sweet suppression

so i had to shake the glitter out of my hair swiftly on monday morning (while poor ayi was at home cleaning up the crime scene). on the very day that there was already a roundtable scheduled bringing together china's top public interest lawyers to discuss the seemingly tightening climate, we awoke to news of two more lawyers having had their licenses revoked for political reasons. this is just the latest in a string of instances of the license-renewal procedures being used to apply pressure to or punish lawyers who take on cases that the government deems sensitive or unfavourable. some argue that the intention is to intimidate the legal profession into advocating strictly within party lines (and presumably with the party's voice). in the case of tang jitian and liu wei, their efforts to represent a member of the banned spiritual movement falungong resulted in their being banned for life from practicing law. tang sees their punishment as a warning to other lawyes. ahh, sweet suppression. as described in an AP story:

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice posted separate notices Friday on its website announcing that Liu and Tang had lost their licenses. The notices said the pair had "disobeyed court personnel and disrupted order in the courtroom" during an April 2009 trial at the Luzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province.

The lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men. Tang and Liu eventually walked out of the courtroom after they objected to being videotaped — which is illegal in Chinese courtrooms — and the court descended into chaos.

in addition to the seeming illegality of the lawyers' treatment at trial, the process by which tang and liu's fates were decided did not comply with the requisite administrative procedures - such as providing the lawyers an opportunity to see the evidence against them (apparently a letter from the luzhou court to the beijing muncipal justice bureau recommending they be punished) - and is deeply disturbing.

as i see more and more of this happening, and am inspired by the courageous lawyers who continue to advocate for real justice nonetheless, i finally appreciate how suprression can slowly make one more radical. the government's attempt to divide the legal profession into "bad" rights-protective rabble-rousers and "good" commercial or uncontroversial public interest lawyers is a blow to the inegrity of the profession as a whole. all attorneys are rights protective. or should be, whether they are protecting corporate interests or freedom of religion. i see how this tactic can compel even a "good" lawyer to do a little "bad" rights work in order to highlight the incoherency and immorality of this divisive approach.

and yet, even amid the sweet suppression there remain moments of authentic sweetness. i realized this at the aforementioned roundtable. i believe it was martin luther king who said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. i have faith that he is right.

the full catastrophe

in zorba the greek * nikos kazantzakis gives us the wonderful image of life as “the full catastrophe”. although i think in that moment, he was speaking more marriage, kids, a house, i think it's more universal than that. even without those particular tornadoes, the winds of life will rock us no matter where we are. we all have our full catastrophes. zorba's way is to dance in the gale of the full catastrophe.... to celebrate life, to laugh with it and at himself, even in the face of personal failure and defeat. in doing so, he is never weighed down for long, never ultimately defeated either by the world or by his own considerable folly. of course, zorba himself must have been quite a catastrophe for his wife and kids and the others in his path. a loving and outrageous and wonderful one, but a catastrophe nonetheless. what i appreciate about that phrase is that it captures the human spirit's capacity to smile into the winds that blow us about, to come to terms with life's howling difficulties and find within them space for growth and grace. and i love the imperative to dance through the full catastrophe.(note to self: another mantra! use it.)

it has been a full catastrophe of a weekend so far and it's not even saturday night yet. people will be coming over in a few hours to eat cheese and drink wine and smile at life. i've just made hummus. and the early pattern of the tree branches against the early evening sky out my window is like dripping laughter. spent both last night and this morning in the company of wonderful women friends. well, and an italian football team and a room full of outrageous, whimsical hats (not at the same time). but those are stories for another time. in other miraculous news, my partners learned how to use emoticons. and a newly engaged friend is happily glowing in the joy and challenges of it all. so many gorgeous winds blowing!

in this quiet eye of the storm, i find myself wanting to stay very still and listen to my thoughts. almost like listening to my breath in meditation.** it has been an overwhelming week. with the winds of life's wonder and terror whirling about. as ever.

one of the more unfortunate winds that has been forcefully blowing through beijing these days is the continued suppression of public interest lawyers. i had lunch on friday with some of the leaders of china's women's rights movements and the founders of a women's legal aid organisation. i am humbled by how much they have accomplished. their uncompromising commitment to justice, their tenacity, their thoughtful approach to their work, and their playful spirits. their centre was at beijing university (beida) since it was established fourteen years ago. but earlier this week, the university told them they could only stay at beida if they stopped doing cases. they could continue to do research, but, as the centre's founder pointed out, their entire purpose was bringing cases. you can hardly champion women's legal rights much outside the courtroom. and, as i said to her, what they presented you was not an option. they had no choice but to go. this was devastating news to me. it was clearly the government directing beida to silence them. the organisation had no choice but to disassociate from beida and is now considering other options for registration. being associated with a university gives legal public interest organisations such as this one the political cover necessary to enable them to work. by being cast out, it's a clear signal from the government that it does not welcome their cases. and there are myriad obstacles to registering as an NGO in china. luckily, they have a law firm as part of their centre with independent registration so they can continue to work on their cases even as they try to resolve how to move ahead. their cases are vital to trying to push the legal charade of china's legal system towards justice, legitimacy and rule of law.

