一个梦想成为政治家的中国留学生,迅速成为政治风暴中心的人物,也许这正是王千源政治人生的一个"高起点"。网上铺天盖地都是关于她的争论,4月17日,王千源"登"上了《纽约时报》头版。
面对的"爱国"愤青,王千源从容淡定。
就在奥运火炬接力来到旧金山之际,一名杜克大学一年级新生走出她的宿舍,找到了数百名支持西藏的学生,加入他们;在她另一边的,是为数比他们多许多的中国支持者。《纽约时报》介绍,这名学生是王千源(Grace Wang),当两方各支持不同对象的群体相互对抗时,身在西藏支持者人群中的她,试图让与双方的代表人展开对话。
当 时在现场的参与者说,王千源在两方都有朋友,她试着让两个团体对话。王千源开始跨越她所谓的“中间地带”,要求西藏团体的领袖出来会面并开始交涉,王千源 说,如果他愿意与中国支持者交谈的话,她便愿意在一名学生的背上写上“解放西藏、拯救西藏”的字,她开始恳求并发表讲话,在一份照片中,她正走向中国旗帜 与标语所构筑成的中国“海”中,双手高举过头,向他们比了一个暂停的“T”手势。
但这位仲裁员的努力被忽视了。当中国支持者因奥运火炬接力与中国对西藏政策与西藏支持者意见相左时,这群西藏支持者变成了中国支持者发怒的对象,而身在其中的王千源立刻被认了出来。
隔天,在中国学生的网路论坛上,王千源的照片被贴出,在她的额头上,张贴者打上充满愤怒的“叛国贼”字眼,王千源的个人资料,包括名字、身份证号码、联络电话等被全数公开,甚至连她父母在青岛的公寓地址、父母姓名、工作等等资讯,也一并上网。
这 位年轻女子当天选择与西藏支持者站同一边的事件立刻被传开,她的个人资讯被转贴到各大中国论坛,有的人当天也在现场,张贴帖子描述自己所见、王千源如何协 助西藏支持者,如何为西藏的一方发声,不过,更多的是责骂声音,有的人更诅咒这位20岁的女子被汽油焚烧,此外,也有许多人将王千源的照片加工,改成带着 侮辱的画面或是加上愤怒的字眼。有的人还贴了一张王千源父母家门口被泼粪的照片。
其中有人写了一封电子邮件给王千源,内容说道:“如果妳回到中国,妳的尸体将会被碎尸万段。”
王千源在《纽约时报》的采访中表示,她受到无谓的毁谤。
“如果背叛者是那些想要伤害中国的人,那麽我不是其中一份子。”王千源说。“这些严重攻击我的人才是更加伤害中国形象的人。”
王千源补充道:“他们不了解所谓‘爱中国’的意义,它不是剥夺其他人说话的权力,不是要我或其他人闭嘴。”
在一份青岛媒体2006年的报导中写道,王千源写古诗、弹奏古筝、并加入家乡里的民主讨论委员会,报导相信王千源是“为政治而生的”。
王千源表示,她并不支持西藏独立,但她认为若双方能更加了解对方,则问题能减轻。
当4月初杜克校园中支持西藏与支持中国的团体对立时,那些中国学生似乎期待王千源能加入他们,但她犹豫了。
王千源说:“他们对我的决定真的很惊讶,因为中国那方以为我根本连想都不用想。最后我决定不加入任何一方,因为他们太极端。”
杜克人权联盟暨支持西藏祈祷活动组织者寇德罗(Daniel R. Cordero)说,当王千源走过来指着支持中国的团体时,他正在分发传单。
“她说,为什麽你们的目标是杜克学生?让我们和那些人对话。”寇德罗说。“然後我心想,拜托,说正格的,这没有任何帮助。”
王千源的部分调停动作最后却招来一些中国学生的攻击与侮辱,事后她收到许多责骂的电子邮件与电话。
仅愿意提供英文名字的中国研究生雪莉(Sherry)向《纽约时报》表示,王千源声称想让两方沟通,但实际上她在那晚之前什麽事都没做。
“她并未与任何组织者沟通,她只是在表演。”雪莉说。但她认为那些攻击王千源的行为“太恐怖了”。“有一些学生非常愤怒。但也有许多人试图保护她,试着为她说话,事实上,大多数人不认为她罪大恶极、必须受这样的对待。”
不过,雪莉表示,当王千源接受杜克大学校报《Chronicle》的采访时,她赶跑了部分的同情者。在该报导中,王千源责怪杜克的中国学生学者联谊会透过电子邮件系统,协助散播她的个人资讯。
在王千源的要求下,伟斯最终与几位中国代表谈话,发现“我们有妥协处,我们都希望全中国能提升人权,尤其是对西藏人。”
三名中国学生学者联谊会的成员在一份公开信件中解释,邮件清单是对外公开的,他们也认为那些对王千源的言语攻击是“折磨且可恶的”,所有王千源的个人资讯与冒犯文章均已移除。先前,杜克的学生团体批评该联谊会放任这些攻击者张贴不雅言论。
中国学生学者联谊会主席李治中表示,在联谊会中只有约三分之一的成员参加了支持中国活动,而杜克大学拥有超过500名中国学生。
王千源已雇请了律师,她表示,将个人资讯从网站上移除还不够。“我将会永远被视为一名背叛者,他们也仍旧能伤害我的父母。”
不过,《纽约时报》称,对于一位处在人身威胁中的女子来说,王千源的表现似乎很乐观。
“我的父母非常容忍我。”她说。“他们的确很长一段时间对我感到失望,但我说服他们以另一种方式思考。如果我能改变我的父母,也许我也能改变他人。”
纽约时报全文:
DURHAM, N.C. — On the day the Olympic torch was carried through San Francisco last week, Grace Wang, a Chinese freshman at Duke University,came out of her dining hall to find a handful of students gathered fora pro-Tibet vigil facing off with a much larger pro-China counter demonstration.
