Humanity's Advance--Reflections upon Reading Bo Yang's Memoirs

In the sweltering heat of early July, Taipei hosted a symposium on the "Problems with Developing Democracy in Taiwan at the Turn of the 21st Century." It was held to commemorate the 100th birthday of Lei Chen and the fifth anniversary of the death of Fu Cheng; both men had struggled all their lives for democracy. Chu Yang-min, Huang Chung, Nieh Hua-ling and others who had worked for Lei's Free China fortnightly returned to Taiwan from their homes overseas. The participation of Lei's 95-year-old widow Song Ying in the memorial service held during the symposium's first session was especially moving.

Although those being honored had already passed away, there was no lack of people to take up where they had left off in the fight for freedom, democracy, and public justice. There was, however, a regrettable discovery regarding the memoirs that Lei Chen had written during the decade he spent in jail. They had years before been confiscated by the government, and Song Ying had petitioned everywhere for their return. But she was informed that the memoirs, which ran to more than 4 million characters in length, had long ago been burned.

After Lei Chen was imprisoned and Free China ceased publication, many intellectuals either went abroad or silenced themselves. Some people said, "Now Bo Yang will start behaving himself!" Yet Bo Yang, who was writing a column for the Independence Evening Post called "Dreaming from My Chair," continued to launch his witty attacks on the government of that era, especially regarding the privileges enjoyed by the powerful and other unfair phenomena, holding that these reflected a dark streak deep within Chinese culture. His humor and criticism ought to have pushed modern Chinese to engage in self-reflection and seek progress.

Most readers will have at least a sketchy understanding of the story that followed: Bo Yang was thrown into jail on charges of "stirring up trouble between the government and the people." For nearly ten years, people weren't sure if he was dead or alive, and Taiwan's society was that much more hushed without him. Yet the people's passion for freedom and democracy had not been extinguished. By the late 1980s, huge strides had been made in economic development, and society had gradually started to open up. In July of 1987 the government announced the end of martial law, and later in the year it began allowing people to travel to the mainland to visit relatives. These were the first steps Taiwan took on its path to democracy, and they also represented the end of several decades of authoritarian rule. But only a few of the dissidents from the early period had been able to survive those years of political oppression. Bo Yang was one of them. Now, 20 years after his release from prison and with the help of his friend Chou Pi-se, he has gone back over a tough life which has moved in step with the course of modern Chinese history, especially after he followed the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949.

Now that direct presidential elections have brought Taiwan into the ranks of the full-fledged democracies, we should be more bold about confronting the past. Bo Yang's story is the story of many Chinese, perhaps even a story of all humanity. Bo Yang's Memoirs have just been published. Our reviewer, Mr. Pu Ta-chung, a political commentator who has for many years been posted in the United States for The China Times, sees in these memoirs an affirmation of human virtue, manifested in the human ability to remember and reflect. Pu Ta-chung hopes that humanity can continue its development through self-exami-nation. In this way Bo Yang's tragic life could end up serving as a page in the history of human progress.

"I deeply believe that blood-soaked hands can be covered for a moment but not forever." After I read the last sentence of Bo Yang's memoirs, I couldn't help sighing as I closed the book. It is only with this kind of faith that humanity can engage in its never-ending struggle with tyranny.

Lu Xun once said that "lies written in ink cannot hide truths written in blood." And only by so believing can people eventually gain the upper hand in the fight against tyranny.

Milan Kundera, the exiled Czech author of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, once said, "The struggle of man against tyranny is the struggle of remembering against forgetting." Tyranny is gradually disappearing from human history only because people are holding firmly to their memories.

The lessening of tyranny is a key reason humanity has jumped to another stage in our collective evolution, not just biologically but in terms of human character, which is even more important for the progress of civilization.

In writing his memoirs, which could be titled the "The Human Progress File," Bo Yang has not only held firm to his personal memories, he has gone further to dig through three thousand years of Chinese history, describing oppressive regimes and the opposition to them, so as to lessen the chances of tyranny's reappearance.

His contribution is not restricted just to preventing the terror of tyranny from reappearing in contemporary Taiwan; he has also achieved a measure of justice for the tortured lost souls who suffered under tyranny for 3000-5000 years of Chinese history, and has planted the seeds of respect for human rights and human dignity in the minds of mainland Chinese.

His contribution is part of humanity's million years of evolution.

Bo Yang's memoirs are a book of modern Chinese history, in which he covers the entire span of the 20th century. Nevertheless, the book's greatest value isn't in what it records from before 1949, but rather in the sad descriptions of his imprisonment on trumped up charges and the period after it. These are to date the most detailed, moving and blood-chilling recollections of Taiwan's "White Terror."

Lei Chen, Li Ching-sun and many others were tortured in horrible prisons, but Bo Yang is the first to thoroughly record his experiences there and compile them into a book. Perhaps the others' reluctance to do so is a result of what psychologists call "post-traumatic stress." Even after the victims of persecution are released from jail, their deep physical and psychological wounds cause fear to become a conditioned response. For many years afterward these people still have frequent nightmares and are scared of doing or saying anything that draws attention to themselves.

This is what the political philosopher Edmund Burke meant by the application of "law and punishment" that not only punishes the mind and spirit of the person it oppresses but also intimidates others and leaves a fearful impression long afterwards. It is punishment for those who challenge the power structure and serves as a lesson to others in society.

The chapters of the book that describe Taiwan's "White Terror" reveal its toll in blood, flesh and tears. Professor Chou Pi-se, the transcriber and compiler of Bo Yang's memoirs, offers a lively and persuasive description of those mysterious and frightening shadows and the unseen hands behind them, which are much like the invisible yet omnipresent powers-that-be described in Kafka's The Castle and The Trial. And its victims didn't just suffer physical torment; they were brutalized even more psychologically and spiritually. It is precisely for this reason that Bo Yang has fought for "procedural justice," to make it impossible to arrest and interrogate people without following proper procedures. Bo Yang knows that this represents the "bare minimum" in a relationship between a government and its citizens, and is nothing extraordinary. But even this took Taiwan's long line of human-rights and democracy activists many years to achieve, and mainland China is still at the stage where people can be arrested at any time, at any place and for any reason. What's even more tragic is that many intellectuals have supported this kind of government in all sorts of ways. They call this self-abusive behavior "neo-authoritarianism" or "neo- conservatism."

Bo Yang's autobiography shows unique courage and a strong spirit. The terror didn't destroy him. In courageously speaking out about this period, he is reminding future generations not to let a similar tragedy befall them. Meanwhile, with courage and knowledge akin to those of a mythical hero, he has made an example out of himself that challenges the national machine. This made me recall how old rightist intellectuals, years after the Cultural Revolution, would shed tears when the party declared that they were no longer rightists. In comparison, Bo Yang is so strong, independent and dignified.

The Chinese are too slave-like, and will need to work harder before they can regain a sense of human dignity. With the Communists now using nationalism to convince people that human rights and democracy are instruments of foreign imperialism, the Chinese struggle for dignity will be even more difficult. Bo Yang's work in this regard is certain to elicit gratitude from future generations.

Thank goodness for Bo Yang and Chou Pi-se. Otherwise we wouldn't know about the horror of tyranny and the preciousness of freedom and dignity. We wouldn't know that people need not pass their days like that, but rather can pass their days like we do now.

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Title: Bo Yang's Memoirs

Author: Recounted by Bo Yang, Compiled by Chou Pi-se

Publisher: Yuan Liou, NT$420

Pages: 409

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His experiences in jail take up half of the memoirs. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)