Zhang Chengzhi. “So long as a single breath remains in me, let me devote myself to justice.” (April 23, 2024)

Translated by Joanna Suwen Lee-Brown

Seventy-five years of Palestine’s tenacious, unyielding resistance, and seventy-five years of Israel’s occupation, terrorism, and massacre of Palestine, have culminated in this decisive struggle in Gaza. The world’s political leaders, who are appointed by Capital, have separated from people of the world, who are exploited by Capital.

The people of the West have defied their powerful governments. Like those in Gaza, they persist (with sumud) in protesting. This forces Capital, which seizes the world by its throat, to feel its crisis. It is flustered and desperate, prohibiting free speech and declaring all protests against the massacre in Gaza to be anti-Semitic. Particularly at Columbia University in the United States, capital has cast aside democracy, deploying militarized police on campus, intimidating the president, and arresting students. Seven decades of propaganda, education, and brainwashing, which have reached extremes and been refined into a high art, are suddenly on the verge of collapsing in an instant.

In the past two days, Columbia has become the most infamous campus in the world. The university president had the audacity to invite the police onto campus – Alas, my life is too short, I can only admire mechanisms for university self-governance under which the military and police have no right to intrude. As for negative precedents that destroy this form of democratic university governance, I know of only one: In 1968, when Japanese Zenkyoto leftist students occupied the Yasuda Lecture Hall at the University of Tokyo, the president of the University allowed the mobile unit (riot police) to enter the campus and suppress dissent.

In the afternoon, students were arrested; by evening, scores of them poured into the protests. No one feared losing their enrolment status or their “future prospects.” It wasn’t only the students: teachers, whose vocation is to protect students, also bravely stood up at Columbia University. Wearing their academic robes as symbols of dignity, they held up signs and openly supported the students—unafraid that Capital, already deranged, would oust or even persecute them.

Perhaps, the following words of Mao Zedong have profound meaning: “Place great hopes in the American people.” In the United States, the great tradition of student movements has not been broken. Passion for justice will rapidly spread. Because the Palestinian people are endlessly tormented in the crucible of violence, because even babies have been pushed onto the altar of sacrifice, justice can tolerate it no more and has suddenly returned! What is happening at Columbia University in the United States is a revolution. It may fall back into a low tide, but it could also turn the world upside down.

“In 1936, the fascist military rebels attacked the Spanish Republic, angering progressive fighters around the world. Undaunted by bloodshed and misfortune, they took up their pens and guns, abandoning the comforts of the upper and middle classes to throw themselves into internationalist action worthy of remembrance in song. Participating in the Spanish War — this was a major event in modern world history. There were numerous people of renown among the fighters, including Hemingway, who wrote ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ “ (Excerpted from an earlier essay of mine, “Rereading Norman Bethune After Fifty Years”)

 Not only does it carry a red thread from the Spanish Civil War, it also picks up the baton from the “Sixties”, an era now passed that is being demonized by Capital. “Perhaps, this chain of justice, this stance of dedication to the other, this lineage of fiery passion, is another through-line in world history. It must be pointed out that what appears severed is actually connected. Without the people of 1936, there would be no people of 1968 — the global left-wing movement of the 1960s, which raised a banner of revolt against the unjust world in the 1960s, were their inheritors. Internationalism that opposes oppression and exploitation and strives for world justice will always be the unbreakable truth. It has not lost its enlightenment value nor its mobilizing power simply because of interference from Stalin or any other degenerated faction. Moreover, without today’s reality, people would not truly be able to see this truth clearly.” (Ibid.)

Gazing at it in my twilight years as I pass the age of seventy-five, I feel the excitement of an undying spirit. In 1966, we threw ourselves into the blaze of youth, but did not make dedicating our lives to the other our aim — this became the lasting regret of an entire generation. Today, the goals of the new generation in the United States are directed towards universal justice and address the suffering of others. This is the testament to humanity and the idealism of youth. So long as a single breath remains in me, my commitment to this cause will not cease. At this moment, though far away, I am present in Columbia’s quad; at this moment, I am with its brave teachers and students. My heart sets out again from its point of origin. Facing the trials and transformations of the century, we will not retreat.

Joanna SW Lee-Brown is a PhD candidate in modern Chinese literature and comparative literature at the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures of Columbia University. Her dissertation explores the translation of Islam into China’s revolutionary contexts in the Mao and post-Mao eras.