Grace Wang tried to talk to Chinese demonstrators at a pro-Tibetan rally at Duke last week.
Ms. Wang, who had friends on both sides, tried to get the two groups to talk, participants said. She began traversing what she called “the middle ground,” asking the groups’ leaders to meet and making bargains. She said she agreed to write “Free Tibet, Save Tibet” on one student’s back only if he would speak with pro-Chinese demonstrators. She pleaded and lectured. In one photo, she is walking toward a phalanx of Chinese flags and banners,her arms overhead in a “timeout” T.
But the would-be referee went unheeded. With Chinese anger stoked by disruption of the Olympic torch relays and criticism of government policy toward Tibet, what was once a favorite campus cause — the Dalai Lama’s people — had become a dangerous flash point, as Ms. Wang was soon to find out.
The next day, a photo appeared on an Internet forum for Chinese students with a photo of Ms. Wang and the words “traitor to your country”
emblazoned in Chinese across her forehead. Ms. Wang’s Chinese name,identification number and contact information were posted, along with directions to her parents’ apartment in Qingdao, a Chinese port city.
Saltedwith ugly rumors and manipulated photographs, the story of the young woman who was said to have taken sides with Tibet spread through China’s most popular Web sites, at each stop generating hundreds or thousands of raging, derogatory posts, some even suggesting that Ms.Wang — a slight, rosy 20-year-old — be burned in oil. Someone posted aphoto of what was purported to be a bucket of feces emptied on the doorstep of her parents, who had gone into hiding.
“If you return to China, your dead corpse will be chopped into 10,000 pieces,”
one person wrote in an e-mail message to Ms. Wang. “Call the human flesh search engines!” another threatened, using an Internet phrase that implies physical, as opposed to virtual, action.
In an interview Wednesday, Ms. Wang said she had been needlessly vilified.
“If traitors are people who want to harm China, then I’m not part of it,”
she said. “Those people who attack me so severely were the ones who hurt China’s image even more.”
She added: “They don’t know whatdo they mean by ‘loving China.’ It’s not depriving others of theirright to speak; it’s not asking me or other people to shut up.”
Ina flattering profile in 2006, Ms. Wang was described in a Qingdao newspaper as believing she was “born for politics.” She writes poetry in classical Chinese, plays a traditional string instrument called the guzheng, and participated in democracy discussion boards back home, she said.
Ms. Wang said she was not in favor of Tibetan independence,but she said problems could be reduced if the two sides understood eachother better.
Since riots in Tibet broke out last month, campuses including Cornell, the University of Washington and the University of California, Irvine, have seen a wave of counter demonstrations.
WhenMs. Wang encountered the two demonstrations last week, the Chinese students seemed to expect her to join them, she said. But she hesitated.
“They were really shocked to see that I was deciding, because the Chinese side thought I shouldn’t even decide at all,” she said. “In the end I decided not to be on either side, because they were too extreme.”
Daniel R. Cordero, a member of the Duke Human Rights Coalition and an organizer of the pro-Tibet vigil, said he was handing out literature when Ms. Wang came up and pointed to the counterprotesters.
“She was like, ‘Why are you focusing on theDuke students? Let’s have a dialogue with these people,’ ” he said.“And I’m thinking, oh come on, seriously, that’s not going to helpanything.”
Some of Ms. Wang’s efforts to mediate were met by insults and obscenities from the Chinese students.
“She stood her ground; she’s a really brave girl,” said Adam Weiss, thestudent on whose back Ms. Wang wrote “Free Tibet.” “You have 200 ofyour own fellow nationalists yelling at you and calling you a traitor and even threatening to kill you.”
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At Ms.Wang’s behest, he ultimately spoke to some of the Chinese contingent,finding, he said, that “we could compromise and say we all wanted increased human rights for all Chinese, and especially for Tibetans.”
Sherry, a Chinese graduate student who declined to give her last name for fear of being harassed, had a less heroic view.
“She claimed she wanted to make communications between both sides, but actually she did nothing before that night. She didn’t communicate with any organizers and actually was just performing,” Sherry said. But she called the backlash against Ms. Wang “horrible.”
“There are a few students that are very angry at her,” she said, “but there are many others who try to protect her, try to speak for her. Actually, the majority didn’t think she did so wrong to be treated like that.”
She said Ms. Wang had squandered some sympathy when, in an article in TheDuke Chronicle, she blamed the Duke Chinese Students and Scholars Association for helping to release her information through its e-mail list.
This week, three officers of the association explained in an open letter that the mailing list was public and called the verbal attacks on Ms. Wang “troubling and heinous.” Her personal information and other offensive posts were removed “once they were brought to our attention,” the letter said. Student groups criticized the association for allowing them to be posted at all.
Zhizong Li, the president of the association, referred most questions to the university but saidthat only about a third of the pro-China demonstrators were association members. Duke has just over 500 Chinese students.
Ms. Wang, who has retained a lawyer, said pulling her personal information off theWeb was not enough. “I will be seen as a traitor forever, and they can still harm my parents,” she said.
But for a woman under threat of dismemberment, she seemed remarkably sanguine — even upbeat.
“My parents are very tolerant to me,” she explained. “They were really disappointed in me for a long time, and I persuaded them to think differently.
“If I can change my parents, I can probably change others.”