Quotations from Ran Yunfei (Part Three)

As at the date this translation project started, twitterer @wuxinkuaiyu had tweeted 65 quotations from the detained dissident writer. Here are the third batch of the quotations translated into English.

Translated by @sikoalice
Proofread and modified by @krizcpec , @gaodawei

36. 不要把自己的权利改善，寄托在没有真正监督与制约的政府善心大发上，这无异于缘木求鱼。在较完善的民主自由制度未建立以前，每个人自身权利无不是自己争取来的，每个人都可以在衡度自身安全的情形下，做力所能及的推动社会进步的好事，这并不需要你危及己身的大智大勇。
Translation: Do not place your hopes of greater respect for your rights on the good heartedness of a government that is not subject to genuine oversight and checks on its powers. This is like fishing in thin air. Until a free and democratic system of government is in place, every individual will be on their own -- they will have to fight for their own rights. Every individual can do whatever they can to promote social progress after weighing how their efforts might affect their own security. Everyone can do this. This is not something only for those with tremendous courage and wisdom needed for actions that might endanger their lives.


37. 一个国家不把自己青少年的健康成长当回事，这样的国家还有什么未来可言？一个民族给自己的下一代造成许多灾难，这个民族还有什么复兴之期？祖国的花朵却是地道的国家弃儿，这样的国家你怎么能爱得起来？
Translation: What kind of future can a state that is not concerned with the health and growth of its youth have? What hope can there be for the recovery of a state that creates so many disasters for itself? The flowers of our ancestral land have become outcasts. How can this kind of state be loved?

38. 在可以想见的将来，中国互联网的官民之争还会越演越烈，目下仅仅官民冲突的开始。被互联网相对多元化的信息唤醒的民众，决不想再回到那种令人窒息的从前，而官方则一如既往地想利用一切手段，最大限度地屏蔽不利于己的信息来愚民，从而实现自身利益最大化。
Translation: For the foreseeable future, arguments between officials and civilians will become ever more intense. This is just the start of the conflict between them. People awakened by relatively diverse information available online will not want to return to the suffocating past. The authorities, however, just as in the old days, will do whatever they can to cover up the information that makes them look bad so as to deceive the people and best serve their own selfish interests.

39. 我历来主张，你不喜欢某物某事某人，也应该在了解该事该物该人后，对其进行理性的抉择。同时，你如果要说出更深的不喜欢的理由，就一定要多读该人的诸种言论，观看他的行动后，对其有更为全面更为深入的看法。
Translation: I have long believed that even if you dislike certain things, incidents, or people, you should try to get a better understanding of them in order to make a rational decision. And if you want to give a deeper reason for your dislike, then you should first read more of those people’s speeches and observe their actions, so that you will get a deeper understanding of them.

40. 有许多身份和职业上的强势者，以为自己一直不会成为受害者。他们不仅健忘刘少奇、彭德怀等人是怎么被他的同党迫害死的，而且还健忘这个专制制度就是个自噬的制度。什么叫自噬呢？自噬就是互咬，到最后就是自咬自噬。
Translation: Many high status people in powerful positions think they would never become victims. They forget how people like Liu Shaoqi, Peng Dehuai were persecuted to death by their own Chinese Communist Party. They also forgot that this authoritarian regime devours its own. What do I mean by this? It starts with people biting each other and ultimately ends up with them biting and devouring themselves.

41. 当前社会各种矛盾纠集，纷争百出，可说是多事之秋。这多事之秋的形成，既有外部因素如国际经济危机的影响，但更主要的是我们中国自身的问题。其中最主要的问题，当然是我们的制度本身就是一个不利于保护所有人利益的专制制度，说专制制度是制造社会不和谐的温床，一点都不为过。
Translation: Now all sorts of conflicts and disputes are popping up. We live in a troubled time. Some of this is due to external factors such as the global financial crisis, but the main cause lies within China itself. The most important reason of all is that our regime is an authoritarian one that is not effective in protecting everyone's interests. To say that the autocratic system itself fosters social disharmony is to make no exaggeration at all.

42. 包括大学在内的所有学校，都是培养公民的最佳场所，可惜的是，我们教育不中立，从小到大的愚民教育，真是断了社会前进与改善的种子。

Translation: All schools, including universities, are the best places to nurture citizens. It is a pity that our education is not impartial. Student grow up from their earliest years in a stultifying educational system that strangles the hope of social progress and improvement.

