Why Help Chen Guangcheng?

The following is a guest post by Robert Quinn, executive director of the Scholars at Risk Network, which promotes academic freedom and advocates on behalf of threatened scholars worldwide. The nonprofit organization is based at New York University and has member institutions in 34 countries.
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As the drama unfolded this month of Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng secreting himself out of house arrest in his village and making a daring trip to Beijing to seek the protection of embassy officials, many were asking the same question: Why the fuss over one man?

The answer lies in part in this extraordinary man, and in part in us. First Chen. Blind from birth and self-educated in law, he made himself an advocate for those left behind in China’s economic transformation, especially women and the poor. He is most well known for bringing a class-action lawsuit against local officials for violent enforcement of China’s one-child policy. He was subjected to home detention, prosecution without proper counsel, over four years in prison, and—until his escape—continuing surveillance and intimidation. Why does he do it? Because he is committed to his clients; to using nonviolent, legal mechanisms to seek justice for them, in the process exposing how the rights and systems of justice that exist on paper in China often fall short in practice. Chen is one of many legal advocates in China—including many inside the government—working to change this, to transform China from a system of rule-by-law to a system of rule-of-law where everyone, even poor villagers, have rights. Helping China make this transition is in everyone’s interest.

But why does China bother about Chen? This is the big question. Chen is threatening to the state not because he holds any traditional power, that is, any military, political or economic leverage. He operates in the realm of ideas, witness testimonies and essential values, like justice and truth. We would think that powerful states would do better to simply ignore Chen and his like. But Chen is threatening precisely because he stands at the intersection of power and ideas; of coercion and persuasion. His willingness to suffer the consequences exposes the limits of coercive authority: they can put him in prison, but that does not change the truth of his research and the legal claims he brings. For states whose authority rests on controlling information, exposing those limits is extremely threatening.

As extraordinary as he is, however, Chen is not unique. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of courageous women and men like him in China and around the world, who also deserve help, including engineering professor Abduljalil Al-Singace of Bahrain, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh of Iran, and political science professor Büşra Ersanli of Turkey, all currently detained for their nonviolent expression of ideas. All of us have a stake in what happens to them, because all of us have a stake in the clash between coercive power and ideas. All of us benefit as the world moves from reliance on violence and force (e.g. terrorism and dictatorship) to evidence, reasoned debate and persuasion (e.g. meaningful democracy and rule-of-law). This is why the fuss over Chen: because his future, his vision, is ours too.

Our program, Scholars at Risk, campaigned on Chen’s behalf while he was in detention. We work for threatened scholars; mostly traditional academics—professors, researchers and lecturers with Ph.D.’s, scholarly publications and multiple years in the classroom or lab—but sometimes also artists, writers, journalists, lawyers, and human-rights defenders like Chen who are targeted for the same kinds of research, publication, and public expression of ideas for which traditional scholars are targeted. Attacks on nontraditional advocates also take the same forms as traditional academics: both suffer alarming rates of professional and personal defamation, loss of position and livelihood, restrictions on travel, detention without charge or on false charges, and intimidation and physical violence, all in retaliation for their production and sharing of data and ideas. Moreover, the chilling effects of attacks on nontraditional advocates do not stop at the campus gate. When Chen and others like him are attacked it sends a message to everyone that some areas of inquiry are off limits, some analysis is too dangerous, some opinions unspeakable. And especially because the boundaries of what is off limits are generally unclear and shifting, such attacks impair academic freedom, regardless of whether the immediate victim is a traditional academic or nontraditional advocate like Chen.

That is why Scholars at Risk responds to attacks on traditional academics as well as nontraditional advocates like Chen; both to protect courageous individuals and to protect the space for rich and vibrant exercise of academic freedom in higher-education communities everywhere. Since 2001 Scholars at Risk has worked with over 1,000 scholars from over 100 countries. Whenever possible we help them keep working in their home countries. Like Chen, that is what they all want, as long as they and their families are safe. When they are not safe at home, Scholars at Risk helps them find safety and keep working from elsewhere. We are proud that our host campus, New York University, may be able to help in resolving the current situation by welcoming Chen to study in our community. Welcoming those persecuted for their ideas is a central part of what great universities should do, and what the 280 higher-education institutions participating in our network do by each year providing safety to more than 50 at-risk scholars and helping over 150 more with other services. By doing so, they help save lives and important voices.

But hosting threatened scholars is not all charity. Campuses benefit greatly from the visits. They benefit from the visiting scholars’ work. Often SAR scholars on campus will teach, work in a lab, guest-lecture, give public talks or meet with and even supervise students in their field. At the invitation of their host campuses, some SAR scholars have stayed on after their visits in long-term contract or tenure-track positions, becoming heads of projects, centers, and even a department. Nontraditional advocates like Chen especially offer valuable intellectual content because their work tends to be grounded in current events and by definition involves information which is difficult to obtain, especially by outsiders. SAR scholars can therefore be valuable resources for full-time faculty and students.

Beyond the intellectual benefits, campuses often benefit just from having these inspiring individuals on campus to interact with faculty, students and alumni. What better way to help students to appreciate the opportunities they have before them, to study what they want, to develop their minds and capacities, then to introduce them to people who have been willing to endure hardships to do the same?

And equally valuable, beyond these immediate intellectual and inspirational benefits, campuses benefit from the very act of participating in this work, regardless of who a visitor is, what country she comes from or what issues she studies. By joining our network, by standing in solidarity with other institutions around the world, and especially by hosting threatened colleagues, whether for year-long visits or just for a SAR Speaker Series event, higher education institutions send a message to their own constituents of what their institution is about. They send a message to their leadership team, faculty, staff, students and alumni that their institution is rooted in the shared pursuit of knowledge and truth. They send a message that theirs is a great institution that will go out of its way to help defend the space where knowledge and truth are pursued and the colleagues who are threatened for pursuing it.

We invite every university and college to send this message. We invite them to get involved in this important work and to help us help more scholars. We hope that Chen’s case will inspire them to do so. And we hope it will inspire everyone to see that by helping those like Chen who stand up for ideas, we help ourselves too.

[Creative Commons licensed Wikimedia photo by the U.S. State Department]