I am thinking about this today because of an article I read in The New York Times this morning on the opposition to the possible awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, a heroic advocate of the a democratic reforms in China. Predictably the Chinese government has warned the Nobel committee that the awarding of the prize to Liu would damage governmental relations between China and Norway.

Surprisingly, there is a petition of exiled dissidents opposing the award.

According to a group of strong anti- regime exiles, Liu maligned fellow dissidents, abandoned members of the Falun Gong and was soft on Chinese leaders. “His open praise in the last 20 years for the Chinese Communist Party, which has never stopped trampling on human rights, has been extremely misleading and influential.”

The vehemence of their opposition to Liu despite the fact that at this moment he is serving an eleven year sentence for advocating democratic reforms, reveals  that they view him not as an opponent, who has a more moderate pragmatic approach to democratic reforms than they, but as an enemy.

It suggests that if they were in power, they might not be that different from the regime which they so passionately oppose.  In politics, as Arendt observes in one of her most beautiful books, Between Past and Future, the means are ends.