Liu Xiaobo

      There are a lot of well-known people who stood up for their country, or made something revolutionary, but what about someone who found corruption in their own country? Liu Xiaobo stood up against China, his own country, despite major acts against him, and stood up for democracy and the right thing.

     Liu Xiaobo was born on December 28th, 1955, in Changchun. In 1969, his dad took him to Horqin Right Front Banner in Inner Mongolia. He was a loyal member of the Communist Party. After finishing middle school, Liu Xiaobo was sent to the countryside at Jilin. In 1977, he was accepted to Jilin University. Finishing with a BA in literature, he was afterwards accepted to Beijing Normal University, getting an MA in literature and teaching as a lecturer. He then married Tao Li and had a son in 1984 named Liu Tao. In 1986, he started his doctoral studies and critiqued many magazines, where he got his nickname, “dark horse”. He then went on to publish his first book, Criticism of the Choice: Dialogs with Li Zehou, which became a bestseller. After this he became a lecturer at several different schools and also published his second and third books and launched a hunger strike for children, and soon all his works were banned in China.

     Liu Xiaobo advocated for westernization. He thought the Chinese ways were inhumane and completely wrong, saying Chinese people are spineless and wrong. He talked to his friend about how China doesn’t have a hero or a big person working towards anything. He also traveled the world to see what was going on outside, making his ideas stronger. On 27 April 1989, he returned to Beijing and joined a movement against the government. When the army seemed ready to violently eject students who were acting against the government, Liu started a 4 man hunger strike, and the children sided with him. They continued to protest, but Liu was arrested on June 5th and held in Qinchen prison. He kept working for what he believed in, but was arrested 3 more times, in 1995, 1996, and on December 8th, 2008, for being involved in democracy and human rights movements in 1989, writing books and launching a petition campaign, and finally writing books against the government. For twenty years, he worked for a more democratic and open China.

      Liu Xiaobo was someone who stood up against his own country, not another country, not an enemy. He is inspirational in this way, and what he did requires a lot of bravery. He saw that what China was surrounded by was bad, and he stood up for what was right.