Jimbut’s dormant membership of ICPC

I have been the member of ICPC (The Independent Chinese PEN Center) since 2002, and now I declare myself as a dormant member of ICPC, because of the secretariat’s reiterating violation of the rules and regulations for the function and general election meeting of ICPC, which is written by the secretariat itself.

Discussion about censorship against member-application, PEN’s charter and political-ideological judgement

There has been some discussions in ICPC for years, for example from last year the discussions about the resolutions of “demanding that the board-member Yu Jie should be dismissed from the vice-chairman post” and of “expelling the normal member of ICPC Gao Han from ICPC”. Since I was busy in my translation, I did not pay much attention to the discussion till 3 months ago, when a certain discussion involved me in it anyway, - as I remember, it was from the 10^th August 2007.

It was about the Chinese dissident and dramatic artist Mr. Zhang Guangtian’s application of “joining ICPC and becoming a member of PEN”. Mr. Zhang Guangtian is a performer and advocate for freedom of expression in China and on earth. I am one of those who introduced and recommended Zhang Guangtian into ICPC. Actually, the application for Mr. Zhang Guangtian’s admission to ICPC was granted two years ago, and Zhang Guangtian is now a member of ICPC.

But the discussions for me broke out when the board-member and vice-chairman of ICPC, Mr. Yu Jie, proclaimed that he was against this admission, that he had persuaded the other board-members to refuse Zhang Guangtian’s application (although failed), and that he would always do his best to prevent people like Zhang Guangtian from being member of PEN. Mr. Yu Jie’s argument was that “Zhang Guangtian is a Maoist, and therefore Zhang Guangtian is against freedom of expression”, and Mr. Yu Jie’s justification for his allegation was that Zhang as an artist had made use of the symbols and icons of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara in his art works and happenings. Mr. Yu Jie meant in some of his arguments, that his sense of censorship under treatment of the applications would ensure ICPC’s cleanness.

When I learned Mr. Yu Jie’s proclaimation, his arguments and allegations, I answered that I would say nothing about Mr. Yu Jie’s utterance as an attitude of a private person, because it was Mr. Yu Jie right and freedom of speech. But if such things happened as a decision of ICPC, that the board rejected people like Mr. Zhang Guangtian on account of this kind of reasons from Mr. Yu Jie, then, I as a member of PEN would protest.

Then I got a response from the general secretary, Mr. Zhang Yu, and he told me that Zhang Guangtian might be rejected if the board tightened the standard of censorship, although he himself never meant that it would be a good idea to reject Zhang Guangtian, - because it benefited ICPC when Zhang Guangtian became a member of PEN; according to the chairman of ICPC, Mr. Liu Xiaobo and the general secretary, Mr. Zhang Yu, it was a positive fact that ICPC had members like Mr. Zhang Guangtian. Well, Mr. Zhang Guangtian is a member now.

But for me, it should not be out of a kind of profitableness that Mr. Zhang Guangtian might get admission to be a member of ICPC, but rather according to the PEN-charter and rules, that Mr. Zhang Guangtian are entirely qualified to be a member of PEN. This is a question of principle, but not profit-seeking. So I wrote again:

It might be that Zhang Guangtian would be judged as not qualified to be a member of PEN if the board tightened the standard of censorship, so he could be rejected. If such decision was made by the board, I as a member naturally would have right to question and to demand the grounds for such decision in that case. If the grounds contradicted the principle of PEN, then on the basis of this contradiction, I as a member of PEN would have right to question the validity of the board’s decision. If the board modified the decision and adjusted it in conformity with the principle of PEN, I as a member would not dispute this further. But if the board insisted the decision against the principle of PEN, I as a member would be entitled to accuse the board of malfunction and demand a reconstitution of the board. Of course, such a resolution could probably be passed, but also could probably be failed. [note2]

I maintained that the board had no absolute right to use the political censorship which contradicted the principle of PEN to ensure its “cleanness”. For instance, if an ICPC-board member believed in the ideology of the neo-conservatism, then I as a member of ICPC would of course respect his personal belief; but as a board-member, he should keep his political ideology away from interfering PEN’s function and causing malfunction.

