Forgotten voices

Kate Chisholm

Wednesday, 11th March 2009

Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence.

Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence. In A Tibetan Odyssey — 50 Years in Exile, the veteran reporter and Sino-Tibetan expert Isabel Hilton recalled events in Tibet since its invasion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in October 1950. We heard the voice of Field Marshal Montgomery being interviewed by the BBC just after his visit to Mao Tse-tung in 1961. It should be required listening for every politician seconded to the Foreign Office.

Montgomery is asked, with a politeness that now sounds quaintly historical, why he had not gone to Tibet (it was just two years since the Chinese had ruthlessly suppressed an attempt by the Tibetans to regain their autonomy). Montgomery replied, ‘I think...the Chinese, I would say, were probably not anxious that I should go there. Mind you, I never asked them that. Tibet to me was really unimportant.’

‘Don’t you think,’ the reporter persisted, ‘that you might have asked Mao Tse-tung about some of the reports...of the brutal atrocities by the Chinese.’

‘I could have,’ says Montgomery, ‘but I didn’t want to.’ Then he adds, chuckling to himself, ‘I’m very friendly with Mao Tse-tung. I didn’t want to irritate him in any way.’

All credit to Hilton (and her producer Eleanor Thomas) that no comment was made on this extraordinary conversation. Of course, ‘with the benefit of hindsight’ is a pretty pointless way of looking back on events. But it was not just what Montgomery said. His whole manner sounded so weirdly unprofessional, as if Tibet was all a bit of a joke.

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JohnAnt

March 14th, 2009 1:46pm Report this comment

But should much be made of Montgomery's impressions of China/Tibet? His role as Inspector-General of Nato ended with his retirement in 1958 at the age of 71 - and he was thought by most to be well past it by then. So he was presumably in China as a private invitee of Mao, who knew a useful senile idiot when he saw one.

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