"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." I found myself returning again and again to that cold-hearted quotation, widely attributed to Joseph Stalin, as I read Mark L. Clifford's stunning new biography of Jimmy Lai, The Troublemaker, How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic.
Oh, Lai is not dead yet -- indeed, he's very much alive. But, at 77, he spends what could be the last days of his life on trial under Hong Kong's draconian national security law and kept in solitary confinement in a Hong Kong prison cell. His crime? As Clifford puts it, "engaging in behavior that would be regarded as normal political activity in any open society." He shares this distinction with nearly 2,000 political prisoners now held in Hong Kong. Once convicted -- not if, as this is, by all accounts, a show trial -- he faces a possible life sentence.
Might the single case of Lai bring home the cruel barbarity of Chinese communism in a way that statistics, the tens of millions of Chinese deaths in the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, have failed to achieve? Might this man's bogus prosecution, his four years and counting in solitary confinement, and the possibility of his dying in prison somehow humanize the victims of the sheer wickedness of the Chinese government?
But, again, Lai is not dead yet. He's very much alive and even, perhaps especially in his solitary confinement, very much a free man. There's so much of Clifford's book to like: the story of young Lai's escape from communist China to Hong Kong; his search for his father who abandoned him but not before telling him, "You are going to do great things"; his rags-to-riches rise through the manufacturing, fashion, and media industries; and the ingenuity and intensity that led to his worldly success. But you can find a lot of that in other accounts of his life.
What you won't find elsewhere is the story of the ennoblement of a soul that has found peace, freedom, and grace in a Hong Kong prison cell. It's the perfect story for anyone who finds himself confined to his own cell, perhaps the personal dungeon of wealth, possessions, appetites, will, or ego.
Natan Sharansky, the Russian dissident who knows something about totalitarian prison life, had three extended talks with Lai as he prepared for his arrest. In Sharansky's beautiful foreword for The Troublemaker, he writes that Lai "decided long ago that physical survival cannot be the ultimate struggle. Because if it is you don't start such a struggle in the first place. How long you survive physically in prison doesn't depend on you. But there is one thing that does depend on you: to remain a free person to the last day of your life. This is what makes Jimmy and people like him so dangerous to a totalitarian regime."
And so inspirational and challenging to those of us who live far away in open societies.
"He doesn't feel the injustice" of his captivity, Lai's wife, Teresa, told Clifford. "He is so free. It is incredible."
What accounts for Lai's incredible freedom? His faith, specifically his Catholic faith. "My faith gave me such a certainty," Lai said. "Faith makes so many other things so clear. This is something wonderful. ... I definitely feel I have a God for protector. ... Whenever I am in difficulties, whenever I am in crisis, I feel His presence. I am very calm. I feel that I am going to be OK."
Clifford's The Troublemaker may be the story of a saint or martyr in the making, but it's no hagiography. It's a rounded portrait of a man in full. His strengths, weaknesses, triumphs, and failings are all there. He could be tough, quick-tempered, brusque, harsh. He's a far different man today in his prison cell, and when he's not, he seeks forgiveness. That, too, is an inspiration and challenge.
Jesus tells of the rich man who came to him and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus told him to sell all he had, give the money to the poor, and then come follow him. "At this the man's face fell, and he went away sad," according to the book of Mark.
Alone, in a prison full of murderers and dangerous criminals, reduced to life's barest essentials, there's no sadness these days in Lai. He spends his days reading theology, feeling God's presence, and drawing pictures of the crucified Christ and, perhaps most poignantly, the Virgin Mary giving her assent to what God was asking of her.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"You are going to do great things," said the father who abandoned Lai so many years ago in mainland China. If he only knew what his son would do. If he only knew what the Father who never abandoned Jimmy had in store for his son.
If death comes for Lai in a Hong Kong prison cell, it would be a tragedy. While he lives, all people of goodwill should, with Sharansky and so many others, pray and work for his release. But the tragedy of a single man who has fought for the dignity of the individual, for the ideals of freedom and democracy, when he could have easily escaped and left others to suffer might one day have more impact than all the statistics in China.