Citizen Investigation
Posted on March 20, 2009
Truth. Responsibility. Rights.
Three hundred days ago I traveled to the earthquake zone in Wenchuan county, Sichuan province. There I witnessed infinite suffering and terror.
Today, we still cannot know who left us in the earthquake, why those children left us, and how they were taken. We will never know what they were feeling as they lay under the rubble waiting.
During that disaster, I did not extend my hand. I honestly could not find the strength.
They say the death of the students has nothing to do with them. They say it was inevitable, unavoidable, and that experts have demonstrated this. They close their mouths and do not discuss corruption, they avoid the tofu-dregs engineering. They conceal the facts, and in the name of “stability” they persecute, threaten, and imprison the parents of these deceased children who are demanding to know the truth. They flagrantly violate the constitution and trample on people’s fundamental rights.
Those children who perished in the earthquake are not an unknown figure, they are not the result of a “stabilized” nation.
Those children have parents, dreams, and they could smile, they had a name that belonged to them. That name will belong to them three years from now, five years, eighteen or nineteen years later; it is everything about them which may be remembered, it is everything that might be evoked.
Reject the failure to remember, reject lies.
To remember the departed, to show concern for life, to take responsibility, and for the potential happiness of the survivors, we are initiating a “Citizen Investigation.” We will seek out the names of each departed child, and we will remember them.
As for those who harbor mistaken illusions about us citizens, please remember: for each day that we won’t take our leave, those children will likewise not disappear. This is one portion of the reason for living, and we will not abandon it.
People interested in the Citizen Investigation, please leave your contact information:
Your actions create your world.
TRANSLATED BY LEE AMBROZY