Zócalo's Connecting California
The ABCs of democratic resistance
Formative years in China taught the author why it’s essential to question authority.
Zocalo Public Square commentator Joe Mathews spent part of his childhood in China, with journalist parents who were covering rapprochement between that country and the U.S. after decades of hostility. It was an up close and personal look at an authoritarian regime and a deeply disaffected population. Mathews says the lessons he learned about democratic resistance during those years seem every bit as a relevant today as they did in the late 1970s.