Ai Weiwei, Art, and Rights in China

Transcription

1 Ai Weiwei, Art, and Rights in China Minky Worden Social Research: An International Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1, Spring 2016, pp (Article) Published by Johns Hopkins University Press For additional information about this article No institutional affiliation (30 Jun :06 GMT)

2 Minky Worden Ai Weiwei, Art, and Rights in China in a memorable opening scene from the 2012 documentary film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, the famed artist s cat jumps from the floor onto a door handle to open a door. The cat who can open the door is a pretty good metaphor for Ai Weiwei himself his art is very much like a magic doorway into contemporary China, and his political struggles have touched on many of the challenges of artists, writers and activists in China today. Ai Weiwei first came to the attention of many outside China through his contributions to the Beijing 2008 Olympics. The opening ceremonies were in a stadium known as the Bird s Nest, a groundbreaking and instantly iconic building whose concept arose from Ai Weiwei s creativity. Today in China, buildings like the Bird s Nest tall skyscrapers and hubs of the country s global commerce give the impression of an open and modern society. The government controls considerable foreign debt and throws its weight around in global settings. On the one hand, the Chinese government is rich and powerful, projecting strength at home and abroad. On the other hand, Chinese officials are insecure enough to attempt to silence the parents of thousands of children who died needlessly in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. And thuggish enough to try to muzzle Ai Weiwei, one of China s great personalities and artists. In the end, Ai Weiwei distanced himself from the Bird s Nest, and part of the reason was the 2008 earthquake in China s Sichuan province. In that quake, as many as 5,000 children died. Buildings collapsed and children were killed because corrupt officials had taken social research Vol. 83 : No. 1 : Spring

3 bribes to build schools with unreinforced concrete in an earthquake zone. In some cases, the buildings on either side of the schools remained standing. When there is a natural disaster, a catastrophe, it is the responsibility of the government to collect the names and the ages of children who died. The Chinese government should have documented the name and age of each child who died in Chengdu, and should be bringing the corrupt officials to justice. In a society with a functioning rule of law, parents should not be persecuted for seeking answers to why their children die. But Chinese parents were persecuted for asking that question. It was Ai Weiwei who took up the terrible role of documenting the deaths, posting thousands of names to an online memorial. It is work that lives forever as the children did not in art through little backpacks. For Seven Years She Lived Happily on This Earth, one of Ai Weiwei s most moving pieces of art, is a tribute to those children. The title is a quote from the mother of a child who was killed in the earthquake. About the art, Ai Weiwei has said, The idea to use backpacks came from my visit to Sichuan after the earthquake in May During the earthquake many schools collapsed. Thousands of young students lost their lives, and you could see bags and study material everywhere. The lives of the students disappeared within the state propaganda, and very soon everybody will forget everything. In much of his work, Ai Weiwei references China s political history and man-made catastrophes that have cut short or warped so many millions of lives. From Mao to Now To understand human rights in China, it is useful to step back and review the country s recent history. The Chinese Communist Party 180 social research

4 took political power in 1949; the country has been marked by episodic political upheavals since. A campaign launched by Communist leader Mao Zedong in 1958, the Great Leap Forward, sought to rapidly industrialize China by collectivizing farms and attempting to turn villages and peasant households into centers of steel production. One of the world s worst famines followed, with deaths throughout China estimated to be at least 36 million. When Deng Xiaoping and other party leaders managed to take control and reverse this catastrophic course, Chairman Mao responded by launching the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to his death in 1976, Mao unleashed a tsunami of political, social, and economic chaos. Intellectuals, artists, writers, and those simply with contacts with the outside world were denounced and sent to the countryside to perform manual labor and learn from the peasants or worse. Millions died, were jailed, or were purged as Mao s power struggle took over the country. Ai Weiwei s father, the poet laureate of China, Ai Qing, was one of those sent for hard labor. He cleaned toilets in Xinjiang for 5 years. Ai Weiwei s is one of the many Chinese families that still carry with them shocking stories of disrupted education, unhinged careers, and shattered lives. You can see some of that very personal history reflected in his art. After Mao s death in 1976, Deng Xiaoping, who had been put under house arrest by Mao in his last days, became the country s new paramount leader. He managed to correct some of Mao s worst excesses through his Reform and Opening economic policies that have endured to this day. Over the past three decades, China has changed profoundly, with hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese people able to lift themselves from poverty and regain some control over their lives. But increasing economic and personal opportunity has not always compensated for the lack of basic civil liberties and human rights in China. Flashpoints include the violently suppressed protests Ai Weiwei, Art, and Rights in China 181

5 in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and ongoing repression in Tibet and Xinjiang. Today, the Chinese government continues to deny and restrict citizens fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of religion. Censorship, including artistic and internet censorship, is pervasive. This may sound like a fairly grim picture of the range of human rights and other challenges inside China. But there is also some reason for optimism for the future of China: the development over the past two decades of a true domestic civil society brave lawyers, activists, artists, journalists, and citizens who look at their own constitution and demand their rights in court, in the media, and sometimes on the streets. Because of the injustices Ai Weiwei has witnessed and has himself endured, he has used his art and his clout to tell stories the Chinese government does not want you to hear. He is not alone. Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, and activists in China risk harassment, unlawful detention, forced disappearances, and long prison sentences, often on bogus charges. Ai Weiwei was held for months on trumped-up tax evasion charges and was beaten severely enough to cause a brain hemorrhage. These activists fight with all of the tools at their disposal, including the Internet and humor. They are a great reason to hope for the future of China. They believe, as Ai Weiwei says, that to live your life in fear is worse than losing your freedom. 182 social research