Read the series here: Unbridled Evil
The Extraordinary Moral Strength of Falun Gong Practitioners
Section 1: Righteous Response to PersecutionSection 2: Moral ConscienceThe objective of Jiang Zemin’s life boils down to three efforts.First, he tried to extinguish Falun Gong.
Second, he reversed the standard in China of good and evil that had evolved for five thousand years, he ruined the moral foundation of the Chinese society, he pushed China to the path of self-destruction, and removed the only basis of the Chinese Communist Party’s legitimacy.
Third, in order to induce the international community to keep silent on the Falun Gong persecution, he used economic benefits to seduce the western free world.
Section 1: Righteous Response to Persecution
The CCP’s Power Eroding
Although the Chinese Communist Party is still carrying out its persecution of Falun Gong, its power has been waning and the final outcome is very clear.In mainland China, the Chinese Communist Party must bring its propaganda machine to a halt on its attacks on Falun Gong to order to not lose credibility. At the beginning of the campaign to eradicate Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin arrogantly claimed that he would resolve the Falun Gong issue within three months. The Party’s media continuously slandered, 24/7, Falun Gong. In less than three months, it announced it had achieved a decisive victory in the struggle against Falun Gong, and that 98 percent of Falun Gong practitioners had been “transformed.” However, a transformation rate of 98 percent leaves little wiggle room for many more transformations! After 2002, the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda had to become silent, because continued slandering of Falun Gong would be admitting failure. Every new slander signals to the society that after years of the Party’s unrestrained repression, Falun Gong is still standing and Falun Gong practitioners remain resolute in their belief.
In the beginning of the crackdown, Jiang Zemin could mobilize the whole society to persecute Falun Gong practitioners; the guards beat and the security police arrested Falun Gong practitioners publicly. In the earlier phases of the persecution, people who did not know the truth reported to the police about Falun Gong practitioners in order to get the reward of several hundred or one thousand yuan. But because the suppression of Falun Gong had not mustered the full support of the people in the community, the Chinese Communist Party has had to pull back media coverage of its persecution of Falun Gong.
Today, the persecution of Falun Gong has lost much of its support. When the police arrest Falun Gong practitioners, the people often stop them. Furthermore, after police illegally arrested a Falun Gong practitioner, thousands of the good people often signed a petition to participate in the rescue. There are a growing number of lawyers who oppose the Chinese Communist Party’s ban and they defend Falun Gong practitioners, accusing the Chinese Communist law enforcement agencies of violating the Chinese constitution. Fewer and fewer people are willing to execute the order of persecuting Falun Gong. In addition, officers from the police stations often lack enthusiasm to follow the 6-10 Office to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.
The Chinese Communist Party has a problem when sending high-level delegations to foreign nations. In the past two decades, in hundreds of courts, in over more than a dozen countries, Falun Gong practitioners have sued dozens of the CCP’s high-ranking officials, including Jiang Zemin. In the beginning of the persecution, many CCP officials were eager to curry favor with Jiang Zemin through their repression of Falun Gong. However, they have been sued for crimes against humanity in overseas countries. The path forward to becoming state or their department’s leader was blocked, because he or she was unable to assume high positions that require frequent international travel. Bo Xilai was sued thirteen times when he was visiting foreign countries as the Minister of Commerce. Then he was banished to Chongqing. At the same time, news of these incidents serves as a stern warning to the CCP officials who want to emigrate as a way to escape justice.
The pressure of being unable to continue repressing Falun Gong has also led to the CCP’s internal split. Two subsequent Chinese Communist Party leaders after Jiang Zemin were not willing to actively promote his policy of persecution, and only Luo Gan and Zhou Yongkang were able to use the Political and Legal Affairs Commission as their tool to continue the persecution of Falun Gong. In fact, only the Political and Legal Affairs Commission made the persecution of Falun Gong as its priority project.