So, I got answers from the general secretary, Mr. Zhang Yu. He explained that the censorship under treatment of the applications was always justifiable, even if the board tightened the standard of censorship on the basis of some board-member’s political-ideological belief which differed from PEN’s principle; and he mentioned the case of Romain Rolland’s membership of PEN (that the French PEN-center rejected Romain Rolland because of his pacifistic attitude and writing, while English Center took him as its honorary member) to legitimate that the board sometimes might make decisions which were in conflict with “PEN’s original element”. I replied, that I as a member would defend the qualified applicants right to be a member against such kinds of censorship, the censorship on the basis of some board-member’s political-ideological belief which differs from PEN’s principle, no matter it was a Romain Rolland or a Zhang Guangtian. The discussion between Mr. Zhang Yu and me did not end at a consensus or understanding between us. Anyway, it was just only a discussion between two ICPC-members.

Meanwhile, the vice-chairman Mr. Yu Jie emphasized that he would always do his best to prevent people like Zhang Guangtian from being member of PEN and that he would always do his best to use censorship under treatment of the applications to ensure ICPC’s cleanness. My response to Mr. Yu Jie was that I declared that I could not trust Mr. Yu Jie’s ability to be a qualified board-member; and that While Mr. Yu Jie did his best to ensure this censorship, I would try my best to prevent Mr. Yu Jie’s political-ideological belief from bringing ICPC into malfunction.

Should I be responsible for a decision which I had never said “agree” to?

While I still carried the discussion about the ideological censorship under treatment of the applications, I received the announcement of ICPC-board’s decision, that the normal member of ICPC Gao Han was expelled from ICPC.

Mr. Gao Han was a member of ICPC as myself, and I never have had a liking for him. I think, if I am right, that he never have had a liking for me either, - shortly, we did not have much fellow-feeling to each other although we were in the same ICPC. When Mr. Gao Han argued against the people who proposed the resolution “expelling the normal member of ICPC Gao Han from ICPC” in the forum, I was not interested, since I did not have much time whereas he has never been a personal friend of mine; and I always believe in the personal autonomy of the individuals, so I thought that he should carry his argument by himself against his adversaries who wanted to dispossess him the membership. My attitude by and large is that as member of PEN, nobody should be expelled from PEN as long as she or he is not criminal or against freedom of expression. But when the announcement of expelling Gao Han came, I did not say anything about it either, since I respected Mr. Gao Han’s autonomy to defend himself. But then it appeared that Mr. Gao Han was also expelled from forum, so he could not express his defence. Well, since I was never asked to vote on this resolution, and since I am not a one who gave or gives his consent to this expelling, I had to show my dissociation from this decision made by the board of ICPC. At least, even when I did not like the person, I should wash my hands of the decision to expel this person, “I am innocent of the banishment of this person who has not been charged for being criminal or against the freedom of expression: see ye to it.”[note3] - So I sent a personal statement to the forum and stated my position – I had totally nothing to do with the “expelling Gao Han” decision[note4]. The statement was sent in the 9^th December 2007.

So the general secretary, Mr. Zhang Yu, responded very quickly but in a kind of intricate language:

“Since you have an attitude against expelling Gao Han, why didn’t you set forth your opinion in these two years discussion, or you could say it in the one year’s period after the expelling resolution was started or even in the last period little more than one month when his membership was still remained? Does this mean that you actually did not include Gao Han in the categories your “against expelling member” principle applies to?

Except the problem of timing, the differences between that you contradict the board’s decision before and after the procedure would at least be one of the two down here:

1. You did not care about the procedure at all, or at least “procedure before judgment” relating to this issue,

2. Otherwise, you did not really hope that your attitude should have influence upon the result of the procedure, therefore what you were doing contradict your attitude. For instance you said that you generally were “against expelling any member”, but you said it after the procedure was finished, - it is equal to that you excluded Gao Han out of where the procedure for “a member” covers, therefore the expression of “against expelling Gao Han” is in turn including him into the procedure, so it is clear that the two thing are in self-contradiction.”[note5]

I could not understand what the logical coherence was between Mr. Zhang Yu’s response and my statement. But one thing is that I could see: He was trying to persuade me to believe, that either my expression of my attitude was invalid or in some kind of “real sense” I was actually agreeing with this “expelling Gao Han” decision. If I took this response as an official statement from the general secretary of ICPC, I would be really angry, - to wring consent out of a member in such cunning way, this is not decent! And in Chinese there are ugly words for it.[note6]

Anyway, I considered Mr. Zhang Yu’s response only as a certain ignorant ICPC-member’s response to another member’s statement. So well, even if he would try to persuade Pilate to become one of those among the Jewish masses, he might have his right to express what he wanted.