they recently tried to get involved in a horrific case here in beijing. a 20-year-old rural woman from anhui province came to beijing as a petitioner under china's system allowing individuals to petition the government for wrongs and express grievances. sadly, many of beijing's petitioners end up being detained and imprisoned in "black jails" where they are often abused, tortured, and intimidated into silence before they are trucked back home. (the chinese government official denies that they exist, but they are well-documented. a recent human rights watch report on china's abusive black jails: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/11/12/alleyway-hell-0.) another tactic (and the experience of a woman represented by the centre in a separate case) is for the authorities to declare petitioners mentally ill, imprison them in psychiatric hospitals institutions and heavily medicate them. (see a friend's excellent report on this here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01s3066qb75.)

this particular young woman's fate was even worse. she was raped by the guards in the black jail. others were in the room at the time (there are a large number of petitioner-prisoners per room and genders are mixed), but they were too afraid of being beaten to do anything to stop it or even scream. someone in the prison reported the story via sms and soon the black jail and soon the place was swarmed by NGO representatives and reporters. the guards tried to clean up the blood and destroy the evidence and sealed the room. the young woman was returned to her village in anhui and told not to petition again. she has decided to bring a lawsuit against her attacker(s). the women i was lunching with had tried to become involved in her case, but she was only permitted to have a government-appointed attorney. they were furious because that attorney said nothing at all during the initial court proceeding they had just attended. and they also learned that the local government was offering large sums of money to the young woman's uneducated parents to buy her silence. the case will go forward, but it already such a perversion of justice.***

but, as we considered the current situation for public interest lawyering over lunch, we concluded that there is no justice in china. it was a heavy meal, and not just because of all the delicious dofu. i was really just so distraught to hear about this group's being booted from beida. i tried to provide some lightness by joking "who needs public justice when there's such good food in china?" only my work wife laughed. sarcasm in general and my jokes in particular don't translate particularly well. i am aware of this, but resist ceasing my amusing commentary in chinese. even if it is only amusing to me. it's all part of the full catastrophe.

this feels a very heavy place to conclude. but our capacity for both for goodness and disgrace, compassion and despair are all whirling in the gales of the full catastrophe. and to dance through it is to know them all.

*this was also the name of my first cat - zorba the greek. although i apparently couldn't quite pronounce "greek" so ended up calling him "zorba the geek". in the end, he was "zorbie". he was a great companion and an old soul. i am sure we will meet again in other lifetimes.

**confession: i am not skilled at meditation. in fact, i can't really do it. so i feel a bit guilty about even writing that sentence lest it give a false impression. but i aspire to meditate. or do so in the abstract. but actually sitting myself down and doing it is really beyond my abilities at this point.

***although today's news reminds us that the chinese haven't entirely cornered the market on the perversion of justice. apparently doing cartwheels is evidence of murder in italy these days: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/world/europe/05italy.html?ref=global-home; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/?scp=2&sq=amanda%20knox&st=cse. and principles of open government and accountability are quietly being strangled the states: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05sat2.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

the legal charade offers an opportunity

i celebrated thanksgiving yesterday with a warm and wonderful collection of "beijing family". we were american, canadian, chinese, german, french, italian, australian. it was the first thanksgiving for some, a familiar tradition for others. after the meal, i encouraged everyone to go around the table and share what they were thankful for. that sharing seems to me to be the whole purpose of the holiday. (although i understand that some say overeating is the real agenda.) in any case, when it was my turn, after being thankful for my nephews, my family and friends and other blessings of the past year, i said i was thankful for the legal charade in this country has given me the opportunity to do such meaningful work. a bit cynical, perhaps, but i stumbled across the expression this week and it more accurately captures my work here than any other term.

