For now, Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo may be remembered by only a group of intellectuals from the 1980s and those inspired by that period of intellectual ferment..
For now, Chinese Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo may be remembered by only a group of intellectuals from the 1980s and those inspired by that period of intellectual ferment.
A trawling of the Internet showed posts mourning Mr Liu, who died of liver cancer on Thursday. But of the comments that escaped the censors, many showed either ignorance of who he was or scepticism about his contribution to Chinese society.
Still, some analysts say, his ideals of freedom of expression and improvement of the human condition, among others, will live on, his place in history assured.
Mr Liu went to university in 1977 around the time of China’s reform and opening up after the brutal Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976.
What followed the first reforms that began in 1978 was an invigorating period of intellectual ferment and relaxed censorship, particularly in the mid-1980s.
“It was a memorable age of idealism, ” recalled an analyst who asked not to be named.
Mr Liu, he said, “represents the Chinese idealism of the 1980s, a whole generation of people, particularly the scholars”.
That heady period of openness and debate on China’s future ended in the tragic Tiananmen incident of June 4,1989, when People’s Liberation Army troops mowed down hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, possibly more, in Tiananmen Square and nearby areas.
Mr Liu, who had taken part in the 1980s debates and in the Tiananmen protests, was one of the many thrown into prison in the aftermath of June 4.
But unlike some who later chose to leave the country – including student leaders of the Tiananmen protests Wang Dan and Wu’er Kaixi – Mr Liu chose to stay behind and soldier on.
That led to his many arrests and imprisonments, including a stint in a labour camp.
