Opening Speech at the 8th Interethnic/Interfaith Leadership Conference
By YANG Jianli
Taipei, April 27,2013
Good morning, distinguished guests, dear friends, my brothers and sisters. And good day.
I say good day because any time friends of human rights from different ethic, cultural, religious and regional backgrounds join together to openly dedicate themselves to the collaborative work of advancing freedom, truth, equality and peace, is a good day. This is exactly what we at this Conference are trying to do. And so let me say again, good morning and good day.
Of course, although it is morning in this beautiful city, on this very good day, we know too that we are gathered in the shade of shadows—shadows cast by human rights abuses; shadows cast by human rights abusers, and shadows cast by what is worst in us on what is best.
But we must remember that we also live in the land of light, light shined by our best human beings, sometimes by the flames of their burning bodies. Twenty fours years ago, right here in this very city of Taipei, a man named Zheng Nanrong set himself on fire. The flames of his burning body forever changed the balance between darkness and light and light has ever since been prevailing on this island.
And taody, on this beautiful island, we are gathered in the spirit of Zheng Narong as well as that of the more than 110 Tibetan national heroes who have set themselves ablaze for their people’s freedom in the past four years. But these rays of light are buried in a world still shrouded in thick darkness. This continued darkness is an embarrassment to common sense and to our common humanity. My soul is burning, and I believe, so are yours. We have gathered here to defy this darkness, to remind the entire world once again that each one of us has an opportunity to act in a way worthy of the best of our humanity, and to summon the best heritage of mankind and the wisdom to let the rays of light shine through.
Many of us have traveled great distances to be here today, but all of us have traveled even further mentally. We are often shadowed by mistrust and hostilities that have divided us. Only by overcoming these shadows will we march strongly towards the horizon where the dawn of freedom, truth, equality and peace for us all will one day break.
No matter whom you sit here representing, you have been victimized by the Chinese Communist regime. Tibetans, Uyghurs, Mongolians, and Han; Christians, Falun Gong, Buddhists and Muslims, all have suffered, and all now suffer, at the hands of this regime. The people of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, their freedoms are being compromised by its political and economic intimidation.
My friends—and let us resolve that only in friendship will we find freedom, truth, equality and peace—under the circumstances I have just described, we have no choice but to work together and avoid the divisiveness, apathy, fear, and hatred that will only play into the hands of the Chinese government and feed the darkness.
My friends—and let us resolve upon brotherhood as a guiding and uniting principle for our work together—we are each other’s keepers, we are each other’s freedom, we are each other’s peace, we are each other’s hope.
And it is in this spirit that I now officially open the 8th Interethnic/Interfaith Leadership Conference.
Thank you all.