Perhaps you have not heard of the "Monday Demonstrations," but you can be sure the heads of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) know very well what they are. Their memory of those days back in 1989 helps explain the mobs they have helped organize in Flushing, New York, to try to stamp out calls for the CCP's end.
History, though, is full of ironies. In a manner reminiscent of the dialectics of now-forgotten communist theory, those mobs have given the efforts to quit the CCP greater prominence and momentum.
In the 1980s, the Nikolai Church in Leipzig, in the German Democratic Republic (the GDR, also known as East Germany), called traditionally each Monday for prayers of peace. However in 1989, a growing unrest about elections and travel restrictions caused people to gather in greater numbers. On September 4, these gatherings became what would later be called the "Monday Demonstrations."
Each Monday, people gathered peacefully at the Nikolai Church and chanted "Wir sind das Volk!" ("We are the people!"). The people were asking for their rights—nothing more. The demonstrations were always kept peaceful, and the demonstrators strongly refrained from violence, although the police surrounded the masses and tried to send them away.
Many consider the completely peaceful character of the gatherings as the main factor explaining why the police didn't use violence to crack down on the demonstrations. The courage of the people was particularly remarkable because just three months before, on Tiananmen Square, the CCP had set the example of cracking down violently on peaceful demonstrations for democracy.
Each successful demonstration lead to another, as more people would join the following week. On Monday, October 2, there were 20,000 demonstrators; the following Monday 70,000; on October 16, 150,000, and on October 23, 300,000 people were demonstrating against the communist regime in the GDR. Meanwhile, the Leipzig demonstrations triggered similar demonstrations in other East German cities like Halle, Schwerin, and East Berlin.
On November 9, the Berlin Wall fell. In 1991, the once-mighty Soviet Union fell apart, and Yeltsin banned the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Leipzig, a city of 500,000 citizens, became the promoter of peaceful change in the GDR, with the Nikolai Church as the starting point. The wish for freedom in the hearts of the people proved stronger than the apparatus of the Communist Party.
This history explains the violence on Tiananmen Square in 1989: The CCP sought to prevent from spreading within China the peaceful demand for rights that was already transforming Eastern Europe.
Today, in 2008, the CCP faces the same fear as in 1989—that the people will wake up and demand to be free of the Party.
This time the CCP's fear has been aroused by the way the natural catastrophe of the Sichuan earthquake exposed the corruption and incompetence of the Party. The failure of the Party to alert the people to warnings given by some of China's seismologists, combined with the inexcusably poor construction of schools and other buildings that collapsed completely under the stress of the earthquake, likely lead to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Out of fear, the CCP has organized mobs who have tried to intimidate and shut down the Service Center for Quitting the CCP in Flushing, New York City—a place where volunteers help those who want to quit the Party. The CCP has gambled that it can silence its critics.
But just as something remarkable happened in Leipzig in 1989, so something remarkable is happening in Flushing today.
In Leipzig, the parsons of Nikolai Church drew upon the strength given them by their spiritual beliefs to call for the Monday prayers and then to carry on the Monday demonstrations in the face of pressure from the Communist Party.
In Flushing, spiritual strength has enabled Falun Gong practitioners to face down the CCP's mobs. Rather than being intimidated, the practitioners have patiently explained the crimes of the CCP to those sent to bully them, and many of those who came to silence the practitioners are now refusing to continue the dirty work the Party had asked them to do.
Meanwhile, many of those in the neighborhood of Flushing who had originally been aloof from this struggle, upon seeing the clear contrast between the peaceful and dignified behavior of the Falun Gong practitioners and the violent and ugly behavior of the mobs instigated by the CCP, have begun supporting the practitioners.
Thirty-eight million Chinese have withdrawn from the CCP over the past four years, but in Flushing, for the first time, the organized attempt to stop the movement of quitting the CCP has appeared outside mainland China and has been publicly defeated. One can be sure that the Chinese people around the world are watching.
Just as in Leipzig, the demand for freedom is contagious. Just as the spirit of the Monday Demonstrations swept through the GDR, so the spirit of Flushing will begin spreading among Chinese populations around the world and eventually find its way back to mainland China.
The cynical attempt to silence those calling for an end to the CCP will end up amplifying their voices. Just as the cry "We are the people!" echoed through Leipzig, so the long still voice of the Chinese people will soon reverberate in Beijing.
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