Peacefully Telling the Truth
Falun Gong practitioners believe the only and most effective way to end the ban and their persecution is to peacefully tell the truth about who they are as well as the true nature of the communist party. This belief is the reason why they felt it necessary to engage in a massive exposure of the persecution, while at the same time putting into practice the moral teachings they cherish. From the outset, Falun Gong practitioners have been “clarifying the truth”—the terminology they like to use—of the Falun Gong practice and persecution to the government, the community, and the world. For being this audacious against the monolithic totalitarian government, the price they pay has been great. They face an oppressive regime that holds all the means at its disposal for manipulating public opinion and lacks any moral scruples. Falun Gong practitioners, in the process of telling the truth, have been reported to authorities by people who do not comprehend the true situation, and then the practitioners are arrested. However, Falun Gong practitioners’ perseverance and pure compassion has gradually made more and more people understand the truth. Practitioners’ good will and fortitude have removed people’s misunderstandings and hatred against Falun Gong caused by the CCP’s deceitful propaganda. As a result, the CCP’s persecution is increasingly losing its capability to continue.In the CCP’s seventy years of tyranny, it has carried out the persecutions of various groups by the same methodology. The CCP isolates the target group and incites most everyone else to have hatred towards it, thus overwhelming the members of the minority and striking fear into anyone who might still want to support the group. However, their method didn’t work well with Falun Gong practitioners. Practitioners’ rectitude and earnestly telling the truth countered the misunderstandings and fears of the people arising from the CCP’s lies and deception. They also pointed out a bright future for the Chinese nation to break away from the disaster that was wrought by the CCP’s seventy years of tyranny, and to see through the CCP’s method of vilifying anyone it deems as its enemy. When the whole community is no longer deceived by the CCP’s lies and coercion to do bad things, this evil regime will not be able to persecute another person or group. Then it will not have enough power remaining for its continued existence and will finally disintegrate.
Trial and Punishment of the Guilty
Falun Gong practitioners’ clarifying the truth regarding the persecution of innocent people has a broader meaning as well. It’s about bringing about justice on the human plane. In the history of mankind, after the fall of a murderous regime, the victims want to expose the evil and investigate and prosecute the evildoers. But doing it after the demise of an evil regime is not the optimal timing to gather incriminating evidence. The belated exposure enables the perpetrators to reduce or evade their prosecution, and provides them time to destroy incriminating evidence. For example, Cambodia’s communist political party, the Khmer Rouge, massacred or starved to death a quarter of the population of Cambodia, during their rule from 1975–79. Due to the delays of investigating the evil, only a prison warden, who killed “only” fourteen thousand people—a token number compared to two million total killed—was tried. The Khmer Rouge senior officials whose crimes were far more serious escaped trial and punishment until a quarter of a century after their crimes against humanity were committed. As a general rule, the perpetrators escaping punishment is unsettling to survivors and victims’ families who may live side-by-side with the killers and see them as getting away with wicked deeds. When major trials finally occurred in the 2000s, Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge leader, was dead, and merely a handful of the worst offenders stood trial and were found guilty in 2007.Section 2: Moral Conscience
Defending Human Conscience
In the most fundamental sense, Falun Gong practitioners’ response to the persecution equates to defending what it means to be truly human. A Falun Gong practitioner once described her experiences in prison: “The guards ordered me to recite the prison regulations, and regardless of how they beat up on me, I just did not follow them. They asked me why I did not recite the prison regulations and I replied that I was not a prisoner. They said everyone who was put in the prison was a prisoner. I said, ‘I’m not, I am illegally confined just because I insist on being a good person. If I promise to give up being a good person, I'll be able to leave.’”This story is not unusual in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. It shows what is wrong with Jiang Zemin’s launching the persecution: forcing upright people to turn against their conscience and succumb to evil. Any entity that persecutes the conscience the way the CCP does must be considered nonpareil evil.
People often do not understand why Falun Gong practitioners are so obstinate. In their view, Falun Gong practitioners can accommodate and pretend to renounce Falun Gong. After they step out of prison, they can resume practicing; who is able to monitor you? Indeed, just like the Roman emperor persecuted Christians two thousand years ago, the CCP’s purpose of “eradicating Falun Gong” is to force all Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief in Falun Gong. Once Falun Gong practitioners yield and convince their captors that they believe that the government’s persecution of Falun Gong is right, they are released from the brainwashing center.
Honesty and Kindness in Daily Life
Falun Gong practitioners’ conscious choice to act in accordance to a higher moral standard is not just reflected in their work against the persecution, but is integrated into their daily lives. Please consider the example from Hebei Province below.There was a married couple of Falun Gong practitioners making a living by selling vegetables. One day in March 2010, at 3 a.m., they rode their farm tricycle to the market to sell vegetables. When they were riding along the street, they suddenly felt that they hit something lying on the road and worried that they had struck a person. They only heard the sound of a “pop” and felt a person falling down. Even though it was dark and there were no vehicles around, they still immediately returned to look for someone injured. Not finding anyone lying on the road, they felt assured that there had not been an accident and so then continued to go to the market.
