Directed and drawn by Trish McAdam / Motion Graphics by Marc Sherwin / Music and Sound Mix – David Blanc
Voice Over – Salman Rushdie, Seamus Heaney, Ariel Dorfman, Mark Kilroy & Adam Shapiro
NO ENEMIES, an animation based on an extract from the statement, “I Have No Enemies” was written by Liu Xiaobo and intended to be read at his trial on 23 December 2009. On 25 December 2009 Liu Xiaobo was setenced to 11 years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power,” and in October 2010, at the announcement that Liu Xiaobo was that year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, his wife Liu Xia was placed under house arrest.
The words in the video and below are an extract from this essay.
The essay in its entirety can be read here.
I Have No Enemies
I want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by the convictions expressed in my “June, 2nd, Hunger Strike Declaration”, twenty years ago.
I have no enemies and no hatred.
None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.
I Have No Enemies
And, If I may be permitted to say so, the most fortunate experience of these past twenty years has been the selfless love I have received from my wife, Liu Xia.
She could not be present as an observer in court today, but I still want to say to you,
my dear, that I firmly believe your love for me will remain the same as it always has been.
Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless.
I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison,
While you wait in the intangible prison of the heart.
Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning.
My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that at times it makes me stagger under its weight.
I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me.
But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you.
I Have No Enemies
But still I want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by my convictions expressed in my “June 2nd, Hunger Strike Declaration”,
twenty years ago,
I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies.
I Have No Enemies
