作者：侯改英

在中国民主党今天开展的64抗暴37周年法拉盛集会游行活动中，我作为中国民主党主席助理、党中层骨干及优秀青年代表和活动的副总指挥全程参与了活动，并上台发言。以下是我全程参与活动的一点感想。（节选于发言稿）

今天，我们站在这片自由包容的土地上，共同追责中共暴政和纪念8964当年为自由民主献出生命的人们，我百感交集。 同时我今天作为现场活动的副总指挥，看着台下党员义工们一起努力的成果——整齐肃穆的队伍和在风中猎猎作响的党旗，我的内心既沉重，又充满了难以言喻的自豪。

首先，感谢大家的时间，更感谢其中的一些前辈和老面孔一如既往到场对六四活动的支持，你们数十年如一日对六四真相的坚守，如今，在场就是最好的证明。 在我看来这种多年毫不懈怠并以此为己任的坚守就是六四精神的具象之一。这也是我今天的演讲题目——IT’S MY DUTY! （这是我的职责！）

不知大家是否记得一个片段：37年前，在8964中共血洗天安门前的几小时，一个骑着自行车兴冲冲赶往广场的年轻人，在面对镜头时回答老外记者的提问，那就是明知军队已进场，他为什么还要去游行？ 那个年轻人对着镜头自豪的喊出一句响彻至今的话： “It is my duty”——这是我的职责！

是的，这简单的四个字，就是我所理解的八九精神最纯粹的底色。

它包含了那个年代 最优秀的年轻人 公民意志的觉醒，也包含了北京市民对学运的正义支援和5月20对中共暴力大阻截的责任担当，这是那一代中国人在面对专制转型时，集体迸发出的最高尚的利他主义和公民精神雏形。

那是一个美好的时代，我们的青年以文明、热血和普世价值素养的形象 在与政府的对抗中以“国家主人”的纠错姿态践行了刘晓波先生“我没有敌人”的“和平理性非暴力抗争原则”。他们以形而上的精神扛争：绝食静坐、拉起条幅、和竖起的自由女神像等方式 表达对自由民主的诉求……面对这群手无寸铁的莘莘学子以文化人的体面表达政治主张时，中共管这叫“暴徒”？ 他们如此深爱这片土地，关心中国的未来和960万平方公里一草以木所有生灵的利益。。。。他们用豆蔻年华的热血做出了对国家、对历史、对未来做最朴素也最坚定的承诺—— It is my duty!

那也是一个悲怆的年代，64血洗后，长安街上那个迎向钢铁巨兽的白衣孤影，定格成了20世纪人类反抗绝对暴政的终极图腾。它的背后，是以我们民族最优秀、最清醒的一代青年被彻底血洗为代价的。那场屠杀不仅绞杀了肉体，更斩断了文明的脊梁——它用最残酷的方式，为当代中国走向迷乱、盲从与软弱的国民性断层，写下了一个时代的血色注解。

所以不要再说中国人不勇敢，因为三十七年前的那场春夏之交，早已给出了答案； 不要再跟风所谓的“民族劣根论”，因为当年的天安门广场，早已洗刷了耻辱； 更不要说中国不配拥有民主，因为八九六四那流淌的鲜血，就是最神圣的入场券！ 回望历史，纵然是严谨如德国人民，也曾举国陷入纳粹的疯狂；聪慧如犹太民族，也曾在极权的铁蹄下经历血洗。面对绝对的暴政，任何民族都曾有过屈服与黑暗。 但唯有中国人民，在1989年的北京用血肉之躯筑成了人类历史上反抗绝对暴政的丰碑，这一场血染的风采，不是奴隶的顺从，而是公民的诞生！

