Jennifer Zeng

“Witnessing History” is a harrowing account of one woman’s experience with China’s repression of Falun Gong, the spiritual/religious/moral code movement that swept through much of China in the 1990s. Her story of the passionate adherence of Falun Gong practitioners to their beliefs despite the torture, forced labor and brainwashing practices that the Chinese government has used and is still using ina fruitless attempt to eliminate Falun Gong could be interpreted as a story of cult-like devotion to the practice, but a better explanation is that it reflects the courageous resistance of ordinary people to government attempts to repress their beliefs. The Chinese government has used all of its propaganda tools to characterize Falun Gong as an evil cult that is harmful to society – in much the same way as it now is using propaganda to give the world a false picture of the unrest in Tibet. The true story is that the government was threatened by a practice that was replacing the state as the most significant force in society for large numbers of people and has devoted a huge amount of resources to its repression. The Falun Gong issue has largely disappeared from United States news in recent years, but the repression continues. If our own government were not guilty of its own repressive and torture-oriented tactics, it would be much better able to take a stand against the Chinese government’s tactics.… (altro)