ai weiwei : putting china on trial.

Ai Weiwei: 'Every day in China, we put the state on trial'

We can't rely on state-owned media to fight for free speech. It is up to us citizens to use the internet to bring change to China

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• • Ai Weiwei for Creative Time Reports
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 15 April 2013 15.00 BST
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Chairman Mao, portrayed above by Andy Warhol, wrote: 'communists … maintain control with the power of the pen.' Photograph: AP/Christie's

For ages, artists have asked difficult questions about the human condition. It is their privilege to pursue such questions without needing to yield practical results. As individuals, and as a society, we can never really say we know everything. Society allows artists to explore what we don't know in ways that are distinct from the approaches of science, religion and philosophy. As a result, art bears a unique responsibility in the search for truth.

Art is a social practice that helps people to locate their truth. The truth itself, or the so-called truth presented by the media, has limitations. Manipulation of the truth does not lead to a lack of truth – it's worse than no truth. Manipulated truths help the powerful, or advance the positions of the people who publicize them. So the arts and journalistic media play completely different roles.

I think it is important for artists to see themselves as privileged, and to bear some responsibility, because their job is about communication and expression. These are the core values of life, of being individuals. Most people don't realize that they have to fight for this, but for us artists, it's necessary.

By mixing art with personal observations and social commentary, I became part of the first generation to use the internet well. At first, I would spend day and night online – 16 hours a day, or even 24 hours, if important events were unfolding. I became excited about blogging because I thought it was a way for me to accomplish something I always desired: direct communication. My first blog post in 2005 was a single sentence:

"To express yourself needs a reason; expressing yourself is the reason."

That reason, for me, is clear: in China, the media are owned by an authoritarian state, which uses brute power to control information. Since 1949, the media have never revealed a cracked door; even when they want to release a simple fact, it's always with some propagandistic intentions.

There is no way the party leaders will relax censorship or grant individual liberties, because they have built a fortune – an empire – from the present system. Without this structure, there is no such profit left for them. Their lives depend on the denial of freedom of speech and democracy. In this society, there are two sides: the people who govern and the rest, who have no power. Between them, there's no communication. The people in power never listen to anybody, and they have never made themselves legitimate; they haven't held real elections in over 60 years.

Chairman Mao once said:

"As communists we gain control with the power of the gun and maintain control with the power of the pen."

If the people are free to speak, then the first thing they will discuss is the legitimacy of those in power – and those people would immediately lose their power. Over decades, they gradually lost the moral ground. Then they lost the ideological ground. But they still have the army and the propaganda. And they're not trying to make any improvements; they will literally just grab the gun and kill anybody who has a different voice.

This fight is not about me. It's a fight for simple principles: freedom of expression and human rights – the essential rights, like sharing our opinions, that make us human and not slaves.

Every day, we put the state on trial – a moral trial, conducted with logic and reasoning. Nothing could be better than this. I am preparing a budding civil society to imagine change. First, you need people to recognize they need change. Then, you need them to recognize how to make change. Finally, change will come.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/15/ai-weiwei-china-state-on-trial