但是，在历史巨大的伤痕中，三十七年过去了，中共政权依然在延续，暴政暗影重重。在践行公民职责的道路上，当年的学运领袖也就是我们中国民主党主席——王军涛先生，从哪里结束从哪里开始，他将一生致力于延续六四的抗争至今。从建党第一天到距今30多年；从第一个党员到至今逾1000人的海外反共组织；从夜晚的星空到晨起的破晓，从纽约高温酷暑到暴雪封路，从第一场时代广场茉莉花街头抗议到第793场，从年富力强的青年到满头白发的老人，王军涛主席数十年对六四的执念，从不抛弃从不放弃。正如他曾在公开演讲说过，他不能让六四英烈死不瞑目、他必须给他最亲密的朋友们一个交代。他点起了民主接力的火把，他说那是他的职责！

但回望坚持抗争这30多年的历程，不仅有火光，更有外界刀子般的质疑、冷眼与辱骂。 有人站在功利主义的高处冷嘲热讽：“三十七年了，年年纪念，有什么用？中共那么强大，你们现在又推翻不了它，简直是不自量力！”。 有人用阴暗的奴化思维肆意构陷：“你们不过是在海外作秀、拿政庇的投机分子！” 你们活动给不给钱？！甚至连有些我们拼命想要去唤醒的同胞，也会用麻木和怀疑的眼神看着我们，嫌我们“多管闲事”。

战友们，面对这些冷水与恶言，我们怎么可能不委屈？！ 我们也是肉身凡胎，在异国他乡要养家糊口、要陪伴家人、由生活的艰辛和疲惫。我们冒着国内亲人被骚扰的风险站在这里，换来的却是同胞的冷眼。这种委屈，常常化作深夜里难以言说的孤独。

但是，今天作为中国民主党人的一分子，我要在这里字字千钧地回答世界：我们民主党人上到王军涛主席，下到每一个参与活动建设普通党员，全部都是义工！我们自发自愿的对抗中共暴政，缅怀六四英烈，关心中国的未来，这是我们民主党人的职责，IT IS OUR DUTY！

中国民主党人所做的每一次努力，无论是发一个小小的推特，转发一个撕开中共画皮的新闻、在长城防火墙上戳洞，哪怕只是一米阳光向黑暗中传射而过，它对于黑暗中绝望的人、坚守的人、政治犯、维权人士、。。。等等人而言，它就是自由和民主的火种， 中国民主党的每一次活动、每一次祭奠、每一次启蒙、每一次记录，都是在中共的“东德”极权围墙上日复一日、滴水穿石、清脆而坚定地敲击！只要敲击不停，裂缝就会蔓延；只要裂缝蔓延，那座看似不可战胜的高墙，终会在某一个历史的瞬间，轰然倒塌！

现在，我想对所有在场人士，尤其是中国民主党那些默默无私奉献的义工党员们说， 三十七年后的今天，面对外界的冷嘲热讽，我们要坚定自己的信念，那就是世界万般选择，我们选择了负责，我们甘愿为了自身价值观抗起六四抗争的大旗，为中国的未来而奋斗。请你们擦干眼泪、拍拍身上的尘土，继续在风雨中走自己不会后悔的路。

古人云，家国天下。请像对父母子女扛起我们的职责那样，扛起驱除中共救赎中国的责任吧。

“咽下所有的委屈，击碎所有的质疑，在极权的高墙上敲击到底，替国内无法发声的中国同胞呐喊，坚守到墙倒屋塌的那一天——It is our duty!”（这是我们共同的职责！） 谢谢大家！

编辑：李晶 校对：程筱筱 翻译：戈冰

Reflections on the 37th Anniversary of the China Democracy Party’s June 4th Anti-Tyranny Commemoration

Author: Hou Gaiying

During the Flushing rally and march organized by the China Democracy Party today to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the June 4th anti-tyranny resistance, I participated fully in the entire event as the Assistant to the Chairman of the China Democracy Party, a mid-level party backbone, an outstanding youth representative, and the deputy commander-in-chief of the event, and I also took the stage to deliver a speech. The following are a few of my reflections from fully participating in the event. (Excerpted from the speech draft)

Today, as we stand on this land of freedom and tolerance to jointly hold the Chinese Communist Party’s tyranny accountable and to commemorate those who sacrificed their lives for freedom and democracy during June 4th, 1989, I am filled with mixed emotions. At the same time, serving as the deputy commander-in-chief of today’s field activities and looking at the results of the collective efforts of our party members and volunteers below the stage—the orderly and solemn procession and the party flags snapping loudly in the wind—my heart feels heavy, yet filled with an unspeakable sense of pride.

