ai weiwei

Let me tell you a true story.

Last year I was giving a tour at the Portuguese parliament to a group of Chinese visitors. I spoke in English and had a Chinese translator. I would say 2 sentences and then pause so he could translate. I got to the part of the 1974's Revolution and I explained that with it Portugal had become free of a long lasting dictatorship. I then paused to let him translate.

He looked at me and said - "Dictatorship? What does that mean?"

I naively responded back - "You know when a country is controlled by an autocratic form of government and the people have no rights and no freedom of speech."

He looked at me and listened in perplexity. I don't know what he translated but whatever it was, it was too quick to be a word for word translation.

When you live in countries where you can say anything you please, for the good and the bad, it's easy to discard that there are others who still fight for those basic human rights. 

Sharron Lovell / Polaris

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