i came across the "legal charade" concept in philip pan's excellent 'out of mao's shadow', which i have been meaning to read for some time but only just did so. it's very well arranged, thoughtful, and thought-provoking. in a chapter about one of the weiquan (rights protecting) lawyers there is this illuminating passage:

given the city's reputation for corruption, it seemed doubtful he had much of a chance of winning the case, and i asked him why he was even bothering. he laughed, and acknowledges that he didn't expect to win. "i still have to do a good job," he explained. "that's my obligation to my clients." but there was more to it than that. the party claimed to govern by the rule of law. it debated legislation, set up courts, hired judges, held trials - it wrapped itself in the trappings of the law, because doing so conferred an aura of legitimacy on it. it was a charade, of course. the party spent three times more on its riot control police than it did on courts and prosecutors, and when push came to shove, it believed it had the authority to do whatever it wanted, legal or not. pu understood this as well as anyone. but he believed the legal charade offered an opportunity. using the courtroom as a stage, he intended to present a convincing case to the public. if he did a good job, the party could still rule against him, but it would have to drop the charade, expose its commitment to the law as a fraud, and pay a price in damage to its image. the stronger the case he presented, pu believed, the higher that price would be, and if it were high enough, party leaders might think twice about putting themselves above the legal system. in that moment of hesitation, something remarkable could happen. the charade could become a reality and the party could be constrained by its own sham laws.

i recognized my own work, so humble in comparison to the courageous work of the weiquan lawyers, in this passage. we are also well aware of the charade and operate by ceaselessly finding spaces where that hesitation might allow justice to rush in.

i didn't mean to be insulting when i said i was thankful for the charade. the chinese people deserve so much better. but without the charade the situation would be much bleaker. at least the illusion of the rule of law provides hope that one day the party will be compelled to live up to its own laws. what progress has been made in recent years - what freedoms and rights the chinese people now enjoy - has come only because individuals have demanded and fought for it, and because the party has retreated in the face of such pressure. the hope is therefore essential to securing even greater freedom in china. and for that hope i am thankful.

i seem to be having a number of conversations about china's future lately. what else is there to talk about, really? ; ). i am always surprised at how easily outsiders are willing to overlook or throw a shiny gloss on the situation here. how there's a subtle cringe that certain people make when i call this country's government what it is: authoritarian. i understand china is seen as the land of incredible, limitless economic opportunity. (and the corporate authoritarian government wants you to see her that way.) but are the opportunities credible without rule of law? and is market access worth wearing blinders for? i sometimes wonder why it seems that the world coddles china and swallows the governments glossy images. she doesn't coddle us.

it is an interesting time to be back here. i am curious to see whether the charade will ever unravel and am intrigued to see how such events it will unfold. in the meanwhile, we beat on, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

season for spices and suppression

the sky out my window today is a sickly grey. the buildings are also grey. decidedly uninspiring. but i have ceased to look to the weather for inspiration.

'tis the season to be thankful. plus, i am being grateful each day (now that's inspiring). today i am thankful for freedom of speech. the lastest supression 'round these parts was the three year sentence handed down to a citizen who was crticial of the shoddy school construction (due to local corruption) in sichuan province that caused the deaths of thousands of children's during the earthquake last year. (the government refuses to release the exact figure for the number of children killed.) huang qi, who assisted parents who lost children in the quake press the local government, was convicted of the illegal possession of state secrets and sentenced to three years. his trial was closed and supporters were barred from entering the courtroom. more here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/asia/24quake.html?scp=2&sq=huang%20qi&st=cse

i wonder what the state secrets he possessed were? the truth? or at least a desire to unearth it amid the rubble? people say that the first casualty of any conflict is truth. and, in some sense, the chinese model for developing the current corporate authoritarian state has been creating a sense of constant conflict and completely controlling information. (mr. huang forgot that only the party has the truth here. he will now have a few years to "improve his thinking" while in prison.) the conflicts have shifted over the years - from rightists, capitalist roaders, intellectuals and landlords to foreigners, independent media, the dalai lama and "mastermind" rebiya kadeer. but the essential formula hasn't been altered all that much. of course, why mix up what has been so successful?

speaking of mixing up, i am somehow going to three thanksgiving dinners in four days this weekend. and will be attempting to make pumpkin pie. (my obssessive baking has been tempered by other interests of late.) which has me thinking about spices. i love having them about in the kitchen. even the ones i barely use or buy randomly on a whim. there's a great security in spices. what exactly i'm not sure. variety? freedom of flavour? the safety that when all else has been destroyed you can subsist on oregano and cumin? just looking at the spice rack puts me in a good mood. re-arranging it is downright therapuetic. so i look forward to seasoning the pie on saturday. and maybe making some bread as well. (confession: the other reason for the baking lull is my inability to light my oven without calling the compound mr. fixit (or, as we say, the "master craftsman") to assist. it's really rather embarassing and he thinks i am hopeless. although there really appears to be something wrong with the oven. this is the same fellow who, when i've had to call about computer issues, bruskly enters my flat, gives me the once over and asks, "did you turn it on"? he really thinks i'm not the brightest crayon in the box. but no matter.)

