罗威娜·何的首届全球问题讲座点亮了民主之光

他在她经常激烈的演讲中穿插幽默. (所有照片由Alex Bertoni提供)

The distinguished and fearless Chinese history and human rights scholar Rowena Xiaoqing He never uses notes in her frequent lectures around the world dedicated to keeping the light of democracy alive by speaking truth to power.

“我们将在接下来的一个小时里创造的是 us,” 何教授说周三晚上在十大赌博靠谱网络平台开始她的演讲, 当她走在前教员同事中间时，她即兴说出了自己的心声, 迪翁中心罗伊室的学生和其他人. The topic of her presentation with PowerPoint slides was “Lighting Candles in Darkness: From Tiananmen to Hong Kong.”

演讲者说，她特别感谢有跨世代的听众. “What we saw tonight was a beautiful illustration of engagement from both the campus community and general public,” she said. “我们有一个来自伯灵顿的15岁高中生, 一对九十岁的老夫妇和关心此事的市民, teachers from Vermont Commons — a private high where I had been invited to give a talk — and professors-emeritus and former colleagues who came with their spouses, 还有学校埃德蒙派的马塞尔·雷维尔神父和布莱恩·卡明斯神父, 以及整个政府——格雷琴·加尔布雷斯院长、洛林·斯特里特校长和她的丈夫, 还有杰弗里·特朗鲍尔, 负责学术事务的副校长.”

和洛林·斯特里特总统一起.

何教授的意识流演讲, 经过多年的磨砺和打磨, 从深切感受中汲取, 在她的生活和事业中经常发生危险和高风险的事件. 描述了她对支持和发现学生力量的承诺, 同事和朋友, 她特别热情地谈起她在圣迈克尔的日子. “在这里我感觉很舒服——这是我的家，”她说.

圣迈克尔的前历史教授, the speaker currently is an associate professor of history at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and 2022-23 National Humanities Center Fellow in Research Triangle Park, NC.

应杰弗里·艾尔斯的邀请, 他是学院成立两年的全球参与研究所(全球参与研究所)主任, 何教授为该中心的全球问题系列讲座发表了开幕演讲, discussing the legacy of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, 以及对历史记忆的审查. 她是中国现当代社会和政治方面的专家, 特别是中国政府压制或掩盖信息和历史的努力. 在中国出生和长大, 她对历史的联系感兴趣, 内存和功率, 以及它们对年轻人价值观的影响, 身份与社会变迁.

政治科学和国际关系学院的杰弗里·艾尔斯教授说, 他是全球参与研究所所长, 邀请并介绍了Rowena He.

所有这些话题都交织在周三的演讲中, 伴随着频繁的旁白和切线，到最后逻辑和力量结合在一起. 下面是一些讲座的简要介绍:

Near the start, 她对在春季学期如此繁忙的时候有这么多学生到场表示感谢. “你们很幸运，这是一个伟大的团结社区,” she said, 尤其要感谢她在历史系的朋友, George Dameron, 是谁在意识到可能带来的“不便”的情况下雇佣了她.

演讲者分享说，这些天她经常甚至不想看十大赌博靠谱网络平台或谈论十大赌博靠谱网络平台, saying, “我认为这种定期的激进化和野蛮化是相当可怕的.”

She told of arriving in Hong Kong after her year at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton that directly followed her time at Saint Michael’s – that was 2019, and she was “thrown into an unprecedented social movement…many worried that I would be arrested” as the political situation worsened during that movement. 她甚至签署了法律文件，声明如果她被逮捕并被迫做出虚假陈述, 它们不会是真的, she said.

他说，虽然有人建议她不要用她最新出版的书名作为演讲的题目, 就像这个样子, “I thought nothing is more appropriate since I was attracted to this school when I saw its commitment to truth and justice. 我想，‘这应该是圣. Mike’s.’”

With slides, she told in some detail of harrowing moments in Hong Kong in recent years with her students as authorities there tightened control. A central part of the story involved a custom in Hong Kong after Tiananmen of lighting candles in Victoria Park on the anniversary to remember victims, but the government now has stopped and forbidden what He and others regarded as such a beautiful and powerful symbolic initiative to bring light to darkness. “So, 没有更多的烛光, I want to be sure you get a good idea of what Tiananmen was about and why it was important,她对观众说——就像她对学生说的那样.

演讲者一边讲话，一边在房间里走来走去.

She focused, too, 这是另一个日益增长的镇压的有力象征, when a well-known statue of the “Goddess of Democracy” in Hong Kong suddenly was removed by authorities on Christmas Eve in 2021. A week later she was invited to speak in chapel where she found herself unable to speak since to her it felt like “all the symbols on earth — the candle lights in Victoria Park and the statue — were gone. 当我失去给我希望的源泉时，我没有任何东西可以激励别人. 我不得不在黑暗中寻找光明.”

