Democracy
I took the long way to work this morning, stopping off at the polling station to cast my vote in the European-parliamentary and county-council elections. The strange thing about this to me was the fact that I was voting on an ordinary week day. In Sweden, where I grew up, elections are traditionally held on Sundays. This voting on a Thursday and the ticking boxes with a pencil and having no way of recognizably-intentionally abstain were the aspects of the process I thought about and discussed with people.
At the afternoon coffee break my friend K commented on having done web-searches on terms like "Tiananmen Square" and "tank man" to make sure nobody thought the world had forgotten the events of the 4th of June 1989. That was when it occurred to me that to some people there are stranger things to discuss about me voting this morning, like being able to vote at all. I had an email from Amnesty about a week ago asking me to sign a petition for human rights in China, with the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square coming up, which I did. Please take the time to check out Amnesty's Human Rights for China website and if you feel you agree with the statements please sign the petition as well.
I remember that spring twenty years ago and the hope we all had for a brighter future. We thought China would surely reform, like the Soviet Union had done. It was such a shock when the crack-down came, such a horrible realization of what awful things some people will do to stay in power. I wasn't surprised when China didn't live up to its promises of human rights improvements in the run-up to the Olympics last year, but I was disappointed. It was especially disappointing that we, the world community, let the Chinese leaders get away with it.
Those of us who are old enough to have watched the peaceful Chinese protests of 1989 grow and be brutally beaten down have a duty to remember. Those of us lucky enough to live somewhere with freedom of speech should not let the Chinese government ever think those events will be forgotten. So this is me, speaking up. Thank you for 'listening'!
At the afternoon coffee break my friend K commented on having done web-searches on terms like "Tiananmen Square" and "tank man" to make sure nobody thought the world had forgotten the events of the 4th of June 1989. That was when it occurred to me that to some people there are stranger things to discuss about me voting this morning, like being able to vote at all. I had an email from Amnesty about a week ago asking me to sign a petition for human rights in China, with the 20th anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square coming up, which I did. Please take the time to check out Amnesty's Human Rights for China website and if you feel you agree with the statements please sign the petition as well.
I remember that spring twenty years ago and the hope we all had for a brighter future. We thought China would surely reform, like the Soviet Union had done. It was such a shock when the crack-down came, such a horrible realization of what awful things some people will do to stay in power. I wasn't surprised when China didn't live up to its promises of human rights improvements in the run-up to the Olympics last year, but I was disappointed. It was especially disappointing that we, the world community, let the Chinese leaders get away with it.
Those of us who are old enough to have watched the peaceful Chinese protests of 1989 grow and be brutally beaten down have a duty to remember. Those of us lucky enough to live somewhere with freedom of speech should not let the Chinese government ever think those events will be forgotten. So this is me, speaking up. Thank you for 'listening'!