First of all, thank you all for your time, and I am especially grateful to some of the predecessors and familiar faces who have consistently shown up to support the June 4th activities. Your steadfast adherence to the truth of June 4th, year after year and decade after decade, is best proven by your presence here today. In my view, this kind of perseverance, which has never slackened over many years and is taken as one’s own responsibility, is one of the concrete manifestations of the June 4th spirit. This is also the title of my speech today—IT’S MY DUTY!

I wonder if everyone still remembers a certain footage: 37 years ago, just a few hours before the Chinese Communist Party bloodily cracked down on Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989, a young man riding a bicycle was excitedly rushing toward the square. When facing the camera, he answered a foreign reporter’s question about why he was still going to the demonstration when he clearly knew the military had already entered. That young man proudly shouted a sentence into the camera that resonates to this day: “It is my duty.”

Yes, these four simple words represent the most pure, underlying color of the 1989 spirit as I understand it.

It encapsulated the awakening of civic will among the most outstanding young people of that era. It also contained the Beijing citizens’ righteous support for the student movement and their sense of responsibility during the massive interception against the Communist Party’s violence on May 20th. This was the prototype of the most noble altruism and civic spirit that erupted collectively from that generation of Chinese people when facing autocratic transition.

That was a beautiful era, when our youth, with their image of civility, passion, and literacy in universal values, practiced Mr. Liu Xiaobo’s “peaceful, rational, and non-violent resistance principle” of “I have no enemies” through a corrective posture as “masters of the nation” in their confrontation with the government. They resisted with a metaphysical spirit: using methods such as hunger strikes, sit-ins, raising banners, and the erected Goddess of Democracy to express their demands for freedom and democracy… Facing this group of unarmed, diligent students who expressed their political propositions with the decency of intellectuals, the Chinese Communist Party called them “thugs”? They loved this land so deeply, caring for the future of China and the interests of every living creature, every blade of grass, and every tree across the 9.6 million square kilometers… With the lifeblood of their youth, they made the most simple yet resolute commitment to the country, to history, and to the future—It is my duty!

That was also a tragic era. After the June 4th bloodbath, that solitary shadow in white on Chang’an Avenue confronting the steel behemoth became frozen in time as the ultimate totem of humanity’s resistance against absolute tyranny in the 20th century. Behind it lay the cost of the complete slaughter of our nation’s most outstanding and clear-headed generation of youth. That massacre not only strangled physical bodies but also severed the backbone of civilization—in the most brutal way, it wrote a bloody commentary of an era for contemporary China’s descent into a generational fault line of confusion, blind conformity, and weakness in the national character.

Therefore, do not say anymore that the Chinese people are not brave, because that turn of spring and summer thirty-seven years ago had already given the answer; do not follow the trend of the so-called “theory of inherent national flaws” anymore, because Tiananmen Square back then had already washed away the shame; and furthermore, do not say that China does not deserve to have democracy, because the blood that flowed during June 4th, 1989, is the most sacred ticket of admission! Looking back at history, even a people as rigorous as the Germans once plunged as an entire nation into Nazi madness; a nation as intelligent as the Jewish people also experienced a bloodbath under the iron heel of totalitarianism. In the face of absolute tyranny, every nation has had its moments of submission and darkness. Yet it was the Chinese people alone who, in the Beijing of 1989, used their bodies of flesh and blood to build a monument of humanity’s resistance against absolute tyranny in human history. This blood-stained elegance was not the obedience of slaves, but the birth of citizens!

