The Real Empty Chair

By now, Clint Eastwood's "Empty Chair" speech has become a legend.

But in searching for "empty chair" images, I came across an interesting sculpture.

It's called "The Empty Chair". Amnesty International commissioned artist Maarten Baas to make this sculpture in honor of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

It commemorates his absence at the awards ceremony. Neither Liu nor any members of his family were able to attend because he is currently being held by the Chinese government for "incitement to the overthrow of the state power and socialist system and the people’s democratic dictatorship." He is serving an 11 year sentence.

Liu was represented by an empty chair.

The last recipient who went unrepresented was Carl von Ossietsky in 1935. He was unable to attend because he was incarcerated in one of Hitler's concentration camps.

Liu was unable to even present a speech in absentia. 

Instead, Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann recited his "Final Statement", authored in 2009 just prior to the start of his 11-year sentence.

It is an eloquent statement, gracious to the government and the people responsible for his detention. I wonder whether the naming of specific people was deliberate in the attention it focused on certain individuals. But the overall tone is one of personal resignation coupled with quiet confidence in China's ability to evolve into a truly humane and great nation. It is worth reading in its entirety.

Perhaps the most poignant part is when he talks about his wife. Somehow, it reminds me of "Tu Risa", by Pablo Neruda. Even through translation, one can tell he is a poet:

Ask me what has been my most fortunate experience of the past two decades, and I’d say it was gaining the selfless love of my wife, Liu Xia. She cannot be present in the courtroom today, but I still want to tell you, sweetheart, that I’m confident that your love for me will be as always. Over the years, in my non-free life, our love has contained bitterness imposed by the external environment, but is boundless in afterthought. I am sentenced to a visible prison while you are waiting in an invisible one. Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes.

Given your love, sweetheart, I would face my forthcoming trial calmly, with no regrets about my choice and looking forward to tomorrow optimistically. I look forward to my country being a land of free expression, where all citizens’ speeches are treated the same; here, different values, ideas, beliefs, political views… both compete with each other and coexist peacefully; here, majority and minority opinions will be given equal guarantees, in particular, political views different from those in power will be fully respected and protected; here, all political views will be spread in the sunlight for the people to choose; all citizens will be able to express their political views without fear, and will never be politically persecuted for voicing dissent; I hope to be the last victim of China’s endless literary inquisition, and that after this no one else will ever be jailed for their speech.

This election season, we are, predictably, intensely focused inward. The election will likely not hinge upon foreign policy, and perhaps it should not. But it would be a tragedy for the idiom of the "empty chair", representing one man's struggle -- one generation's struggle -- for freedoms we take for granted to be defined by twelve minutes of Eastwood on a stage.