Two months ago, I wrote about Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize today in Oslo. Actually, he wasn’t there, since the Chinese have him in prison.

Instead, an empty chair represented Liu, which in reality represents China’s refusal to join the civilized world in all but its commercial glory.  The Chinese government, which detained Liu’s wife and other dissidents in order to prevent them from attending the ceremony, had labeled the event as “political theater,” and aggressively told the nations of the world that their attendance would show “disrespect” to China. 

The Chinese are in good company, since today’s ceremony marked the first time a detained laureate had not had a representative present since the Nazi’s prevented Carl von Ossietzky, a German pacifist, from attending in 1935.  Congratulations to our wonderful trading partners and financiers.

Here is a list of the nation no-shows, who were invited but chose not to attend:

Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Iraq, Vietnam, and Morocco.

Liu, who to this day isn’t well-known in China, was a professor and political philosopher who began pissing off the Chinese in 1989, when he got involved in organizing pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square.  We all know how that ended.  Liu reportedly told his wife that he was dedicating the peace prize to the martyrs of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Human Rights Watch posted today Liu Xiaobo’s non-apologetic statement, not long after he was convicted of “subversion of state power” and sentenced to 11 years in prison by the Chinese government in 2009:

I believe that my work has been just, and that someday China will be a free and democratic country. Our people then will bathe in the sunshine of freedom from fear. I am paying a price to move us in that direction, but without the slightest regret. I have long been aware that when an independent intellectual stands up to an autocratic state, step one toward freedom is often a step into prison. Now I am taking that step; and true freedom is that much nearer.

Amen.

[photo: Heiko Junge/AP]