1991年獲釋後，劉曉波寫下了一首詩，表達了他對自己此前所作供述及「電視證言」的愧疚之情——這些內容曾在他獲釋後經由中央電視台和公共廣播電台播出；想必您還記得，他當時曾謊稱天安門廣場上無人喪生。您或許也記得他那首獻給「十七歲的蔣捷連」的詩中的字句：
「當你擎旗倒下時，
你年僅十七歲；
而我卻活了下來，
如今已三十六歲。
面對你逝去的靈魂，
活著竟成了一種罪過，
為你寫詩更是一種恥辱。
生者理當緘默，
靜聽墳塋的訴說。
我不配為你寫詩。
十七歲的你，已超越了一切語言與人為的創造。」
根據他的朋友兼傳記作者、獨立中文筆會聯合創辦人貝嶺所述，這種對威權主義受害者的罪惡感，後來成了劉曉波生命中的一個核心主題，甚至讓他對自己產生了深深的厭惡與痛恨。劉曉波曾在文章《我們這一代的殘酷》中講述過一段感人的童年往事，回憶起自己曾對一位舊鄰居做過的殘忍行徑。那位以拾荒為生的老人曾被視為「反革命」而遭排擠，曉波和其他孩子曾以戲弄、羞辱這位可憐的老人為樂。這不過是模仿成人世界儀式的童年遊戲：劉曉波的成長歲月正值「文革」時期，他自己也曾在無數次的批鬥會上被迫進行自我檢討，而所謂的「罪行」無非是偷偷抽煙、在校園打架或逃課。
在閱讀關於劉曉波的文章時，人們常以「英雄」、「殉道者」或「犧牲者」來形容這位高貴的人，並將他與聖雄甘地、納爾遜·曼德拉或瓦茨拉夫·哈維爾等楷模相提並論。這些稱謂恰恰揭示了他真正的悲劇所在：與上述人物不同，他在有生之年未能親眼見證自己理念的勝利。不過，誰又能斷言呢？或許鑑於當時的歷史境況，他的一些理念本身便與中國的歷史與社會並不契合。
2010年10月，德國記者兼作家克里斯蒂安·Y·施密特（Christian Y. Schmidt）——他自稱曾是毛主義者——在《日報》（taz）上發表文章，批評了《零八憲章》中提出的一些觀點，特別是其中的經濟綱領（如出售私有農地），他將其稱為「製造貧困計劃」（Armprogram）的。施密特也批評了劉曉波那番極具爭議的言論：即中國需要經歷大約300年的殖民統治，才能像前英國皇家殖民地香港那樣成為一個民主社會——這一觀點劉曉波曾在1988年的採訪中提出，並於2006年重申。
然而耐人尋味的是，劉曉波在法庭上受到的指控並非針對這些觀點。正如德國筆會（PEN）前主席、現任名譽主席約瑟夫·哈斯林格（Josef Haslinger）所指出的，法院在判決書中甚至未提及關於私有財產或農田私有化的訴求。真正觸動當局敏感神經的，是劉曉波關於建立「中華聯邦共和國」的構想。這個構想很容易被解讀為旨在保護香港或澳門免受共產黨控制的企圖；而這正是當局不願看到被公開討論的議題。
劉曉波在2008年那篇著名的辯護演講中表示，他的行為符合中國憲法，而憲法自2004年起保障了包括言論自由在內的各項人權（見第三十五條）。對劉曉波本人以及整個中國社會而言，這都是一個悲劇：零八憲章的概念沒有機會得到廣泛的討論，更遑論在未來的歲月中得到修正、完善和進一步發展。我認為，如果他有機會參與公開討論，他一定會是第一個接受更充分論證的人。
蘇曉康在題為《劉曉波將激進的苦難轉化為平靜》的文章中問道：「我們如何衡量劉曉波的《中國需要300年的殖民統治》與《我沒有敵人》之間的距離？」他的解釋如下：「這是文化與政治、尼采與甘地、以及對一切的反叛和傲慢與自我反省、謙遜和甘願地獄、地獄之間的距離。
悔恨與懺悔、抗爭與反叛，以及隨之而來的責任擔當──曉波這些性格特質深深打動了我；身為一名在西德天主教環境中長大的新教徒，我對此有著深刻的共鳴。我們倆同生於1955年，但各自的人生際遇卻截然不同。年輕時，我那一代人中有些人熱衷於引用那本被稱為「毛澤東語錄」（即「毛聖經」）的紅寶書。他們的言行讓我感到厭煩，而他們或許也因視我為「資產階級自由派」而鄙夷我，但這並未影響我的生活。 1988年11月，我隨一個記者團前往中國，專注於婦女狀況。我們的行程涵蓋北京、西安、哈爾濱和上海，參觀了托兒所、學校、一家由女性經營的電腦公司、一家生產精美聖誕裝飾品的工廠、醫院的產科病房以及女子監獄。當時我們一行人共有十五位記者和作家，卻無人預見到僅僅六個月後天安門廣場會發生什麼事。我們當時是多麼天真。我曾採訪中國作家王安憶，並為德國周刊撰寫了關於她的特寫文章，但這篇稿件最終未能發表。
劉曉波，當你離世時，
你年僅六十一歲。
如今我已年長你十歲，依然活著，且安然無恙——大抵如此。
面對你的在天之靈，
活著或許並非罪過，
但若以你的標準為你寫詩，那倒可能是一種恥辱。
是的，你說得對，生者必須閉口不言，
靜聽墳塋的訴說。
Regula Venske：Listen to the Grave – Notes on Liu Xiaobo
Leipzig, July 13, 2026
After Liu Xiaobo was released from prison in 1991, he wrote a poem in which he expressed his feelings of guilt about his confession and “on-air testimony” which had been broadcast by CCTV and public radio. He dedicated this poem To the Seventeen-Year-Old Jiang Jielian:
“When you fell carrying the flag
You were only 17
But I survived
And now I’m 36.
