By Michael Moriarty
web posted January 24, 2005
 Ziyang |
Two weeks ago in Enter Stage Right, I predicted that Mother Earth would serve up a warning to the People's Republic of China on the Dr. Martin Luther King memorial weekend. Something worse happened. Zhao Ziyang, China's counterpart to the Soviet Union's Mikhail Gorbachev, died after 15 years in captivity. A voice that could have opened the gates of freedom and democracy to the Chinese people was silenced. The circumstances of his all-too-early death are not known. Dr. King, of course, was silenced with bullets. Regardless of the modus operandi, another voice of human courage has been muffled and eliminated in the land where it was most needed: Communist China.
Extinguishing Hope
The devil of tyranny has, for millennia, always come up with a new way to justify its dictatorial excesses and quell protest. With socialist federations now ruling 95 per cent of the human race and full Communism only 24 hours away with a mere declaration of martial law - we Americans sit, like Israelis, surrounded by our enemies and await the new set of offers our enemies think we can't refuse.
The joint military maneuvers by Russia and China are a ratcheting up of the global stakes. The disclosure of Israel's sale of weapons and military secrets to Beijing is a stab in the back of its ally, the United States. Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda brigades are keeping Iraq under constant attack. The UN is going all out to defy the U.S. on most matters of geopolitical importance.
This is freedom's death by suffocation. The memory of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre of political dissidents is, with the death of Ziyang, back in the forefront of Chinese consciousness and will, I predict, have enormous repercussions for Red China.
Meanwhile, the memory and legacy of our own Zhao Ziyang, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is facing a different kind of suffocation through the takeover of his estate by a veritable socialist cabal. A glance at Dr. King's Website reveals the unfounded claim that the great man was for pro-choice movements, fetal tissue research and affirmative action.
Nothing in Dr. King's public declarations or personal correspondence can justify such forced spin-doctoring. The truth espoused by a towering public figure has been entirely "copyrighted." What court, judge or legal review board could possibly uphold such usurpation of another man's words and meanings? Almost equal to the vengeful and deadly jealousy that percolates beneath all of socialist thought are the capitulations to post-Vietnam guilt by a number of prominent Americans in media, politics and showbiz.
The suffocation of hope by the 15-year house arrest of Ziyang and the rewriting of Dr. King's dreams are breathtaking matters to contemplate. The truth can be withheld for only so long.
The Rekindling of Hope
Truth must inevitably surface. Perhaps delays in revealing the truth are reality's way of catching as many liars as possible.
Hope is the eternal renaissance of justice – its rebirth and renewed recognition. Faith is hope's eternal trust in justice. As surely as "what goes around comes around," what was said by good men like Dr. King and Ziyang cannot be imprisoned forever. With President George W. Bush's splendid inaugural address and this week's confirmation of Condelezza Rice as Secretary of State, hope has indeed sprung eternal. 
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who has appeared in the landmark television series Law and Order, the mini-series Taken, and the recent TV-movie The 4400. Moriarty is now filming Deadly Skies, a TV-movie that will soon be broadcast on the here! TV network. He lives in Maple Ridge, B.C.
Other related articles: (open in a new window)
- From the Land of Odd, north of Eden by Michael Moriarty (January 10, 2005)
Michael Moriarty believes that something very big is going to happen in China this week, the same week Americans commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Day
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