The Other China

 

The prison-murder of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Anatolyevich Navalny, 4 June 1976-16 February 2024, reverberated in the Chinese world. Some recalled the death in incarceration of Liu Xiaobo in July 2017, others asked why there was no opposition figure with either the fame or the popularity of the Russian dissident in China. For China Heritage, the answer lies in the systemic suppression, defamation, indifference, craven opportunism, incarceration, persecution, murder, torture, exile and mass forgetfulness that we have recorded and commented on in various ways for over four decades. As Li Yuan of The New York Times observed, China has thousands of Navalnys, hidden from the public. However, unlike the Russian Federation, China’s People’s Republic has never allowed any form of political opposition or abandoned a harsh ‘people’s democratic dictatorship’.

***

Xu Zhangrun, an undaunted opponent of Xi Jinping’s rule living under suffocating surveillance in the western suburbs of Beijing, commemorated Navalny with a poem, translated below. We conclude with some lines from Anna Akhmatova’s poem Requiem which appeared during the obsequies for Navalny in Moscow on 1 March 2024.

My thanks to Reader #1 and Linda Jaivin for their suggestions.

See also Xu Zhangrun, An Ice-Shroud for Lost Souls Cast on a Torrent of Blood 魂如縞素血如江. In December 2023, Professor Xu published a new collection of poems under the title Burnt Offerings 燔祭.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritge
2 March 2024

---

***

This Blood-thirsty Earth

這塊土地嗜血

Xu Zhangrun

許章潤

translated by Geremie R. Barmé

 

So, this world still needs victims to travel that path of blood and tears
Pin-pricks of starlight and proffered dawn alone can pierce night’s iron curtain
In its swift passage time flies ever upwards, suffusing the nine realms of heaven
While the depths of the earth remain as icy as this indifferent humanity

這個世界依然需要血淚的殉道
突破黑夜鐵幕的惟有星火拂曉
九重之天，每一層都有歲月飛揚
地球的深處怎會如人間一般薄涼

The cups arranged at the banquet of this plague brim into the void
Of course, the arms of the murderers twitch in arthritic pain
Because the condemned refuse to plead for clemency
Frozen blood, frigid defenses — earth’s vastness is too small

瘟疫當前時盛宴的杯盞滿溢虛空
劊子手風濕的臂膀當然也會疼痛
可待宰的囚徒從不為自己的罪行求饒
血結成冰，關河霜冷，只嫌大地太小

Heaven’s flowers blossom yet in gaping wounded hearts
Injuries that never heal, ancient immeasurable vistas
‘Whoever was tortured, stays tortured’
Corpses litter the undulating landscape of this country

人心的傷口裡盛開著天國的花朵
永難癒合，如同太古之初江天寥廓
誰遭受過酷刑，就一直在經受酷刑
這個國度，屍骨堆積起千山萬壑

Brute laughter can barely disguise their vainglorious unease
The coming calamity marches forth, cheered on like a victory parade
In this deepening autumn of reason collapse is no abstraction
How much more blood does this thirsty land demand, how many more heads

掩飾恐懼發出的冷笑不過是虛矯
噩耗起步時總是模仿凱旋的腔調
理性深秋時節潰敗的不只是形而上
嗜血的這塊土地啊，還要多少顱腦

21st Day of the First Month of the Year of the Dragon
1 March 2024, the day of Alexey Navalny’s funeral.

‘Whoever was tortured, stays tortured’ is a quotation from Jean Améry

甲辰正月廿一，二零二四年三月一日，納瓦爾尼葬禮之日。
“誰遭受過酷刑，就一直在經受酷刑”語出讓·埃默里。

***

***

***

---