She told how in 2019 when she had just arrived in Hong Kong amid the unprecedented social movement and some students wondered about possible actions beyond just peaceful protests, 她提出反对意见. “I said, “在过去的20年里，我感受到了你现在的感受, 但我从未改变过暴力比和平更有效的想法,’”她反问他们，和平是一种“战略还是原则”?”

She spent some time linking this more recent Hong Kong moment to her own life-changing experience as a 17-year old high school student growing up in China in 1989 when Tiananmen happened, 还被告知她是否再次戴上黑色臂章去学校支持受害者, 没人能帮助她. “1989年，为了生存，我学会了说谎，”她说.

在她的叙述中回到了现在的香港, she told of gatherings in chapels in Hong Kong that continued on once crackdowns began —  each year on June 4, 天安门周年纪念, 该市的一些教堂举行了烛光活动，她在其中一个活动上发表了讲话, and that was the first time she was speaking about Tiananmen in her mother tongue on a Chinese land after studying the topic for two decades.

其中一张幻灯片显示，演讲者跪在雕像所在的地方, from a social media post that had to be taken down fast because of the great risk it posed to her safety.

谈话中的一个故事描述了她向一名美国检察官作证.S. 和她的朋友莉安·李一起参加国会听证会, 1989年毕业的十大赌博靠谱网络平台系学生，现居美国.S.他在圣迈克尔教堂教书. Lee is a Hong Kong native who was at Tiananmen and had the citizens push her into an ambulance (though uninjured) so she might live “to tell the world what our government did to us tonight.” Rowena He told of them praying and crying together when they finally had a chance to let the silenced voices be heard 25 years after the massacre.

ppt幻灯片是演示的一部分.

She linked her long struggle alongside so many others on human rights issues to the present situation in the U.S., saying, “Injustice somewhere is a threat to justice everywhere ”; and, later, “我希望你们能维护你们国家的民主. 你们生来就有民主，很容易把它视为理所当然. 但这正是我们一代又一代为之奋斗的目标, 付出生命和自由的代价, 血与泪.”

演讲者讲述了她作为圣迈克尔教授来到校园时的情景, 麦卡锡艺术中心座无虚席, Fang Zheng, brave activist from Tiananmen who had lost his legs during the massacre. 何教授还记得当时圣迈克尔中学的一些中国学生是如何愤怒地回应的. “For them,  在爱国主义教育运动的影响下长大, 他们认为我们这些批评这个政权的人是中国的叛徒,” she said, “在对爱国主义的理解上，这种代际差异引起了我的智力上的好奇. For us, being patriotic meant following the Chinese intellectual tradition of Confucian Dissent to help the rulers to improve. But the younger generation tended not to distinguish between the regime and the nation and considered serious discussions of political and social issues as an insult to China and the Chinese people.” That was how she started her second book on Chinese student nationalism and she also shared how she was encouraged to see the awakening of political consciousness of Chinese students during the Paper Movement earlier this year in response to the government’s COVID policies.

A moving personal story near the end of He’s talk concerned another Tiananmen activist from 1989 whom she later met —at the time of the protest he was the art editor of a local daily newspaper who threw paint on a Mao image in Tiananmen Square, “and was turned into police by his own to avoid the movement being framed as a violent revolution trying to overthrow the government.在监狱里呆了20年之后，他逃离了中国，现在住在美国.S. 当何教授和他谈话时, 他记得文化的所有重要方面, society, 和中国80年代的政治. 很多人认为这个人有精神病. Yet, she said, 她在很多方面都意识到了这一点, “他没有疯，是这个世界疯了.”

23岁的学生杰森·李向神父提出了一个问题. 左边背景是1986年的布莱恩·卡明斯.

在她近90分钟的演讲后的问答环节中, 她回答了几个问题, 包括来自法国的一个. 布莱恩·卡明斯，南卡罗来纳州.S.E. 1986年，埃德蒙蒂校园部主任，十大赌博靠谱网络平台乌克兰战争. 何教授在战争开始时说, students in China were being told the official version of the Ukraine war in order to lay the groundwork for the Chinese leadership’s approach to Taiwan. “由于中国国内危机, 针对外敌的战争将进一步激起民族主义,演讲者后来说. “然而，我警告说，民族主义是一把双刃剑. 如果他们过度发挥，就会失去控制，产生适得其反的效果.”

23岁的学生杰森·李, 他也是介绍何教授的中国人, 他说自己近年来经常回中国探亲访友, 这让他珍惜自己在美国的言论自由.S. even more. The speaker said Jeson Li is a fine example of a Chinese student who makes our universities and colleges proud for providing possibilities and opportunities for change on our campuses with free speech and free inquiry. 人群为他的评论鼓掌.

真相与和解. 没有真相就不会有和解，”演讲者在结束演讲前不久说道. “让我们问问自己，在日常生活中我们能做些什么. 让我们确保我们将呈现有证据支持的历史真相. 我希望你们永远不要把民主视为理所当然. 一旦你失去它，你就会知道你失去了一切. 我们不要让这种事发生!”

何教授讲课结束后，听众起立为她鼓掌.