Having got this far with my second draft of this book, I awoke with a start early on the morning of 30 December 2006. Outside the window, there was driving wind and rain, and the previous night the BBC had warned of storms to usher in the New Year. Switching on the light, I saw it was ten past three. I remembered the words of General Phoebe, that amid the disasters of Mao Zedong's regime, they were "a fortunate generation, because they had witnessed war and peace", and my head was suddenly flooded with a strange idea: this was the good fortune that only survivors of war could have, and only they could truly comprehend what peace meant.
Do people who have grown up watching American action movies really know what the reek of blood is like? I don't know. Nor can I imagine whether children brought up on a diet of killer games understand the results of war. Are wars and killings necessary for the creation of heroes amid the peace of contemporary life? In what way is this different from the class struggle which Mao Zedong needed? How is struggle possible when there is no enemy? We surely cannot use antagonisms between social classes to bring us together in bonds of friendship?
As I turned this over and over in my mind, I felt, though I didn't know why, that I should watch BBC News 24. But first I wanted to begin the day's writing. I needed to write down as quickly as possible the thoughts that had been surging through me since the last interview. Ugo Betti says: "Memories are like stones; time and distance erode them like acid." I did not want time and distance to wear away the emotions of love and hate which filled me.
At about 6.30 a.m. the urge to watch the news flooded over me again. I thought I might as well brew myself a cup of Biluochun, a Chinese green tea, and sit down in front of the TV. No sooner was I settled than big red news headlines made me jump up again: Saddam Hussein had been executed four hours previously.
On the BBC, a debate raged between two contending sides: on the one hand, there was satisfaction that justice had been done; on the other, condemnation of an unfair sentence. Everyone was concerned, too, about the chaos caused by fighting among the peoples and religions of Iraq. I could not help engaging in a dialogue with those being interviewed in the TV studio: do those developed nations who bestowed freedom and democracy onto Iraq by force of arms really understand the stage that Iraqi religious cultures and national beliefs have reached? How can there be such different interpretations of war and death carried out in the names of Bush and Saddam? Can human society really progress to democratic republicanism from religious commandments? Can humankind share the same definition of civilisation if its members do not perceive things in the same way?
In just the same way as the century which China had just passed through, here we have the saviours of the world "fighting for the truth", and liberating others by forcing a "just freedom" on them. There is reckless "planned development", people are punished and honoured as a unity of moral values is imposed on everyone, and all this has even become a "one size fits all" sort of fashion. And this is what we acclaim as "a fortunate era", this is what we unquestioningly call "correct leadership", this is the passion into which we have thrown ourselves without regard for personal safety. Our passion is doubtless ignorant and foolish, but it certainly won't be military might which awakes us from this fanaticism.