General Studies Lounge

In December 1978, the Cultural Revolution was over and it appeared to Beijing residents that China would naturally move toward democracy. No Mao, meant no People’s Republic thought many. Utilizing the political teaching of the rising Deng Xiaoping, Beijing urbanites began to emphasize the concept of “seeking truth through facts”. On a wall was a long brick wall on Chang'an Street in the Xidan District of Beijing, political dissidents and the politically aware began to document publicly problems in China and call for change in the politics of China . The most famous statement, the statement which truly began the Democracy Wall Movement, was a poster entitled the Fifth Modernization by Wei Jingsheng who signed it and placed it on the wall on December 5, 1978. After Agriculture, Industry, Science and Technology, and National Defense (Promoted by Deng Xiaoping in 1978), Wei Jingsheng added Democracy! Chinese citizens wrote feely in prose and poetry (poetry being the traditional way to inform the government of prolems). Beijing citizens now had a catharsis to assuage the anger and fear they felt. They were a community in pain, a community without a way to publicly portray their frustrations, a community kept in silence, a community finally allowed to open up. While ultimately unsuccessful, its effects still linger. Even today Chinese and Westerners talk nostalgically to the Democracy Wall Movement.

We are a community in pain, a community without a way to publicly portray their frustrations, and a community kept in silence. We just may need a Democracy Wall of ourselves