A Poet's Story from China: Liao Yiwu

In our lives, we have had to do the same things over and over again. We have also had to tell the same things over and over again. Even if we get tired or bored, we have been faced with many things that repeat themselves. However, I think there are not many people who have had to write the same book from scratch three times. When I started reading Liao Yiwu's book "For A Song and A Hundred Songs" and learned that he had to rewrite the book three times, I thought about the cruelty of underdevelopment and the suffering this cruelty can cause to developed minds. I felt Liao Yiwu's suffering until I turned the back cover of the book for the last time.

Photo: Arda Tunca

In some countries, someone thinks or believes something and all the people of the country are asked to think the same thing or believe the same thing. The thoughts or beliefs of these people are enacted in order to put pressure on society. These laws always aim to protect and look after the people. The main purpose is to format the society regarding thoughts and beliefs. Throughout history, most of the things that have happened to humanity in large and small communities have generally occurred because of the desires and wishes of some people to protect and look after their people. Laws are always enacted to protect and look after societies.

Now, let's take a look at how the Chinese poet Liao Yiwu was protected and protected. How will his painful story affect you and what will it make you think?

Between 1959 and 1962, China experienced a famine and famine that resulted in the deaths of 30 million people. In 1958, Liao Yiwu opened his eyes to such a China. Hunger and famine create an environment that can sometimes threaten his development during childhood. However, despite everything, he does not encounter any obstacles, especially in his brain development. He becomes interested in literature and poetry in his childhood. The person who stimulates this curiosity in him is his father.

He was introduced to many poets from China and the Western world and their poems at an early age. However, as a result of the Cultural Revolution, works from the Western world were considered "spiritually impure" in China. Beat poets were of particular interest to Liao Yiwu.

Yiwu begins to think that something is wrong in his country. He is constantly in literary conversations and sharing with a group of friends. These conversations and sharing play an important role in his intellectual development and also in getting into trouble.

During the Mao era, in order to protect and preserve the people, the country banned extramarital sex. Any extramarital affair would result in official investigation and even imprisonment if necessary. However, the night matinees of the cinemas were filled with lovers and prostitutes who had every purpose other than watching movies. In order to travel from one part of the country to another, it was necessary to obtain official permission from the relevant local government.

The year is 1989. The walls are falling down around the world and the communist bloc is collapsing. The famous Tiananmen Square incidents occur. The counter-revolutionaries have risen up and are resisting in Tiananmen. In the same days, Liao Yiwu is reading Milan Kundera's novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". A scene from the Prague Spring in 1968 is described somewhere in the novel. The resistance of lovers kissing in front of the Russian tanks occupying Prague is depicted. When Tiananmen is mentioned, that famous scene that still remains in our minds comes to mind in Liao Yiwu's mind: the young man resisting in front of the tanks. Both scenes are equally heroic and equally romantic.

The reason why Liao Yiwu got into trouble with the authorities is that those who felt responsible for protecting and protecting the people and who so boldly took on this heavy burden found Liao Yiwu's poems "Requiem" and "Massacre" to be contrary to the principles and spirit of the revolution. Liao Yiwu should write innocent love poems.

The words of Shi Guanghua, one of China's respected poets, praising Liao Yiwu also caused Liao Yiwu to attract the attention of the authorities. The poet eventually found himself in prison. The authorities' suggestions to write love poems did not work very well. However, they made the necessary warnings in time to protect and preserve the poet, who was a part of the people. From now on, he should be put in prison for better protection and conservation.

The world inside has its own rules. A food menu is immediately given to the new prisoners. There are interesting food names on the menu: falling off a dog's back during an earthquake, strangling a pig, a naked statue, pork jaw cooked over fire, etc. When you read the long recipes under the food titles on the menu, you understand that there are detailed descriptions of the torture methods to be applied to prisoners who do not comply with the prison rules. The disciplinary rules are different in each ward. Accordingly, the torture methods on the food menu also vary from ward to ward. The guards are also aware of this menu. Liao Yiwu is forced to take part in some of the recipes on this menu. Even the descriptions of the torture methods are so bad that they make one's stomach turn, and some are even pornographic.

Tiananmen was very effective in China. Jiang Zemin, the general secretary of the Communist Party at the time, said that what was said in Tiananmen was inappropriate. He stated that they were ready and patient to help the resisters find the right path and reach a correct mindset. Because there are official decisions and laws about what is the correct way of thinking and behaving.

After Tiananmen, well-known political figures are held in special conditions in prison. They are not subject to the recipes on the food menu. Yiwu is in a struggle for his own life inside because he is not a well-known social figure.

By 1992, Liao Yiwu's case had reached the British Prime Minister at the time, John Major. Major called on the Chinese government to reassess Yiwu's situation. Liao Yiwu was detained for two years, with no court order yet for his detention.

There are special cells inside the prison called prisons. It is not even possible to stand up in these cells. It is only possible to sit, lie down and crawl on the ground. These types of cells are also dark. Even the need for food and toilet is met in such an environment. There are those who stay in these cells for up to a year. At the end of a year, prisoners emerge from these cells with thin, pale skin where veins can be clearly seen, bones that can be easily broken and hair that has turned white.

In 1994, Liao Yiwu is asked to be released early because of his positive behavior in prison. An official demands that he promise to change. It is a strange persuasion. Liao Yiwu asks the official for a university degree for his four years in prison. He is angry. On January 31, 1994, he is released from prison 43 days earlier than expected.

Life after he is released is not easy at all. He is abandoned by his wife. He tries to communicate with his daughter who has grown up during his time in prison, but the relationship is problematic. China has undergone a huge and rapid change in the four years Yiwu has been in prison. Society has become extremely materialistic. Everyone is almost solely concerned with making money.

Most of Liao Yiwu's friends, with whom he shared many things about literature, poetry and political thought before and during his prison days, have adapted to the dizzying changes in China. They have abandoned their ideals, ideas and art and have turned to making money. Yiwu has no one around him with whom he can share writing, drawing and literary interests. Freedom has created negative feelings mixed with disappointment. In the meantime, the police are following every step he takes. Yiwu's family is also disturbed by the situation. They want him to stop being interested in politics and literature and engage in business.

China is a prison for the free human mind. There is an economic transformation in the country without freedom. The country is still at the very beginning of the road. The whole world has flocked to China to make money. The biggest disaster for those who are imprisoned for political crimes is to fall off the public agenda. They have lost their place in the agenda in this environment.

Although Liao Yiwu is released from prison, he is not free. He goes to Germany.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/books/liao-yiwus-new-book-is-for-a-song-and-a-hundred-songs.html

I read Liao Yiwu's book, which he had to rewrite three times, while feeling his agony. Freedom and democracy are two concepts that have been fought for continuously throughout human history. Those who restrict freedom and democracy for the sake of their own thoughts and beliefs, and those who attempt to format society under the name of protecting and preserving society, which is none of their business, are buried in the darkness of history. But the future remembers the lovers kissing in front of the tanks and the young man in Tiananmen. The stories are the same everywhere, only the heroes of the stories are different.