As a matter of fact, I have and had totally nothing to do with the “expelling Gao Han” decision; and I believe that the most of ICPC-members have and had nothing to do with the “expelling Gao Han” decision, which was made by ICPC’s board (Somehow it is difficult to say, since there has not been voting on this resolution. There were 12 members who demanded to expel Mr. Gao Han.)

Double standard as a kind of personal judgment or as a kind of method in ICPC-function?.

What formed a sharp contrast to the general secretary Mr. Zhang Yu’s response in regard to “expelling Gao Han” decision was his appealing to the ICPC-members to stop the vote on the voting-suggestion of the resolution of “not trusting Board-member Mr. Yu Jie”.

I supported the voting-suggestion of the resolution of “not trusting Board-member Mr. Yu Jie”, and I would have voted yes on the resolution if it had been brought out to voting procedure, - I cannot trust Mr. Yu Jie as a qualified Board-member, as long as he insists that he would always do his best to prevent people like Zhang Guangtian from being member of PEN and that he would always do his best to use censorship under treatment of the applications to ensure ICPC’s cleanness. While Mr. Yu Jie places his political ideology above the PEN principles, I would try my best to prevent Mr. Yu Jie’s political-ideological belief from bringing ICPC into malfunction, and the concrete action would have been: to vote “non-trusting” to Mr. Yu Jie.

Anyway, the cases of Mr. Gao Han and Mr. Yu Jie have a large part to do with the events from Summer 2006, that Mr. Yu Jie and Wang Yi excluded Mr. Guo Feixiong from their meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in White House, so I do not want to go into further details in my description here. (You can google it with words "Yu Jie Wang Yi Whitehouse Guo Feixiong", then you can find more information about those events).

In the 3^rd general election meeting of ICPC, the secretariat and the Chairman Mr. Liu Xiaobo stopped the voting of the resolution “non-trusting to Mr. Yu Jie”[note7]; it was in the 12^th October 2007. In comparing with the case of “expelling Gao Han”, the the Chairman Mr. Liu Xiaobo and the general secretary Mr. Zhang Yu’s attitude had totally another standard.

The double standard in treating and judging these cases by the board and the general secretary of ICPC, which appeared in forum, aroused my suspicion; I came to doubt the board and the general secretary’s abilities to keep the quality or condition of being correct in judgment when they worked for ICPC. From this point I began to watch the procedures in the works of the board and the secretariat, because I could no longer trust them.

The want of confidence or the problem of credibility in the general secretary Mr. Zhang Yu was confirmed very soon by the new events. The statement of ICPC-member Ahai 30^th October 2007, “Statement: to urge the general election meeting investigate the abnormal and irregular phenomena under the voting of the board-members”[note8], exposed Mr. Zhang Yu’s violation of the rules and regulations, and the main problems were: Mr. Zhang Yu excised his power in the area where he was not allowed to have admission (for instance, Mr. Zhang Yu took over vote’s final counting in defiance the rule that he should not involved in counting); there are a lot of doubtful and self-contradictory points around the counting procedure (for instance, 16 unregistered “voter” suddenly appeared in procedure and accepted by the general secretary Mr. Zhang Yu’s counted results, while the meeting demanded that the valid voters should notify themselves and should be registered before the meeting).

As a response to Mr. Ahai’s statement, I also sent a statement to ICPC’s forum, and it was from 30^th October 2007 (the notes in square-parenthesis is by Jimbut):

“In this period I have had lots of public communications [correspondences in ICPC-forum] with the general secretary Zhang Yu. I can see that the way Zhang Yu discusses issues with ICPC-members is: to the members who are against Zhang Yu or against those whom Zhang Yu wants to advocate, Zhang Yu applies his so-called rules; to himself and to those whom Zhang Yu wants to advocate, Zhang Yu applies the liberal interpretation of these rules; on the members who are against Zhang Yu or against those whom Zhang Yu wants to advocate, Zhang Yu makes moral demands; for himself and to those whom Zhang Yu wants to advocate, Zhang Yu makes so-called “esthetical” explanations. If I saw that Zhang Yu as the general secretary managed ICPC’s matter in this way, then I would have already declared to PEN and the relevant circles that I had sent a vote of non-confidence to Zhang Yu, no matter whether there had been a process about this in PEN or not. But in the mentioned public communications I only considered Zhang Yu as a normal member of PEN, so I in fact did not vote non-confidence against the ICPC’s general secretary Zhang Yu.

