May 22, 2002

I am here today to introduce you to Tommy Xu and Jiang Zhu, two individuals who inspire great fear in the Consul-General of Chicago for the People's Republic of China, Mr. Wei Ruixing. After you get to know Tommy and Jiang a little, you may wonder how these two could inspire fear in anyone. Both are law-abiding and productive residents of the United States. Both are reasonable, gentle, and soft-spoken. And both also happen to practice Falun Gong. There is nothing more fearful to someone like Mr. Wei Ruixing than a practitioner of Falun Gong. Why is that? Tommy Xu and Jiang Zhu cultivate in their daily lives the virtues of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. In doing so, Tommy and Jiang have discovered true independence of spirit. They know that true freedom lies in having a good heart, and having tasted the joy of such freedom, they cannot go back to a life without it. And so, today they have reasonably and gently done something very brave. They have gone into the Consulate here, and explained that the Consul-General is doing something very wrong. Tommy and Jiang are Chinese nationals, and Mr. Wei Ruixing does not want them to have the freedom to practice Falun Gong. He wants to be able to tell them here in the United States what they can believe and what they can't believe. Because Tommy and Jiang insist on practicing Falun Gong no matter what the Consul-General says, the Consul-General has decided not to renew their passports. Back in China the people the Consul-General works for have ways of dealing with gentle and reasonable people like Tommy and Jiang.

Here in the United States we cherish freedom. We know that the attack of Mr. Wei Ruixing on the freedom of Tommy Xu and Jiang Zhu is an attack on the freedom of us all. But we also know that terror cannot last. We know that the fear of Mr. Wei Ruixing, the fear of what is good and true, and the evil of the persecution he wants to visit on Tommy and Jiang, cannot endure. These dark things are as sure to pass away as the chill of winter that disappears in the sunshine of a fine spring day in Chicago.