PEN International marks the ten-year anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to writer, literary critic and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo on 10 December 2010. PEN’s Liu Xiaobo Anniversary Campaign acts as a commemoration of Liu Xiaobo’s life, his contribution to Chinese literature, and his selfless work promoting basic freedoms in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

The campaign also highlights the cases of writers Gui Minhai, Kunchok Tsephel, Yang Hengjun and Qin Yongmin who are currently detained by the PRC government. The campaign seeks to raises awareness of their situation, to boost advocacy work on their behalf and to ensure that they and their families feel supported and not forgotten. 

The following links to PEN’s campaign. Below is text and Chinese translation of my video tribute to Liu:

 

Hello, I’m Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, Vice President Emeritus of PEN International.

 

您好！我是乔安尼•利多姆-阿克曼，国际笔会荣休副会长。

 

Ten years ago, essayist, poet, activist and PEN member Liu Xiaobo was the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. Liu envisioned and worked towards a peaceful and democratic pathway for China. Beginning with the protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and through the subsequent decades, he spoke out and wrote and gathered people and ideas in support of a China where individual freedom was valued and protected.

 

十年前，散文家、诗人、活动家、笔会成员刘晓波成为首位荣获诺贝尔和平奖的中国公民。刘先生设想并致力于中国走向和平民主的道路。他从1989年天安门广场抗议运动开始，在随后数十年言说和书写，并聚集民众及理念，以支持一个重视和保护个人自由的中国。

 

In 2008, he and others drafted Charter 08, which set out this democratic vision. He and others gathered hundreds and then thousands of signatures from Chinese citizens who endorsed the vision. Charter 08 did not call for an overthrow of the government so much as a transformation of the way government related to its citizens in a transition to a democratic society that would include freedom of expression and assembly.

 

2008年，他和其他人起草了《 零八宪章》，阐明这一民主愿景。他们从支持这一愿景的中国公民那里汇集了成百上千人签名。 《零八宪章》并未呼吁推翻政府，而是要转变政府相对于公民的方式，转型为包括言论自由和集会自由的民主社会。

 

Liu Xiaobo has been called the Nelson Mandela or Václav Havel of China because of his ideas, his activism and his leadership. Like Havel, Liu was committed to nonviolent action as a means of achieving change, and he was an inspired writer.

 

刘晓波因其理念、言行和领导能力而被称为中国的曼德拉或哈维尔。像哈维尔一样，刘晓波也致力于以非暴力行动来实现变革，他是一位受鼓舞的作家。

 

I first encountered Liu Xiaobo through PEN. After the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, PEN worked on behalf of the writers who had been arrested in the protest, including Liu Xiaobo. Liu had also been instrumental in persuading students to leave the Square before the soldiers and tanks rolled in to attack and possibly kill them. At the time of Tiananmen Square, I was President of PEN Center USA West. A few years later when Liu was again imprisoned for his writing, I was Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee.

 

我首先通过笔会遭遇刘晓波。在1989年天安门广场镇压后，笔会致力于代表在抗议活动中被捕的作家，包括刘晓波。刘晓波还曾劝说学生离开广场，以免士兵和坦克席卷攻入广场可能杀死他们。在天安门广场抗议时，我担任美国西部笔会会会长。几年后，当刘晓波再次因写作而被监禁时，我是国际笔会狱中作家委员会主席。

 

Liu Xiaobo then went on to become one of the founders and the second President of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), whose members lived inside and outside of China. He was instrumental in establishing the platforms by which these writers could communicate and share ideas about a society where freedom of expression and democratic processes could exist.

 

刘晓波随后成为独立中文笔会（ICPC）的创始人之一和第二任会长，该笔会成员居住在中国境内和海外。他发挥作用建立起这个平台，这些作家们可以借此平台，交流和分享有关这样一个社会的理念，在那里言论自由和民主进程得以存在。

 

During the time Liu was President of ICPC, I was the International Secretary of PEN. However, Liu was not allowed out of mainland China into Hong Kong where ICPC had its meetings, and I didn’t get to the mainland until in 2010 after he was arrested for the fourth and final time, so we never met in person, though over decades I have worked with many of his colleagues.

 

在刘晓波担任独立中文笔会会长期间，我曾担任国际笔会秘书长。然而，他没获准离开中国大陆前往独立中文笔会举行会议的香港，而直到他 第四次也是最后一次被捕后的2010年，我才去中国大陆，因此我们从未亲身见面，尽管数十年来我一直与他的许多同事共同工作。

 

Liu Xiaobo was the writer the Chinese government feared the most and therefore arrested. Liu was charged as “an enemy of the state” for “incitement of subverting state power” because of his ideas, his writing and his participation in the drafting and circulating of Charter 08. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison. He was the only recipient of the Nobel Prize who was in prison at the time and not allowed to attend the ceremony. Only an empty chair represented him. His wife Liu Xia was also not allowed to attend. Liu Xiaobo died in custody July 13, 2017.

