Friday, Nov. 05

MARCUS GEE

Wednesday, November 3, 1999

Could a martial-arts master who claims he can cure cancer with a jolt from his fingertips bring down the government of the world's most populous nation?

A year ago, that question would have seemed laughable. Li Hongzhi was the eccentric leader of a growing spiritual movement called Falun Gong that combined Buddhist and Taoist beliefs with faith healing and traditional Chinese exercise. A former trumpeter and government grain clerk, he claimed that believers could improve their moral and physical well-being by channelling positive energy to the Falun, a wheel-like miniature of the universe found in the abdomen. Hundreds of his followers could be seen practising the slow-motion exercise in city parks at sunrise and sunset, hands held in front of their bellies to "spin the wheel of energy."

Most countries would have dismissed Mr. Li as a harmless crank and let him alone. China's deeply insecure Communist leaders denounced him as a dangerous charlatan and threw a group of his followers in jail. In protest, 10,000 Falun Gong members gathered in the centre of Beijing and surrounded the massive compound where China's leaders live. Shocked, the government banned the sect, rounded up believers in 30 cities, destroyed two million Falun Gong tapes and texts and issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Li, who now lives in New York.

That was a serious mistake. Overnight, Falun Gong was transformed from an apolitical self-improvement group into an underground protest movement that could threaten the very survival of the Communist regime.

The past few weeks have shown just how serious the threat has become. Determined to resist the government ban, hundreds and perhaps thousands of Falun Gong members have filtered quietly into Beijing, hiding with local sympathizers to avoid arrest. Every day last week, groups of them made their way to the heart of the capital, Tiananmen Square, to protest against the ban on their sect. Every day, the police hauled them away.

Like a modern-day Inquisition, the government denounced Falun Gong as "devil cult." Police rounded up more of its followers and the rubber-stamp parliament proclaimed a tough new anti-cult law, setting the state for witch-hunting show trials of arrested Falun Gong leaders.

But stamping out Falun Gong will not be easy. It has millions of members in China and around the world (Mr. Li claims 100 million, the government says two million) and they are extremely well organized. In Beijing last week, they were communicating with the media and each other by E-mail, mobile phone and pager. Any group that can bring 10,000 people to the rigidly guarded centre of Beijing undetected is a force to be reckoned with.

What makes the group most formidable is its spiritual and moral appeal. Though Mr. Li obviously is a bit of a nut -- he says aliens reside on Earth and claims he can make himself invisible -- his call for a return to virtue and compassion strikes a chord in a country riddled with corruption and inequality. Mr. Li offers an unforgiving critique of rootless modern Chinese society. At a time when many people feel adrift, he promises to give life some meaning again.

This is not the first time that folk religion has challenged state power in China. Nearly 2,000 years ago, a travelling magician said he had found a way to cure disease by administering a drink of ordinary water over which a sacred incantation had been said. Peasants rushed to his banner and quickly became a revolutionary movement known as the Yellow Turbans. Hundreds of years later, a secret Buddhist group known as the White Lotus Society challenged the Mongol regime of Kublai Khan. And at the end of the 19th century, the fervent mystics known as the Boxers staged their famous rebellion.

Such uprisings tend to take place in times of disquiet and discontent. Now is just such a time. Though the country appears stable and the regime strong, China is a place of seething tensions. Millions of workers have been thrown out of work by semi-capitalist economic reforms. Most Chinese long ago stopped believing in China's official state religion, communism. The country lacks a strong leader, such as Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping, to give it direction.

The government has tried every trick in the book against Mr. Li and his followers. It called them traitors inspired by foreign ideas -- a foolish thing to say about a homegrown movement with deep roots in Chinese tradition. It said they were stealing state secrets, another old chestnut. Finally, it tried to paint them as dangerous political dissidents who could subvert the state.

That was not true when it was said, but it might become so. By branding Falun Gong believers as heretics and forcing them into opposition, China may have cocked the trigger of another folk rebellion against the state.


E-mail: mgee@globeandmail.ca