On March 5th, it is the anniversary of the death of Yu Luo Ke, or more precisely, the anniversary of being suppressed for 50 years.
Young people who are bound by mortgage families occasionally lift their heads from under the snail shell, their eyes flickering with confusion, and ask: Who is Yu Luo Ke? Oh, why care about that? He can't solve any of my problems. The pressure of life is already so heavy. I need sunshine in my heart, I need love, I need gratitude, otherwise I will live even more desolate.
On this day 50 years ago, at the Beijing Workers Stadium filled with thousands of people, 27-year-old Yu Luo Ke was suppressed. In the crowd, there were cheers, curses, echoes, and a grand "golden age" carnival! 122 years ago at the Cai Shi Kou, when the six gentlemen of the Wuxu Incident were beheaded, people threw vegetable leaves and curses at them. When their heads fell to the ground, people finally had a feast of human flesh and cheered together.
Thinkers don't necessarily have bones, like Heidegger; those with bones don't necessarily have thoughts, and those with thoughts and bones, like Yu Luo Ke, are rare.
In the absurd era, he wrote a series of articles with theoretical depth, such as "On Birth" and "On Purity," criticizing the theory of bloodline.
In the 1960s, Western society had already entered a prosperous period after World War II, and even the decadent blues music flowed through the streets and alleys, representing the sleepy middle class era. On the other hand, phrases like "I'm a hero, my father is a good man, I'm a reactionary bastard, and I'm usually a fence-sitter" were taken as the norm, devoid of reason and logic. Simply stating common sense, that all people are born equal, would make one a martyr. How unbearable is this?
A comrade from the struggle class admired his talent and courage, and asked, "Is it worth it for you to die for an article like 'On Birth'?" He calmly replied, "It's worth it."
In his diary, he wrote, "If I also face the struggle, I must remember two things: never bow my head and always remain strong." In prison, he told his comrades, what is immortality? Immortality lies in resonating with future generations—memory is the eternal form of existence, and only thoughts and good deeds can be remembered by later generations.
After nearly a hundred interrogations, they hoped that Yu Luo Ke would show some remorse or change his mind, or at least provide some information to eliminate their imagined anti-dong organization. But they failed. He didn't expose anyone, nor did he compromise even a little. The balance between death and ideals, in his case, tipped heavily towards ideals.
Before his execution, he washed his everyday clothes clean and neatly folded them. Among them was a brand new white undershirt that he had never worn. He felt that there was no need to wear a new undershirt anymore, and that the new undershirt should be left for his younger brothers... So he wore a set of tattered clothes and walked to the execution ground.
Before his execution, he wrote several poems and entrusted them to his comrades, asking them to give them to his family when they were fortunate enough to be released. The last two lines of one of the poems were: "Qingming may not give birth to strong ghosts, the universe is heavy but my head is light."
On the execution ground filled with thousands of people, Yu Luo Ke was led out, and the shouts of "overthrow" were overwhelming—
"On my shoulders is the wind
Above the wind are shimmering stars
Perhaps one day
The sun will become a withered wreath
Hanging over
Every unyielding warrior
In front of the forest-like tombstones"
"Some people are alive, but they are already dead; some people are dead, but they are still alive"—in the vast universe, each individual's life is like a grain of sand in the sea, a fleeting moment. But if the words and deeds of their lives are praised by future generations, they will live on in people's memories. So from this perspective, their lives are extended; even though they are dead, they are still alive.
The tide of history carries everyone forward, and only a few can temporarily stop their steps and look up at the stars. And in the twists and turns of the turbid waves of the times, amidst the cracking sound of the evil waves, being able to shout out the truth, to think independently and make clear judgments, and to sacrifice their lives for it, is even more difficult. We commemorate Yu Luo Ke, we commemorate the few who remain awake and conscious in this era and that era, we commemorate all those who looked up at the stars in the past, and we commemorate the stars in the sky that illuminate the path to the future, one after another...