Remembering Tiananmen: Chen Guangcheng at AEI, June 3

My Witherspoon Institute colleague, Distinguished Senior Fellow in Human Rights Chen Guangcheng, will speak at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. next Tuesday, June 3, at 2:00 p.m., to mark the 25th anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square, perpetrated by the tyrants of China against their own people in 1989.  Chen, who became famous as the “barefoot lawyer” who challenged the regime’s brutal one-child policy, has himself suffered at the hands of the government.  Blind since childhood and self-taught in the law, he became such a thorn in the regime’s side that he was imprisoned for several years and then kept under house arrest, from which he escaped to the United States in 2012.  Next Tuesday, my friend Guangcheng will speak briefly before being interviewed by AEI’s president Arthur Brooks about human rights in China, and the prospects for freedom and the rule of law.  For more information and how to RSVP for attending the event, see this page at the AEI site, where you will also be able to watch a live stream of the event next Tuesday if you can’t be there.

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.

First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.

But we can’t do it without readers like you.

Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.


Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.

Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.

GIVE NOW

If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.

Next
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

The Church in the Age of Therapy

Matthew Loftus

In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…

Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot

Anna Farrow

On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…

The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen

Mike Aquilina

Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…