Zou Xingtong: Mother’s Day ～ A Letter to the Tiananmen Mothers

Hello, Tiananmen Mothers!

I received the testimonies you wrote for the Hong Kong Alliance subversion case, and I am both grateful and apprehensive. I am grateful for your courageous words, and also grateful that you still care about those of us who have disappeared into prison for several years.

But what makes me apprehensive is that I always feel we are unworthy of the praise and thanks you expressed in your testimonies. We are merely doing what we ought to do, and we have not even done it particularly well. To this day, we have still been unable to fulfil our promise to you: to seek justice and the truth for the victims of June Fourth. In my heart, I would rather hear you reproach us for failing to do our job than hear—and even less can I accept—your thanks.

After all, your children and loved ones died on behalf of us all. They bore the most brutal moment of the dictatorship and won breathing space for us. To preserve their memory is to safeguard this space; it is to protect ourselves. This has never been merely the matter of the bereaved, or of others, but is truly our matter, our self-rescue. The insignificant gestures we have made—whether candlelight or expressions of concern—fall far short of what we owe you, and cannot compensate for what you have lost.

We are the only ones who should ever have said thank you. It is your love, courage and steadfastness that have continually inspired countless Hong Kong people like a lighthouse, and shown us how to live with dignity and without servility under tyranny and amid tragedy. It is your standing up that gave this movement resisting tyranny and lies its backbone, and brought together a community that holds justice as its highest principle, allowing us not to lose our way even amid the most violent political storms. It can be said that without you, there would have been neither the sea of candlelight of these 30 years nor the Hong Kong people of today.

Amid the constantly changing circumstances, we still do not have a good answer as to how to continue this movement in pursuit of justice. The defence in court is one attempt, which is why we are particularly moved that you are still willing to stand with us in this new endeavour. We will also work to bring your voices before the court, and in this new battlefield engrave the truth of June Fourth, just as we have engraved it in the soil of Victoria Park.

Although this is an absurd trial in which the plaintiffs have become the defendants, a trial is ultimately a public process capable of examining facts and leaving behind testimony and evidence. Let us therefore take this opportunity to write all our accusations against the executioners into the record of this trial, leaving behind a record that even the authorities cannot deny or erase. So there is no need to think of any defence or plea for leniency on our behalf; simply speaking out about all the facts that those in power are determined to conceal will be a great help.

And one day, we will make the killers stand in the dock and face these testimonies written in blood and tears, and return this inverted trial and this inverted world to the right path. After all, never giving up is what we promised you, and what we promised the many souls of the dead. To break our word would be too shameful for us Hong Kong people.

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, and thank you even more for still being willing to walk alongside us. Please also take very good care of yourselves. I still look forward to the day when I can thank you in person and place a small white flower together with you in the square. I believe it will not be long now.

Lastly ～ let me also...