 

刘晓波是中国政府最害怕的作家，因此而被捕。由于其理念、写作并参与起草和传播《 零八宪章》，刘晓波被指控为“煽动颠覆国家政权”的“国家敌人”。他被判处了十一年徒刑。他是当时在监狱中而未被允许参加颁奖典礼的唯一诺贝尔奖得主，只有一把空椅子代表他。他的妻子刘霞也被禁止出席。刘晓波于2017年7月13日去世。

 

After his death, writers around the world who knew him began to write about him, his work, about China and the path of liberalism and democratic aspirations. This year THE JOURNEY OF LIU XIAOBO: FROM DARK HORSE TO NOBEL LAUREATE was published containing  more than 75 of these essays—probably the largest gathering of writing from China’s democracy activists—and is both a memoir and tribute to  Liu Xiaobo and a study of China’s Democracy Movement.

 

他去世后，全世界了解他的作家开始书写他及其作品，书写中国以及自由主义和民主理想之路。今年出版了《刘晓波之旅程：从黑马到诺奖得主》（文文版），包含75篇以上的文章，可能是来自中国民主活动人士的最大笔墨聚会，既是对刘晓波的回忆致敬，也是对中国民主运动的研究。

 

China’s Democracy Movement and Liu Xiaobo’s legacy still inspire those inside and outside of China, from the mainland to Xinjiang to Tibet to Hong Kong and to neighboring countries engaged in the struggle for political reform and an end to authoritarian rule.

 

中国民主运动和刘晓波的遗产，仍然激励着中国内外的人们，从大陆到新疆，到西藏，再到香港，再到争取政治改革和结束专制统治的邻国。

 

Some have said that because of China’s ascendency in the last decade, the legacy of Liu Xiaobo has been reduced to nothing. But a longer view of history shows that the same was said of those visionaries and martyrs for free societies in Eastern Europe and South Africa.

 

有人说，由于近十年来的中国崛起，刘晓波的遗产被削减为零。然而，更长的历史证明，同样的说法也曾针对过那些在东欧和南非争取自由社会的远见者和烈士们。

 

Societies move forward and are changed by ideas, by leaders, and ultimately by their citizens. Liu Xiaobo did not aspire to personal power, but those in power came to fear him because he understood how to move ideas into action.

 

社会向前发展，并通过理念、领导者及最终通过其公民而改变。刘晓波并不渴望个人权力，但是当权者却开始害怕他，正因为他知道如何将理念付诸行动。

 

As individuals one by one—be they writers, lawyers, academics or others—are put into prison and taken out of the discourse, those in power attempt to maintain their control. That is why it is important to keep an eye not only on the monolith of regimes and government, but to protect the individuals who hold the powerful to account.

 

当作家、律师、学者或其他人一个接一个地被关进监狱并从话语中带走时，当权者试图维持其控制。这就是为什么重要的不仅是着眼于政权的垄断和政府问题，而且要保护那些向当权者追责的个人。

 

Liu Xiaobo declared, “Freedom of expression is the foundation of human rights, the source of humanity, and the mother of truth.”

 

刘晓波声言：“表达自由，人权之基，人性之本，真理之母。”

 

Liu Xiaobo insisted that to transition to a state that one wanted to live in, one needed to have citizens who represented those values even in the struggle.

 

刘晓波坚持认为，要过渡到一个人们想要生活的国度，就需要有即使在斗争中也代表那些价值观的公民。

 

I’d like to read from his Final Statement to the judge who sentenced him: “…now I have been once again shoved into the dock by the enemy mentality of the regime. But I still want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by the convictions…I have no enemies and no hatred…Hatred can rot away at a person’s intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation’s progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation’s development and social change, to counter the regime’s hostility with utmost goodwill and to dispel hatred with love.”

 

我要朗读他的《我的最后陈述》，是他写给判决他的法官的：“……现在又再次被政权的敌人意识推上了被告席，但我仍然要对这个剥夺我自由的政权说，我坚守着……信念——我没有敌人，也没有仇恨。……仇恨会腐蚀一个人的智慧和良知，敌人意识将毒化一个民族的精神，煽动起你死我活的残酷斗争，毁掉一个社会的宽容和人性，阻碍一个国家走向自由民主的进程。所以，我希望自己能够超越个人的遭遇来看待国家的发展和社会的变化，以最大的善意对待政权的敌意，以爱化解恨。”

 

After Liu Xiaobo’s death, a colleague who had known and worked with him for decades was asked if he thought Xiaobo would have changed his statement had he known his end. His friend said No, that his final statement and sentiment that “I have no enemies, no hatred” was at the heart of who Liu Xiaobo was.

 

刘晓波去世后，一位与他认识并合作了数十年的同道被问到，如果刘晓波知道自己的结局，他是否认为晓波会改变自己的陈述。他的朋友说“不会”，因为“我没有敌人，也没有仇恨”的最后陈述和观点，正是刘晓波其人的核心。

 

Now Liu Xiaobo’s beloved wife Liu Xia, who is herself a poet, will read one of his poems written to her: “Van Gogh and You” addressed to “Little Xia”:

 

现在，刘晓波的挚爱妻子，自己也是诗人的刘霞，将朗诵他写给她的一首诗：《梵高与你——给小霞》：