resist the persecution.
3. “The superstition of the feudal age ”, “anti-science”?
Answer:
Some people think that theism is a superstition which was the fundamental reason for the regressive China. They opposed Falun Gong ‘for the sake of China's development’. In fact it is a bad result brought about by the policy of obscurantism [ the practice of preventing the facts or full details of something from becoming known]. Science could never deny the existence of the divine. The basic characteristics of science is that it doubts anything unproven to be true and, at the same time it does not deny anything unproven to be false. Whether there exist gods or divinity is not concluded till now. It was the wrongful propaganda during the Great Cultural Revolution period that made people put scientific and religious beliefs in opposition to each other. However in developed western countries people who believe in religions are of the majority. Even Many scientists have religious faiths themselves. Religions influence people’s moral values, guide their behaviour, and sustain the development of a society. People who have read the publication of Falun Gong know that Falun Gong speaks the genuine science. Many practitioners are engaged in scientific work. Since science needs to be developed and humans must move forward, you cannot casually label something as superstitious .
Falun Gong is not against science, nor is it against the government. All criminal charges brought against Falun Gong are slanderous allegations. Such as the so-called “Tiananmen Self-Immolation Incident” was in fact a deception by the security bureau of Henan Province. They spent 30 thousand dollars to do it. Actually everyone knows that the government performs political persecutions without any reason. The government only needs to breed some excuses causing people to feel afraid of getting involved.
As for materialism or idealism, their concepts are not the same as what we were taught in Chinese high school. A Falun Gong cultivator who is not a XXX party member himself can behave as well as the true party member. Now even the Chairman of the XXX Party himself does not believe that Communism could be realized. Why doesn’t he allow people to have freedom of their own beliefs? The Constitution bestows rights on every citizen. Why haven’t such rights been put into effect?
4. Good things do not need to be promoted and naturally people will know that they are good. You could have practised at home. Why must you get the recognition from the government?
Answer:
This concerns a matter of people’s responsibility for the society. Nowadays many people live for their own interest only. What the government officials want is to seize benefits from their position, rather than being civil servants. They are heartless and are even worse than ordinary people. The government protects those corrupted officials from being arrested, but arrests honest practitioners in contrast. What a wrongful thing! As a member of the community, one not only improves his own life, but also the community. Before doing something, we have to consider the interest of descendants. There were many righteous men in past history. They sacrificed their lives for the truth. Their forethought brought happiness for descendants. Nowadays there are not many people like this in China. This is probably why Falun Gong practitioners are so outstanding. From practising, we realize that Falun Gong is good. We have benefited from it, and we hope it would benefit more people. Therefore when the government misunderstood us, we went forward to clarify the truth sincerely. During the Great Cultural Revolution, the government lied to the people and announced that the production of grains was 10 thousand kilograms per acre. Whoever stepped forward to tell the truth would be classified as right wing. Therefore under pressure of political power, many people ignored their conscience to make a false statement to report to the government. It seemed that those people had protected their family and interest by doing so. But if we reconsider the whole event afterwards, didn’t we actually harm ourselves? In fact everyone who took part in the Great Cultural Revolution, was guilty of and responsible for this tragedy. If there were more people like Peng Dehuai, people would have suffered much less . From this point of view, Falun Gong practitioners deserve to respected. At least they are selfless people.
5. “Spiritual control”?
If you know about Falun Gong practitioners, you would understand that they are well educated on the whole. They are absolutely not insane or illiterate as the media influenced by propaganda reported. During the Cultural Revolution,the national Chairman became a scoundrel overnight. The media lied to people that there was no students killed in the “ June 4th Incident”. However there is always a balance in people’s hearts so that people can weigh up if the media can be trusted. In fact there is no differences between practitioners and non-practitioners. If there had not been such a tribulation, we would still be working as usual, being good employees in our work units, good members in our families, and good citizens in the community. But once tribulations were imposed on us, we couldn’t help appealing. We were forced to do so. Isn’t it true that everybody wishes to live a stable life? Could there be any Chinese who, after experiencing the Great Cultural Revolution, would still be so hotheaded and affected by politics? If we hadn’t suffered from such a grievance, we wouldn’t have strived to appeal. In other words, if Falun Gong was not so good, there wouldn’t have been so many people to appeal. A practitioner is also a member of the community who has his job, family and friends just as ordinary people, and he is free to receive all kinds of information. How could his mind be controlled? The only genuine spiritual control is the authorities’ kidnapping the practitioners to be brainwashed.
The key is, ‘What is Falun Gong?’ For example, if there is a pear, one must taste it before he has the right give an evaluation. Whether you believe in Falun Gong or not, those who have read “Zhuan Falun” [the main book of Falun Gong] know that it is a book which teaches people to be good and decent. If you don’t mind, just take one copy and read it through . Because if you haven’t read it, you don’t have the right evaluate it.
Translated on January 2, 2002 from
http://www.yuanmingeurope.net/articles/3743.html
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