In 1642, Richard Lovelace wrote "To Althea, From Prison," his famous poem protesting the removal of Bishops from the English parliament via the Bishops Exclusion Bill. Contextual motivations aside, the core theme of the poem - that prisons of the body do not confine the abilities of the mind - is universally felt, even today. Most often quoted are the opening lines of the final stanza:
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage
Walls make many things, and mean many things over, to many people.
When I decided to visit China for the first time, I had a measure of ambivalence in doing so. The human rights abuses of the Chinese Communist government are well-documented, from their persecution of the Falun Gong and Tibetan Buddhists, to their suppression of press and freedom of speech, to their mass executions (which were so numerous in the 1990's that they equalled the entirety of the world put together).
Feeding into that machine by participating in state-run moneymakers like world famous tourist sites, quietly accepting the status quo and enjoying the surface presentation of a prosperous superpower, was something I had to privately come to terms with. As I chose to overlook these crimes in favour of my own experience, I of course came into contact with the Wall. Both of them. You see there are, in point of fact, two major Walls in China. They present a study in contrasts.
Personal photo from my trip to Beijing
The first, of course, is the Great Wall, constructed and rebuilt over centuries of dynasties, beginning as far back as the unification of China under the Qin Dynasty in 221BC and continuing all the way through the Ming Dynasty in the 14th century. Only with the overthrow of the Ming Dynasty by Li Zicheng in 1644, and the subsequent invasion of the Manchu people allied with former Ming general Wu Sangui, did the wall become obsolete with the annexation of Mongolia into the Chinese borders. Mongolia would only regain its independence in 1921, after the fall of the Qing dynasty. In the modern era, the wall's fortifications mattered not one jot, and restoration efforts today are purely for aesthetic and heritage purposes.
The second wall is opposite in almost every way. It is the Great Firewall, a digital barrier existing in the realms of the internet, yet whose presence is keenly felt by any person within the borders of the People's Republic. The Firewall project was begun in 1998. In the same year the Communist Party of China declared the China Democratic Party illegal, and imprisoned hundreds of its members. Many are still in prison today, and others have been exiled to places like the United States. The Great Firewall was completed in 2006, and is still in operation today, with refinements to its systems as technology evolves. Its core implementation and aims have always been consistent, though: it exists to block access to websites that the Communist Party deems inappropriate, seditious, lewd...whatever the reason, they control what people are allowed to access. It is not wholly effective; proxy servers and VPNs are just a couple of examples of circumventing the Wall, though the government continues to develop methods to halt these infractions.
Photo Credit: Christoph Scholz Flickr via Compfight cc
These two Walls are, in most respects, as unlike as night and day, and not merely because of their physical and digital aspects.
The Great Wall of Emperor Qin Shi Huang was built to establish the newfound borders of unified China, with the intention of protecting it against invaders and raids from the Eurasian Steppes. It is a physical barrier, meant to create a sense of safety...and passively, to send a signal to those on the other side that they are not welcome, and they will be resisted.
The Great Firewall, by contrast, is turned inward. It is a system aimed at sending a signal to the people within, that they should not interact with the world beyond. To some extent, it is trade protectionism, targeted at resisting the outside tech giants of America like Google, while growing Chinese companies. At its core though, it is keeping things IN, not OUT.
Yet they cross purposes in one key respect: safety...or the illusion thereof. Consider, if you will, the emotional motivation of an everyman and his wall. Why does he want walls around himself? "Four walls and a roof" is the formative cliché that makes up a home, which carries with it connotations of security, safety, and comfort. How does that everyman's emotional well-being factor into the creation of community walls of ever growing complexity and size? From neighborhood to city to nation, walls grow upwards and outwards with the shared purpose of saying "this person belongs on this side, that person belongs on the other." To the everyman, that message is refined by politicians: "WE belong on this side, THEY belong on that side."
Personal photo from my trip to Beijing
Viewed in this lens, the people who proclaim their intentions to build walls become highly suspect.
Perhaps it is too much to think that all walls, everywhere, could come down. We are creatures of similar paradox to the Great Wall and the Great Firewall, needing our individuality just as much as we need our community. We cannot thrive without our own space, yet we need the people around us.
Yet when these conflicting desires manifest themselves in large-scale, political action, we must ask where the line must be drawn...or perhaps more concisely, where the wall must be built.
Or if it must be built at all.
This is Part Two in a Series of posts I will be writing in May 2018, which is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. I will be writing about my experience visiting Beijing, my perceptions of Asian representation in media and art, and more. Part One is here. If you'd like to subscribe to my posts, click here.
Thank you for reading!