Rebel of the Week: Chen Guangcheng, the Blind Chinese Activist Who Escaped From 90 Guards
May 2nd, 2012
Last week, Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese human rights activist and lawyer made a daring escape from his captors while under house arrest during a year-long illegal detention and made a video exposing the cruel treatment he and his family suffered, which included severe beatings and broken bones.
The amazing thing about Guangcheng’s escape– is that he’s blind. Not only that, but in an escape that one prominent Chinese activist called “a real Chinese version of The Shawshank Redemption,” the blind Chinese lawyer managed to evade the 90 guards who have surrounded his village home for over a year and get through eight separate security checks on his way to freedom and hiding at an undisclosed location in Beijing! He says he did it by using this blindness to his advantage…
Guangcheng is believed to have used the cover of darkness as part of his elaborate and carefully-planned escape, giving him an advantage over his 90 captors and using his blindness as a strength instead of accepting it as a weakness.
He then made a video that has since attracted major global attention, in which, looking gaunt, the blind Chinese activist blamed the Chinese government’s obsession with maintaining “stability” for his cruel treatment and expressed fears that his family would suffer “insane retribution” for his act of defiance.
What. A. Badass. For starters, anyone who makes the government look as dumb as we all know it really is has my admiration and respect. Here is one blind guy under house arrest, being guarded by 90 government thugs and he managed to escape. If government can’t even successfully guard one blind man with 90 people, do you really think it’s sophisticated enough to set interest rates for the financial markets in a complex, post-industrial, global economy? Uh, no.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It’s not just Guangcheng’s uber-competent, James Bond-like stealthiness (despite what most people would consider a major handicap) that makes him a rebel; it’s his spirit of fearless, self-sacrificing love– his willingness to put himself and those most dear to him at risk of violent retribution to expose his government’s tyranny, corruption, and brutality in the hopes of creating a world in which others don’t have to suffer like his family has.
Chen Guangcheng is a true rebel and our thoughts are with him. At this moment many of his family members are in hiding and all of them, including him, are still in great danger until their liberty and safety are confirmed and guaranteed by a Chinese government under pressure from international scrutiny or perhaps from the international community itself.
Please put out your prayers, best wishes, and/or most positive vibes for the safety and success of this brave man and his courageous family; and please keep sharing this story as much as possible to bring continued exposure to Guangcheng’s case.
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