An unlikely hero, Chen Guangcheng became blind as a small child. He overcame this disability, and assembled an improbable coalition of causes to attempt to pry some humanitarian concessions from the government: the physically handicapped, women, and landowners.
While the Chinese government issued regulations which, on paper, entitled the physically disabled to certain benefits, it failed in many cases to actually give those benefits.
While the Chinese government made statements which seemed to recognize human rights, it continued to force women to undergo abortions against their wills.
While the Chinese government claimed to respect liberty, it confiscated land, and did so with no reimbursement to the land’s owners.
Chen Guangcheng saw these three violations of freedom as related. For him, they were not three separate questions, but rather three different applications of one principle.
Melanie Kirkpatrick writes that, seeing the “desperate conditions endured by China’s rural poor,” he was and is known among them as ‘the barefoot lawyer,’ because of the agricultural regions in which he carried out his work.
The Chinese government, attempting to present itself to the world as a legitimate state, issued legislation which ostensibly gave certain rights to its citizens. In reality, the government is an authoritarian autocracy. Scholars debate about which type of socialism or communism best describes the current regime in China, but whichever version of Marxist doctrine is ascribed to it, it remains a totalitarian dictatorship.
Thus it was that “Chen advised his countrymen about their legal rights.” By feigning humanity, the government had made statements - statements it never intended to uphold - but Chen would hold the government to those statements.
Chen’s activism began with a seemingly trivial incident: A ticket collector on a bus refused to let him ride free, as mandated under China’s law regarding those with disabilities. His outrage at this mistreatment propelled him into advocacy for people with disabilities, first at his school in Shandong Province and then on a national level. He educated himself on disability law, petitioned the government in Beijing for better enforcement, and used the media to call attention to violations.
The Chinese had grown quite accustomed to hearing and reading noble-sounding statements from the government, and knowing that the statements were meaningless - that the government had no plan to act according to them.
Chen, however, set a new course. He saw the government’s words as a potential trap for the government itself. The regime could not long tolerate someone who so clearly presented its hypocrisies - someone who presented them in a way which could not be ignored. The government was relieved when Chen finally left the country.
But his work may have continuing effects for many years to come.