if not the brightest, i am feeling bright despite these grey skies. and, although not graceful, i will bravely return to ballet class this evening. (unless a roasted sweet potato detains me..... tis the season after all.)

heroes in the seaweed

on friday evening i found myself stuck in a traffic jam at rush hour, facing a logistical jungle gym of evening engagements, having recently been called regarding a minor work crisis, but serenely happy and in buoyed spirits. this was because i had just come from a meeting about public interest law in china at the offices of a remarkable collection of chinese public interest lawyers who work on children's rights, and migrant worker's rights, and other issues. their offices are in fengtai district, which may as well be another province because it seems so far away. but every time i make the journey out there, i am so inspired. the commitment, compassion, and courage of these lawyers just never fails to move me. and to make me feel as though my own small piece in china's rule of law puzzle makes sense somehow, or is worth it.

i think my spirits were in need of such a lift this friday after a women's rights program i had worked very hard on was cancelled, an environmental program in wuhan did not go so well (our trainers were terrible, in a word), and i've been increasingly finding the distance part of being in a long distance relationship difficult. friday was an incredibly windy day, so as my taxi snaked through the city, the beijing smog was being gusted about, sporadically swooshing up against the window and reminding me to pay attention. those windy alerts assisted in my appreciating and holding on to the sense of purpose and calm i carried with me as i left fengtai. there are heroes in the seaweed. and i am privileged to know some of them.

the wind also cleared out the skies for saturday, when i woke up early and went hiking near and on one of the more remote parts of the wall. it was a perfect day. amazing autumn weather - clear blue skies and sunshine, crisp air with just a slight chill as the wind blue. and the leaves were just turning and falling. and the company was lovely. i found myself hopping on one leg and dancing around just because i was feeling joyful and full of life. throwing leaves around like a child. why do we learn to suppress our spontaneity (or at least spontaneous explosions of joy) as adults? so dull, really. it was grand. am now thinking of a mary oliver poem a friend shared with me recently. ahem:

Self-Portrait by Mary Oliver

I wish I was twenty and in love with life
and still full of beans.

Onward, old legs!
There are the long, pale dunes; on the other side
the roses are blooming and finding their labor
no adversity to the spirit.

Upward, old legs! There are the roses, and there is the sea
shining like a song, like a body
I want to touch

though I'm not twenty
and won't be again but ah! seventy. And still
in love with life. And still
full of beans.

not twenty and won't be again but ah! thiry-one. and still in love with life. and still full of beans. my program this week is still cancelled. and i am still not sure how to resolve the challenge of distance. but i am remembering to appreciate the way the late afternoon light filters through the trees in the fields as i walk through the chinese countryside. and remembering to notice the beauty in the yellowing leaves. and appreciating learning a new recipe for olive tapenade (add sunflower seeds for some extra nuttiness!). and feeling thankful for the chance to know some of the heroes in the seaweed.

love and beans. love and beans!

on suppression and short shorts

so, clearly my post-a-day plan crumbled. i could blame the firewall or my frequent travels to second tier cities to ganbei (do shots of) mediocre hongjiu (red wine) with local partners. i could bemoan my frustrating lack of email access on a few critical occasions (june 4 / 20th anniversary of the tiananmen massacre) just after writing amazing, insightful collections of thoughts that i am unable to share. i could claim that i have been too caught up in life - pushing forward the frontiers of the rule of law (update: still no independent judiciary in china), keeping track of little trouble (takes more time than you'd think), and searching for new and interesting ways to consume red bean (latest obsession: red bean and yogurt popsicles). instead, i will not attempt to make excuses. in fact, these months of silence are liberating in a sense. i can now safely assuming that anyone who was attempting to read my musings has given up so i can write with the comfort of anonymity, knowing that i am just writing for myself. which is what i sat down to do today.

i determined that it's time for reflection in light of my recent birthday and all that has been happening in this land of late. birthdays always make me thoughtful. so does the imprisonment of human rights lawyers. and pollution. and bad haircuts. i am wearing my “inspi(red)” t-shirt at the moment, perhaps to make up for the uninspiring weather. it's as though a pall has descended on or been draped over the city for the last few weeks. the sky and air are grey, and it is oppressively hot. it’s perhaps appropriate; were i to pick a word to describe the essence of beijing this august it would be ‘suppression’. maybe that’s the name of paint colour of the beijing sky were it to be tinned: ‘suppression: beijing grey’ – looks great in bathrooms!

