A Plea: Please Don't Stop Paying Attention to the Chained Woman of Fengxian
They think we have all fallen asleep,
but in fact,
every one of us is wide awake.
They think we have all grown tired,
but in fact,
every one of us is holding on.
They think we can be fobbed off,
but in fact,
not one of us has ever been fooled.
Many people have advised me
to keep my head down and stay safe!
But I cannot calm myself.
Some things, once you know them,
leave you in tears, unable to eat or sleep,
with no words for the anger and grief inside.
How could anyone be unmoved by another's suffering, and simply look away/
For this woman in Fengxian, whose identity is still unclear,
we must speak up.
Others have already said it well enough, so let me borrow their words.
Excerpted from the WeChat account Zhige 9774 (ID: gh_edd5d78e8b82),
from the articles it has published in fury since 1 February 2022.
(1) Where did she come from? Who is she?
What the people of Fengxian say is:
she was picked up.
What the Fengxian authorities say is:
she was taken in.
The wording differs,
but both agree she was "not bought from traffickers."
No one knows who she is,
where she was born,
what her original name was,
or how old she really is.
It is rumoured
that Li Ying, the lost daughter of a martyr from Sichuan,
looks very much like her,
but there is no definite answer yet.
(2) What did others do to her?
Who put the iron chain around her neck?
Who knocked out all her teeth?
Who left her throat unable to speak?
Who cut off part of her tongue?
Who locked her up in a mud hut?
Who forced her to bear 8 children?
Who forced her to marry a man 20 years older?
Who drove her out of her mind?
Who left her stranded far from home?
Human trafficking,
unlawful imprisonment,
forced childbearing,
rape,
abduction,
bodily harm.....
Every evil this world commits against women
has fallen on this one mother.
She
has endured it for 24 years.
(3) A folded society
The standard of living in our big cities
has already surpassed that of many developed countries.
The standard of living in most of our countryside
has only just risen out of poverty.
This enormous contrast
has long gone unseen.
The rise of self-media
has cruelly laid bare the ignorance and backwardness of the countryside
to people living in the big cities.
Their lives
have always been folded away.
Suddenly,
they have been unfolded through the lens of self-media.
How developed a society is
is not measured by its tall buildings,
but by what it gives to the weak.
How civilised a society is
is not measured by its economic wealth,
but by its attitude towards the weak.
(4) The banality of evil
Fengxian is in the same country as us,
and Yang Xia lives in the same era as us.
Yang Xia
is our sister.
What happened to Yang Xia
happens to every one of us.
She herself
no longer has any way of winning justice for herself.
The people around her
are all accomplices to the crime,
and there is no justice to be found there.
The local government,
it seems, also wants to cover up this appalling crime.
Everyone who cares about this
should join forces with all their heart
to win justice for her.
Otherwise,
we all commit the "banality of evil."
The banality of evil,
compared with the evil done to Yang Mouxia,
is every bit as bad, if not worse.
Because a particular crime
harms its victim.
But the collective banality of evil
will destroy an entire society.
The notice issued by the local Fengxian authorities
is one we can no longer accept.
The state has sent a higher-level investigation team
to get to the bottom of the Yang Mouxia case.
Voicing support is public opinion,
and speaking out is the will of the people!
(5) Justice will not be absent
May Ms Yang Mouxia's
24 years of cruel suffering
push forward the rule of law in our country.
May no woman, from now on,
ever again be trafficked, imprisoned or abused!
The only complete sentence Yang Mouxia has ever been heard to say is:
This world doesn't want me anymore.
Then
we also have something to tell her:
This era will never abandon you.
Here, I bow deeply to the netizens who brought this case to light.
The attention of the public and of public opinion
is the hope of Yang Mouxia,
and of the women in Fengxian, in Xuzhou, and across the whole country
who have been trafficked,
imprisoned,
raped,
forced to bear children,
physically harmed,
and killed —
their
hope.
This is the light of our civilisation; please don't let it go out.