When they arrived at market and found the horn of the tricycle was hit and dented, the lights were broken, and the back mirror was missing. They were sure that something was wrong. They did not sell the vegetables and immediately rode back home. After they returned home, the husband rode a bicycle to return to the accident site. When he arrived, he saw an old lady sitting on the road, with her eyes swollen and one side of her face had bloodstains. She was waving her hands to ask people to help, but nobody cared about her. The husband stepped forward and asked for the details and then he believed that she was the one that their tricycle had hit. He called a taxi to take the old lady to the hospital for a check-up. After confirming it was okay with her, the couple then took the lady back to their home. They bought fish, meat, fruits and other nutritional supplements for the elderly woman to nourish her body. The old lady was so grateful and kept saying the couple was very kind.
However, when they honestly told the old lady that it was them that hit her, the lady was extremely terrified. After the tricycle hit the elderly woman, she saw the vehicle came back. At that time, she thought it was to crush her, so she hid behind a tree, making sure the riders could not find her. The lady thought they meant to rob her at her house and worried they would harm her. Although the couple explained to her that they were Falun Gong practitioners and were good people who abided by the principles of “truthfulness-compassion-forbearance,” the elderly woman could not believe in today’s society there were such good people. She said: “Now where can you find such a person in today’s society? You acknowledge you hit me while nobody witnessed it.”
The elderly woman still worried they would harm her and insisted on leaving. The husband suggested sending her to the government office. However, being afraid that she would be murdered on the road, she insisted that the police pick her up. After the police came, they learned that the couple were Falun Gong practitioners, who are targeted for persecution, and so they interrogated them very aggressively. However, after the interrogation and knowing everything, the police completely changed the attitude. When the husband mentioned that he rode a bicycle to come back to find her, the police were astonished: “Ah! You rode a bicycle to find her?!” They could not comprehend or believe in the whole wide world there were such good people.
This case stands in contrast to the injury mentioned in Chapter 5, of little Wang Yue who was crushed to death. Moreover, Falun Gong practitioners in this case knew what would happen when the police came, but they still put the concern of the elderly lady above their own safety. Therefore, they informed the police to come to their home, knowing that they could be arrested and even be jailed. When most people do not believe good people exist, they insist on being good people. Being good people has become Falun Gong practitioners’ way of life, a principle that is not affected by the external environment, and it also becomes Falun Gong practitioners’ normal state of interaction with others.
Society’s Salvation
The primary motive behind Jiang Zemin’s persecution of Falun Gong is his jealousy of the founder of Falun Dafa, whose many disciples show their admiration and gratitude that he cannot match even with all of his political power, authority, and state resources at his command. Jiang persecutes millions of people to give up their wish to become good people. For Falun Gong practitioners, becoming a good person is the way of salvation. For this reason, Jiang Zemin’s persecution of Falun Gong was bound to fail.Falun Gong practitioners’ dedication to the practice is shown by the fact that even in the face of the vicious and brutal persecution, they still strive to overcome the evil with their goodness. When the guards, who are called the “People’s Police,” strike an 80-year-old lady with electric batons or use a throat locking method to torture an 80-year-old man, Falun Gong practitioners seek to remain calm, and hold no hatred. Practitioners respond with the same equanimity when criminal inmates, at the behest of their guards, abuse Falun Gong practitioners in order to get shortened terms. They have truly followed Mr. Li Hongzhi’s teaching to “not fight back when you are beaten or sworn at.” Falun Gong disciples’ great forbearance even touched thugs who had tortured them; some of them took up the practice of “truthfulness-compassion-forbearance.”
This great inspirational force can only come from practitioners’ consciousness. The realm of “truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance” is revealed in the lives of hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners, not in any individual leaders. Falun Gong practitioners live and work among the common people. However, because they practice Falun Dafa and aspire to think of others before themselves, they are most free from vulgarity and much less likely to harm others. In this materialistic age in which we live, they are unaffected by fads and desires, holding themselves aloof from the temptations of the world. When the torrential evil storms surge, they will become the defenders of the human moral order.
Since ancient times, humankind has faced barbaric deeds. For most of these situations, humankind lived with shame or treated violence with violence. By contrast, Falun Gong practitioners use the most civilized way to resist the most savage persecution, while at the same time, awakening the conscience of the people and disintegrating the evil energy field. Falun Gong practitioners, both in everyday life and in the face of savage persecution, strive to be resolutely unmoved. They are the eternal hope of human morality and civilization.