However, amidst the immense scars of history, thirty-seven years have passed, the Chinese Communist Party regime still continues, and the shadows of tyranny remain heavy. On the path of practicing civic duty, the student movement leader of that year—who is now the Chairman of our China Democracy Party, Mr. Wang Juntao—started from where it ended, dedicating his entire life to continuing the June 4th struggle to this day. From the first day of founding the party to more than 30 years later; from the very first party member to an overseas anti-communist organization of over 1,000 people today; from the night starry sky to the break of dawn, from the scorching summer heat of New York to snowstorms blocking the roads, from the first Jasmine street protest in Times Square to the 793rd, from a young man in his prime to an old man with a head full of white hair, Chairman Wang Juntao’s decades-long obsession with June 4th has never forsaken, never given up. Just as he once said in a public speech, he cannot allow the heroic martyrs of June 4th to die with their eyes open, and he must give an accounting to his closest friends. He lit the torch of the democracy relay, and he said that it was his duty!

But looking back at this journey of persisting in resistance for over 30 years, there has been not only the light of fire, but also sharp, knife-like doubts, cold stares, and verbal abuse from the outside world. Some people, standing on the utilitarian high ground, mock and sneer: “It’s been thirty-seven years, and you commemorate it every year—what’s the use? The Chinese Communist Party is so powerful, and you can’t overthrow it right now anyway; you are simply overestimating your own strength!” Some people, using a dark and enslaved mindset, wantonly frame and slander us: “You are just opportunistic elements putting on a show overseas to get political asylum! Do you get paid for your activities?!” Even some of our fellow compatriots, whom we are desperately trying to awaken, look at us with numb and suspicious eyes, resentful of us for “poking our noses into other people’s business.”

Comrades-in-arms, facing this cold water and these malicious words, how could we not feel wronged?! We are also made of ordinary flesh and blood; in a foreign land, we have to support our families, accompany our loved ones, and endure the hardships and exhaustion of daily life. We stand here at the risk of our relatives back home being harassed, yet what we receive in return are the cold stares of our compatriots. This sense of grievance often turns into an unspeakable loneliness in the dead of night.

However, today, as a member of the China Democracy Party, I want to answer the world here with words of monumental weight: from Chairman Wang Juntao down to every ordinary party member participating in building these activities, all of us in the Democracy Party are volunteers! We spontaneously and voluntarily resist the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party, cherish the memory of the heroic martyrs of June 4th, and care about the future of China. This is our duty as members of the Democracy Party—IT IS OUR DUTY!

Every single effort made by the Chinese Democracy Party—whether it is posting a tiny tweet, forwarding a piece of news that tears away the Chinese Communist Party’s deceptive mask, or poking a hole in the Great Firewall, even if it is just a single meter of sunlight piercing through into the darkness—for those who are in despair in the dark, those who are holding fast, political prisoners, rights defense activists, and many others, it is the spark of freedom and democracy. Every activity, every memorial service, every enlightenment, and every record by the China Democracy Party is like a daily, water-dripping-to-pierce-stone, crisp yet firm strike upon the totalitarian wall of the Chinese Communist Party’s “East Germany”! As long as the striking does not stop, the cracks will spread; as long as the cracks spread, that seemingly invincible high wall will, at a certain historical moment, come crashing down!

Now, I want to say to everyone present, especially to those volunteers and party members of the China Democracy Party who dedicate themselves silently and selflessly: today, thirty-seven years later, in the face of external mockery and cynicism, we must stand firm in our convictions—that out of all the countless choices in the world, we have chosen responsibility, and we are willing to raise high the banner of the June 4th struggle for our own values and fight for the future of China. Please wipe away your tears, dust yourselves off, and continue to walk your unregrettable path amidst the wind and rain.

As the ancients said: family, nation, and the world. Please shoulder the responsibility of expelling the Chinese Communist Party and redeeming China, just as you shoulder your duties toward your parents and children.

“Swallow all grievances, shatter all doubts, strike the totalitarian high wall to the very end, cry out on behalf of our Chinese compatriots at home who cannot speak, and hold fast until the day the wall falls and the house collapses—It is our duty!” Thank you, everyone!

Editor: Li Jing Proofreader: Cheng Xiaoxiao Translator: Ge Bing