…But then I saw Ahai’s statement and his report about Zhang Yu’s violation of the rules and regulations again. What can I say to this? ICPC’s functional structure and general election meeting have had a such general secretary, so, if I acknowledged that the PEN-center with this functional structure was the PEN-center that I have chosen as mine, it would undoubtedly mean that I was insulting my own intelligence. But ICPC is indeed my PEN-center, and I know, it means that I have to compromise if I do not resign from the ICPC. Since I will neither resign my membership nor acknowledge that the PEN-center with Zhang Yu as general secretary was the PEN-center that I have chosen as mine, I think then, the only thing I can do is to let myself be absent in ICPC. In International PEN’s annual congress, people often use such a word – “dormant” to describe some PEN-center’s condition. Thus I formally use this word to describe my own state in ICPC: as long as Zhang Yu still is general secretary of ICPC, I as a member of ICPC declare myself as a dormant member…”[note9]

The general secretary of ICPC stands on his violation of the rules and regulations and continues to do what he always does. So I am now a dormant member in ICPC.

After the general election meeting, there has been a vacuum-period for ICPC’s functional structure, and the members waited to see, who the new general secretary of ICPC would be. Meanwhile Zhang Yu sent some interpretations of the rules to the forum again. For instance, now for him, the original article of the rules, that the general secretary’s responsibilities is to prepare the general election meeting and the voting, is interpreted as, that the general secretary’s responsibilities is to operate and administrate the general election meeting and the voting.

Several members protested, but they always met Mr. Zhang Yu’s liberal interpretation of the rules. Now the problem became, that Mr. Zhang Yu was able to manipulate the rules and regulations connotation by changing their denotation as soon as he and those whom he wanted to advocate wanted do the irregular things in ICPC. Then, the ICPC member Ms. Sheng Xue proposed a resolution to question Mr. Zhang Yu’s abuse of his interpretation. It was posted in 14^th November 2007. Here is the resolution (the notes in square-parenthesis is by Jimbut):

“I request the relevant functional organ of ICPC to help me to bring this resolution to the members of ICPC, give them the necessary time according to the regulations and let them vote (incl. an instruction that tells the members how to do) for solving the problems caused by misunderstanding and disagreement inside the present ICPC. The reason therefore is: if there is no fundamental justification, no common acknowledged principles and no valid functions for judgments and decisions, what is then the point of verifying vote-results?

The general secretary of ICPC and its 3^rd general election meeting has set forth his opinion that the general secretary was naturally legitimized to see whom the members voted to, and that the chairman of the general election meeting ‘probably also’ was legitimized to see whom the members voted to. Evidence for the statement above is [Zhang Yu’s text]:

‘The questions relating to who may see (whom the members voted to), I remember what I said at that time was: according to the regulations, it of course must be me, but probably also the chairman of the general election meeting, - if he wants to check, he is of course legitimized to know.’

Then, when it was questioned, the general secretary presumed on his position by juggling the regulations of ICPC. Evidence for the statement above is [Zhang Yu’s text]:

‘1) There are words like “to prepare the general election meeting” and “to prepare the voting” in the original text of the article, it means that they are exclusively the general secretary’s responsibilities; the writing in this way is very uneasy; … obviously the correct description is: “the general secretary are responsible for executing the budgets and working-plans approved by the board”, “the general secretary are responsible for …preparing the general election meeting” and “the general secretary are responsible for… the voting”. So all the mentioned problems are solved.’

Those, who are agree with what the general secretary said and did above, please vote Yes; those, who are not agree with what the general secretary said and did above, please vote No; those, who does not have opinion or has not understood, please vote ‘Not Care’.

The new board was elected although it had a problem of confidence, and if Ms. Sheng Xue’s resolution was brought to the members and voted on, then the members of ICPC could see the problem clearly and probably correct the mistakes and malfunctions.

But once more, the malfunction in the ICPC obtained its victory. Instead of bringing Ms. Sheng Xue’s resolution to members, the new board appointed Mr. Zhang Yu as the general secretary of ICPC again. It was announced by Mr. Zhang Yu the 17^th November 2007.

From the 10^th August 2007 to 17^th November 2007, - for me, it has been a quick process of realizing what has been going on inside the board and secretariat of ICPC.

As a member of ICPC, I have protested, I have tried to bring some changes, so have some other members done as well, but since the violation of rules and regulations is now legitimized by the manipulation of the rules and regulations, then I should not insult my own intelligence by being present in ICPC. I wash my hands, - I declare myself as a dormant member of ICPC, as long as the secretariat’s reiterating violation of the rules and regulations continues.

notes

Chinese version of this letter