Facing your departed soul,
Living is a crime,
And writing a poem to you is a disgrace.
The living must shut up
And listen to the grave.
I am unworthy
To write a poem for you.
At 17 you surpassed all language and man-made creation.”
According to his friend and biographer Bei Ling, co-founder of the Independent Chinese PEN-Center, this feeling of guilt towards the victims of authoritarianism was to become a central theme of Liu Xiaobo’s life, even to a point that he deeply loathed and hated himself. There is a moving childhood episode which Liu Xiaobo narrated in an article about “The cruelty of the Children of Our Time”, remembering his own deeds of cruelty towards a former neighbor of his family’s. This old man who made a living collecting garbage had been ostracized as counter-revolutionary, and Xiaobo along with other children had had fun harassing and deeply humiliating the poor man. A childhood game, copying the rituals of the adult world: The Cultural Revolution took place during Liu Xiaobo’s formative years, and Xiaobo himself had to practice self-criticism in struggle-sessions uncounted times, his ‘crimes’ being secretly smoking, participating in schoolyard fights, or skipping classes.
When you read articles about Liu Xiaobo, recurrent words to describe this noble man are “hero”, “martyr”, or “sacrifice”, and he is being compared to his role models such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, or Václav Havel. These denominations denote his real tragedy, for unlike them, he was not to see the victory of his ideas in his lifetime. And who knows, maybe some of his ideas did not fit with Chinese history and society, given the historical situation.
In an article published by taz newspaper in October 2010, the German journalist and author Christian Y. Schmidt, who at that time lived in China, criticized some ideas expressed in the Charter 08, especially the economic program such as the selling of private farmland which Schmidt calls an “Armutsbeschaffungsprogramm”, a program to increase poverty. Schmidt also criticized Liu Xiaobo’s provocative statement that China would need some 300 years of colonialism in order to become as democratic a community as Hongkong, the former British Crown Colony, an opinion Liu Xiaobo expressed in an interview in 1988 and reaffirmed in 2006.
But interestingly enough, it wasn’t these ideas that Liu Xiaobo was charged for in court. As president emeritus and now honorary president of German PEN, Josef Haslinger, has pointed out, the Court did not even mention the demands for private property or the privatization of farmland in their verdict. What really struck a nerve, was Liu Xiaobo’s idea of a Federal Republic of China. The intent of such a concept could easily be understood as an attempt to protect Hongkong, or Macao, from Communist access. Now those were demands they did not want to see discussed in public.
In his renowned speech of defense in 2008, Liu Xiaobo stated that he had acted in accordance with the Chinese Constitution which since 2004 guaranteed Human Rights including Freedom of Speech (in Article 35). It is a tragedy not only for Liu Xiaobo, but for Chinese society as a whole that the ideas of Charter 08 had no chance to be widely discussed, and maybe amended, modified, and developed further in the years to come. He would have been the first one, I think, to embrace a better argument in an open discussion, had there ever been one.
“How can we measure the distance from Liu Xiaobo’s ‘China Needs 300 Years of Colonialism’ to ‘I Have No Enemies?’, asks Su Xiaokang in an article entitled, “Liu Xiaobo Turned Radical Suffering into Calm”. The explanation follows: “It’s the distance between culture and politics, between Nietzsche and Gandhi, and between a rebelliousness and arrogance against everything, and self-examination, humility, and a willingness to descend into hell.”
Remorse and repentance, resistance and rebellion, and ensuing responsibility, Xiaobo’s strengths of character deeply resonate with me, having grown up as a Protestant in a Catholic environment in West Germany. The two of us share the same year of birth, 1955, but how different the circumstances of our lives have been. In my youth, some people my generation loved to quote from a little red book known as the “Mao Bible”, officially the ‘Words of Chairman Mao Zedong’. They got on my nerves, and in return, they may have despised me for being a ‘liberal bourgeois’ in their eyes, but this did not affect my life. In November 1988, I traveled to China with a group of journalists, focusing on the situation of women. We went to Beijing, Xian, Harbin and Shanghai, visiting nurseries and schools, a computer company run by women, a factory producing awesome Christmas decoration, the maternity ward in a hospital, a women’s prison. We were fifteen journalists and writers, and none of us had any premonition of what was to happen only six months later on Tiananmen Square. How naïve we were. I met Chinese writer Wang Anyi for an interview and wrote a portrait about her for a weekly German magazine which in the end was never to be published.
When you died, Liu Xiaobo,
You were only 61.
I am now ten years older than that, still here and unharmed, more or less.
Facing your departed soul,
Living may not be a crime,
But writing a poem to you, according to your standards might be a disgrace.
Yes, you were right, the living must shut up
And listen to the grave.
