{"id":162225,"date":"2013-08-29T21:29:48","date_gmt":"2013-08-30T04:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=162225"},"modified":"2013-08-29T21:29:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-30T04:29:48","slug":"teng-biao-confessions-reactionary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2013\/08\/teng-biao-confessions-reactionary\/","title":{"rendered":"Teng Biao: Confessions of a Reactionary"},"content":{"rendered":"
Amid a mounting crackdown on liberal voices<\/a>, China Change translates an essay by rights lawyer Teng Biao<\/a> on the cost of activism in China<\/strong><\/a>. The essay is dedicated to his friend Xu Zhiyong, who was arrested last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n When Xu Zhiyong and I received the \u201cTen People in Rule of Law in 2003\u201d award at CCTV, the host Sa Beining (\u6492\u8d1d\u5b81) asked us, \u201cWhat is the power of the rule of law?\u201d I said, \u201cit is when everyone will stand up fighting for the rule of law.\u201d At the time, neither Xu Zhiyong nor myself, nor the two sponsors of the event \u2014 CCTV and the State Office for Disseminating the Law \u2014 would have thought that, in a few years, the two of us would become \u201crights activists,\u201d \u201cdissidents,\u201d \u201celements of the New Five Black Types<\/a>,\u201d or in short, \u201cthe enemies of the state.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile though, this outcome is so natural and inevitable.<\/p>\n [\u2026] In the end, the spiritual resistance against totalitarianism will inevitably become physical resistance against it. We are calculating, at any given moment, the ratio of the spirit and the flesh in our lives. I am scared of death but am courting it; I\u2019m indomitable but fainthearted at the same time. Every moment of my life is brimming with happiness, but just as much of it is imbued with pain. Such are the confessions of a reactionary. <\/p>\n\n