How to Keep Fighting When All Your Friends Are In Prison (Podcast)

It was a simple tale of wolves and sheep. The publishers of a series of children’s books in Hong Kong may have thought it was innocent. But their story – involving a herd of sheep who first flee, then peacefully resist, a pack of wolves targeting their community – led to a shocking 19-month prison sentence a few weeks ago for five defendants in Hong Kong who were accused of “seditious publication” by the Chinese government. This case – described as a “brazen act of repression” by Amnesty International – is just one of over 10,000 in which critics of the Chinese government have been imprisoned. As someone who has myself been targeted by a company owned and controlled by the Chinese government  – Smithfield Foods is a subsidiary of China-based WH Group, and its acquisition was funded by state funds – this does not surprise me. 

What did surprise me is something that happened last month. After talking to two of the leaders of the Hong Kong democracy movement, I came out feeling… hope. 

• Listen to my conversation with Anna Kwok and Alex Chow on seeing their friends imprisoned, life as political refugees, and why they keep fighting in the face of overwhelming odds.

Anna and Alex’s story is an important one, and not just because of the plight of people in Hong Kong and China. China is a nuclear power with enormous influence, including over the US food system. A corrupt and unstable China threatens us all. 

But their story is also important for another reason: it teaches us how to fight, even when the odds are against us. Few of us will have the experience of seeing our dearest friends hauled off to prison, or of being forced to live in a foreign country because our own government is seeking to place us in chains. But we all face hardship, of one sort or another. And Anna and Alex’s story teaches us two of the most fundamental (and neglected) lessons about how to win those personal fights. 

The first is to embrace the hardship because it’s part of the path to success. One of the most remarkable things to me about this conversation is how little Anna and Alex complained about their plight. They would have been very entitled to do so. They can’t go home to see their family and friends. Their professional lives – Anna was an aspiring filmmaker, Alex a young journalist – have been completely upended. They have to worry, every day, that their personal safety is being threatened by one of the most powerful and violent institutions in the history of the human species. But somehow, they seem to have reached a point of acceptance about these hardships. And this acceptance of hardship – which flies in the face of the “safety-ism” that is ascendant especially in the American left – is crucial to their ability to fight. 

The second lesson is to maintain a hopeful vision. When times are dark, it’s easy to feel lost. But Anna and Alex, even as they and their friends are repressed and imprisoned, still see a brighter future ahead. They imagine a future where residents of Hong Kong can vote again; where the police protect the people, rather than persecute them; and where they can go back home, to the place of their birth, and finally feel safe and free. This hope is crucial because, as the Stanford sociologist Doug McAdam shared with me, hope is crucial to movements fighting for change. And yet, too often, those of us who are facing personal or political challenges wallow in gloom and doom. Don’t get me wrong. We have to be honest about the problems our society is facing. But to inspire people to fight – including ourselves – we need hope, too. 

— 

The New Publication Schedule

This is the first podcast we’ll be releasing on our new schedule. On Thursdays, we’ll release our normal podcast. On Mondays, we’ll release a shorter podcast, Hangout conversations, that will be recordings of in-person conversations I’m hosting on Friday nights. 

That also means the publication schedule on this newsletter will change. Expect to see the usual blogs on Tuesdays and Fridays. (The Tuesday blog will include a link to the Monday Hangout conversation.) But expect to see another newsletter and blog, much like this one, published on Thursdays focusing entirely on the podcast. 

The Thursday newsletters will usually be shorter than this, and focused on a few key points drawn from each podcast. And if it’s starting to feel like I’m blowing up your inbox, let me know! But I’m hoping the new publication schedule will give the podcast a little more separate attention, as many of these conversations have been transformative for me. I hope they can have a little impact on you, too. 

—

Supporting Mari Mendonca for Berkeley City Council

Many of you know that I ran for Mayor in Berkeley in 2020. It was an exhilarating and educational experience, though also one that exposed many of the weakest points in American democracy (e.g., the influence of corporate money, and the power of negative campaigning to distract the public). One of the best things about the run, however, was how it connected me to grassroots leaders across the Bay Area, who have inspired me (and many others) to do more. 

Mari, who is running for City Council in Berkeley’s District 8, is one of them. There are so many things I could say about Mari to explain why I think you should vote for her (and volunteer for her campaign in the last few days before the election). She has developed great wisdom through personal hardship, as a single mother in a tough economic climate. She is unfailingly real and honest in a political system that operates via smoke and mirror. 

But the most important thing that Mari has, that we desperately need in this system, is empathy. I have seen Mari work for underserved elders in our community, when she obtained no personal benefit. I have seen her organize for people like Leonard Powell, when no one else was paying attention. I have even seen her moved deeply by the suffering of animals, as our climate moves towards planetary crisis. And this is what we need more of in our system: people who are moved deeply by the plight of others, rather than bureaucrats trying to secure personal and political status. 

Phone banking is occurring this week, including tonight from 7-8:30. You can join the Zoom here, or contact her campaign to find more ways to support. I’ll be joining myself tonight. I hope you can, too!