43. “公民教育”在我看来至少应该包含基本权利和基本义务的教育。权利和义务是连在一起的，比如我们履行了纳税的义务，就应该享受政府提供的公共产品及相关服务，并且有对政府进行批评的权利。而如果尽了义务而没有权利，这就是一个值得我们深入思考的问题。
Translation: To me “civil education” should at least include education on the basic rights and obligations of citizens. Rights and obligations are linked. For example, since we have fulfilled our tax obligations we should have access to public goods and government services and have the right to criticize the government in its provision of public goods and services. If we don't enjoy any rights after fulfilling our obligations, then this is a problem we need to think deeply about.

44. 一个将苦难和人祸遗忘得一干二净的民族，是一个没有希望的民族；一个拒绝对自己所负责任进行有效反思的政府，是个没有希望的政府；一个对人祸造成的苦难，不尽自己作为一个人应尽之责，不仅不配做公民，而且永远只会出现“人皆得以隶使之”的悲惨局面。
Translation: A people that forgets completely its sufferings and man-made disasters is a people without hope. A government that refuses to seriously reflect on its own responsibilities is a government without hope. A person who does accept not his or her share of responsibility for sufferings caused by man-made disasters is not just an unworthy citizen but also one forever a subject to “enslavement by everyone else.”

45. 六十年来，官方对民众训练得非常成功的一个思维模式就是：非此即彼，非黑即白。这在我们许多热爱自由的朋友们身上，也时有流露。这不能说热爱民主自由的人们对专制的一系列特点没有防备，而是说专制统治深入了我们的骨血，融成一片，让人们习焉不察。
Translation: Over the past sixty years, officials have been very successful in training the people to see things in black or white: either this or that. This is obvious at times to lovers of freedom. We cannot say that these people who ardently love democracy and freedom have no defenses against the various characteristics of dictatorship. It is simply that these characteristics through long habit have become written upon our flesh and blood, become part of us, and so have become difficult to notice.

46. 再宏大的目标，再远大的理想，再公共的知识分子，始终葆有哪怕微渺的人性，对周围同胞的生存有一种及身而见、感同身受的悲悯，和慷慨激昂地批评社会不公，和不懈地批评政府的失职，同等重要。

Translation: Goals no matter how grand, ideals no matter how lofty, intellectuals no matter how dedicated they are to the public good are still subject to the vagaries of human nature. It is equally important to have compassion, empathy, and sympathy for the people around us; to passionately criticize unfairness in society; and to untiringly criticize the government for negligence.

47. 我坚持每日一博，日拱一卒，功不唐捐的理念，是因为爱，不是因为恨。我对政府有失望有猛烈之批评，但没有仇恨。我知道自己从小是受阶级教育仇恨教育长大的人，我对自己受教背景充满警惕。我对自己身上不宽容的东西充满警惕，但宽容不是纵容。
Translation: It is out of love and not hatred that I persist in posting on my blog every day. I believe that giving my utmost every day will not be for nothing. I feel disappointed with the government, I strongly criticize it, but I do not hate it. I am aware that I grew up educated to think of the world in the terms of class division and class hatred. I am wary of the education that I received. I keep a watchful eye on the intolerance I find within myself. Tolerance, however, is not connivance.

48. 宣传部是一个扑灭民众权利、堵塞民众知情权、愚弄民众的机构，这样一个机构不会因灾后重建有丝毫的改变，相反可能在消灭和堵塞真相时因“政治正确”的原因而做得比平常更为过火。
Translation: The party's propaganda department is an organization that aims to extirpate the rights of the public, to deny them their right to information, and to deceive them. Such an organization hadn't the slightest change for the sake of post-disaster reconstruction. On the contrary, it will probably go to even greater lengths to destroy the truth or to prevent it from emerging for the sake of “political correctness”.

49. 真相是灾后重建中最重要的一部分，任何想籍此遮掩的举措，都是在犯罪为恶。政府必须清醒地意识到这一点，否则政府任何宣传任何自我表扬，都无法获得民众的谅解。无法得到谅解而造成长期的积怨，时间也不会让他们屈服。
Translation: Facts are crucial to post-disaster reconstruction. Anyone using this as a reason to do a cover-up is committing a crime and doing evil. The government should clearly understand this point. If not, any propaganda or self-praise will not be understood by the public. The long term grievances caused by their failure to understand this will continues to accumulate. They will not lessen, not even with the passage of time.

50. 只要能够促成自身利益的短暂实现，他们也会心甘情愿做着许多他们自己都不相信的事，说着许多他们自己都不相信的话。只有利益，没有是非；只有利害，没有底线，这是许多五毛最实际的行事考量。
Translation: Those who chase after short-term accomplishments for their own selfish advantage may well happily do many things that they do not personally believe in and so many things that they do not believe. For them, there is only personal advantage but no true and false. They care only about their own interests -- there is no limit beyond which they will not go. This is what the fifty-centers (Note: people hired by Chinese governments at various levels to influence public opinion online) do and how they think.