Editorial: The empty seat at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

3068 Edition

December 13~19, 2010

Editorial



Editorial: The empty seat at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony

Translated by Lydia Ma



This year’s December 10 will be remembered as the 2nd time in 75 
years where neither the Nobel Laureate nor a member of his family 
showed up at the award ceremony to pick up the prestigious prize.



To honor 2010’s Laureate, Liu Xiaobo, Thorbjoern Jagland, Chairman of 
the Norwegian Nobel Committee, placed the golden diploma, medal, and 
document on Liu’s empty seat, before proceeding with his speech.



Jagland emphasized the Nobel Peace Prize should serve as a constant 
reminder that the freedoms we enjoy on a daily basis today were 
fought and bought with the sacrifice of many people – some even 
risking their own lives.



Jagland said that Liu had told his wife prior this ceremony that his 
prize would be dedicated to all those who lost their lives in the 
Tiananmen Square Massacre.



In related news, about one month before this ceremony, on the other 
side of the hemisphere, a heroine fighting a cause similar to Liu’s 
in her own country was released from house arrest. Her name? Aung San 
Suu Kyi. 



Suu Kyi made headlines shortly after her release with a public 
statement holding no grudges against those who detained her, instead, 
she urged her supporters to continue fighting for freedom of speech 
and human rights in her country.



For both Liu and Suu Kyi, they thought it was important to unmask 
their government’s masquerade of peace and goodwill.



Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu once again unearthed memories 
of the Tiananmen Massacre and the student movements that took place 
in China at the time. The difference this time is that these heroes 
are now being viewed in a positive light for their contributions to 
Chinese democracy.



Taiwan’s own version of the “Tiananmen Square Massacre” took place on 
April 6, 1949, but few people know about it. At the time, police 
officers were dispatched to surround National Taiwan University and 
National Taiwan Normal University student dormitories to apprehend 
students involved in democracy movements. More than 100 students were 
arrested and imprisoned that night. Of these students, 7 were 
eventually executed at gunpoint.



Though this horror occurred half a century ago during Taiwan’s “White 
Terror” days, it wasn’t until the year 2000 that the Ministry of 
Education issued a formal apology to the victims’ families.



This year’s empty seat at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony shames 
authoritarian regimes and inspires the weak to take heart and rest 
assured that though justice may tarry, it WILL come someday – as 
proven by this empty seat.



This Christmas season, we find a similar analogy of hope in the 
Gospel of Luke. Luke 2 introduces us to a character named Simeon. He 
was a good man and “a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of 
help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him. The Holy Spirit had 
shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died.” (The 
Message, Luke 2:25-26). And as the story goes, God didn’t disappoint 
him – Simeon eventually got to see the Savior with his own eyes.



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