the suppression has been disheartening and weighing heavily on me (not unlike the polluted haze that you cannot escape breathing). i sometimes wish that i could not let it get to me, that i could not get tangled up in it emotionally. but i have come to accept that, even as i am every seeking to quiet my mind and cultivate the inner tranquility which transcends outer experience, feeling deeply is simply part of who i am. i feel the suppression of which i speak – the assault on gong meng / the open constitution initiative, a Chinese legal NGO doing public interest advocacy entirely within the bounds of the law, and the detaining of xu zhiyong, its founder, and zhuang lu, its sweet young financial manger; the announcement by the MOJ that all law firms will have a party liaison to monitor their work; the reminder from above that the role of lawyers is to serve the party leadership; and the continued and increasingly widespread control of the internet – in the same way that i feel this oppressive, pollute heat. it is all around and only seems to be getting worse. more disturbing shades of grey, hotter, and more quietly tolerated as simply the way things are.

sadly, it seems that the prevailing idea in the international rule of law community over the last few months – that this is just a sensitive time – may be misguided, a collective willing illusion perhaps. this suppression, and the party’s seeing lawyers as a threat to their power, seems here to stay. not something that is likely to abate after national day and the 60th anniversary festivities have concluded. i’m afraid this particular shade of control won’t wash away after a rainstorm like the polluted air. and i fear for what this means, not only for china, but the world. china’s power and size cannot be underestimated. astute point that, i know, but i think it needs to be said over and over again. especially when so many – individuals, artists, economies, nations, corporations, NGOs, journalists – are willing to self-censor and resist speaking truth to power in order to gain access to china. but is market access / relationship building / the capacity to do programming in the people’s republic worth it? it’s something i struggle with.

one positive aspect of this increasingly grey backdrop to my life is that it compliments my miserable new hair colour. long story short: (1 attempt to get subtle highlights before my sisters wedding + 1 inexperienced stylist who had never touched blonde hair before = madonna meets jessica rabbit strawberry bottle blonde nightmare) x (1 senior stylist who insisted he could “fix it” + 4 more hours of torture involving various shades of purple) = a head full of deep purple / brown hair best described as “ripe plum”. with time, that shade has faded to a reddish brown (goes great with suppression!). and most of my hair has now been chopped off. (as the (new) stylist who cut it said, my hair was “huai le” or broken, so had to go.) not exactly the look i was going for as i properly enter and embrace my 30s, but a good lesson in what really matters in life (spirit, love) and what doesn’t (hair, superficial form).

a word on being “in my 30s”. i am now 31. on my birthday, i sat down to compose a list for myself of 31 thoughts on being 31. (i have recently also accepted that i love lists. unfortunately only lists of impractical things – dreams, ideas, places to visit, interesting meditations or quotes, interesting words, plays i will produce one day in my political theatre, names for my future children, names for my current imaginary pets, images i want to use in somewhere in a piece of writing some day, pros and cons. lists of practical things – groceries, errands, things i need for the flat, things to pick up when i am back in north america to bring back – have no interest to me and i can never, or at least rarely bring myself to make them. instead, i make grocery lists in my head and invariably cannot find them when i am at the market. standing lost amid the spices, however, i could easily rummage around in my bag and pull out a list of 30 things to do in my 30s i made on my last birthday that is still in my diary. this is a deeply flawed system.) when i decided to list 31 thoughts on being 31, i didn’t get very far. it felt too monumental a task. i was turning all metaphysical, hippie-zen-slumber-party-theology on myself and thinking of thoughts like “there is only love” and somehow i couldn’t have that as thought number 2. thought number 1 was easy: “it might be time to stop wearing short shorts”. to avoid swimming through pools of my own existential and spiritual angst, questioning, joy, and overthinking, i decided to stop the list there. so my deep thought on turning 31 is that it might be time to stop wearing short-shorts. operative word in that sentence being “might”.

in all seriousness, i am trying not to take this birthday – and the attendant social pressures that seem to come with it – too seriously. but it has not always been easy. especially with all my brooding on and breathing in various shades of grey lately, i have found myself questioning what i am doing and where i am going – in so many senses – in a more urgent way than i did a few short weeks ago when i was a sweet, young, wisp of a girl. there’s something more substantial about being 31. time to be wholly yourself, unapologetically, and give deeply, love unconditionally, and not compromise. though i suppose we ought to do that at any age. always.