A sign in a shop window, a circular nobody was meant to read, and a count kept for nobody.
1The sign in the window
greengrocer puts a sign in his window. It says: Workers of the world, unite. He does not believe it. Nobody reading it does.1
Václav Havel told this story in 1978. The sign is not a message. It is a receipt. It proves the grocer has paid.
A one-party state runs on receipts like this. It does not need you to believe. It needs you to repeat.
2Words with no owner
指鹿为马Point at a deer. Call it a horse. Watch who agrees.
In 2013 an internal circular named seven ideas to resist. Among them: constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, a free press.2
3A count kept for nobody
In 1954 the Party counted its own executions in one campaign. The number stayed inside the Party for decades.3
From the data · 镇反 1950 to 1953- 1712,000Xu Zirong and Luo RuiqingParty count · weight 0
- 2712,000Zhou Xun 周逊Weight 80
- 3> 712,000Yang Kuisong 杨奎松Weight 80
- 4753,275Yinghong ChengWeight 100
4What a reader can do
The lie is not the opposite of the record. It is a second record, kept for the public. Our work is to put the two side by side.