By Kevin Griffin
You’re at the packed David Bowie concert tonight at GM Place. The Man
himself is on stage and you’re staring intently, wondering what kind of
Swiss clinic he visits to keep looking so young. Ah, the charmed life of a
rock ‘n’ roll star.
Then you notice the drummer, and the fact that there are three Chinese
characters on the front of his bass drum. If you don’t read Chinese they
are, in order from the top, the characters for truthfulness, compassion and
tolerance.
These are the three principles of the Chinese self-improvement philosophy
called Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa. Practitioners improve their
mental and physical well-being through a series of exercises, meditation and
the ethical treatment of others.
The reason you’re looking at three Chinese characters at a Bowie concert is
that the drummer, Sterling Campbell, has been practicing Falun Gong for six
years. Following its tenets, Campbell says, allowed him to stop drinking,
doing drugs and smoking a two packs of cigarettes a day.
At the beginning of Bowie’s Reality world tour — which won’t end until next
July somewhere in Europe — Campbell asked the rock legend if he could put
the characters on his drum and have a Friends of Falun Gong information
booth at each concert.
“David — he’s always cool about that kind of stuff,” Campbell explained in
an interview Friday.
“I can’t speak for David but he’s definitely seen a change in me. He saw me
at my height of being out of control. He’s seen a different person. Maybe he
saw what happened to me.”
Beyond his personal and professional connection to Campbell, Bowie has a
connection of his own to Asian spirituality. He spent time as a youth
studying with exiled monks at London’s Tibet Society and has performed in
several annual benefit concerts at Carnegie Hall for the Dalai Lama and the
people of Tibet.
Bowie’s social conscience has also benefitted Amnesty International,
allowing that organization to place an information booth at his concerts.
“I was living the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle,” says Campbell, who has also been
a drummer for Duran Duran, Soul Asylum, and the B-52s. “I was pretty messed
up. At one point, I used to drink in the morning. I felt trapped.”
To dig himself out of the hole he found himself in, Campbell tried yoga, tai
chi and homeopathy. Then, one day, he was out for a walk one morning in
Manhattan along Riverside Park. He saw a group of people doing unusual
exercises. He was intrigued.
“It wasn’t a revelation,” he said. “Something just drove me there. They gave
me some information about Falun Gong, this ancient Chinese practice.”
The next day, he started doing the exercises — five in all that are
somewhat similar to yoga and include the pretzel-like double lotus position.
He also read the movement’s guide book Zhuan Falun (Revolving the Law
Wheel), by its founder, Li Hongzhi, a former soldier. “It just touched me. I
can’t articulate it except that I’ve always tried to get in touch with
something on a more universal level,” he says. “It just made sense to me.
When I picked up that book and started reading it, it felt right. I trusted
it.
“Three weeks into doing the exercises, the drugs, the drinking, the
cigarettes — they were gone.”
Campbell soon learned that the Chinese government perceives the
self-improvement philosophy as a threat. The government of President Jiang
Zemin banned the movement in July 1999, imprisoning about 30,000 followers,
including many Communist party officials. Since then, Chinese officials have
embarked on a major campaign to discredit Falun Gong as well as continuing
to mistreat and imprison its followers.
Campbell has first-hand experience of how far the Chinese government will go
to crack down on Falun Gong’s apparently peaceful self-improvement practice.
At about 2 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, 2002 Campbell was on vast Tiananmen
Square in Beijing, the symbolic centre of the Chinese state and the site of
the massacre of thousands of Chinese citizens in 1989. Campbell was with
perhaps 100 other Western followers of Falun Gong.
Their goal, according to Campbell, was to unfurl a banner or two, hand out
some pamphlets and talk to people about the benefits of Falun Gong.
But Chinese officials were ready. Within seconds of the group handing out
material, police officers swooped down, herded them into a van and drove
everyone to a nearby police station.
“People were dragged in by their hair. Police were kicking people,” Campbell
recalls. Campbell himself was kicked and pushed to the ground.
Campbell said the whole experience made him realize how valuable freedom is.
“You can’t take things for granted — like freedom. It’s not just about
people who practise Falun Gong,” he said. “The whole experience was so deep
for us. My reaction wasn’t hate. I didn’t feel any bad will towards these
young men. They’re caught when the government lays down the law.”
Posting date: 27/Jan/2004
Original article date: 26/Jan/2004
Category: Media Report
