Trouble in Tibet
Alec Ash 1:42pm
Tenzin Wangmo, a 20-year-old Tibetan nun, woke up to clear skies on October 17th. At
around noon, she gathered the things she needed and walked down the valley to the bridge below her nunnery. Once there, she found a suitable spot, perhaps thumbed the prayer beads strung around her
neck one final time, and began to shout. "Let His Holiness the Dalai Lama return to Tibet!", she cried. "We want religious freedom!" Then she set herself on fire. She walked up
and down for about eight minutes, a witness says, before collapsing.
Ten days before, two teenage former monks set themselves alight in the same region, Aba county in ethnically Tibetan western China, near where I once taught English. A few days before that, it was a 17-year-old monk. Tenzin Wangmo is the ninth Tibetan to self-immolate since March. It is hard to imagine a more disturbing trend.
There is scant religious precedence in Buddhism for this bloody a statement, even if the famous 1963 photograph of a Vietnamese monk burning himself has seared the image in many minds. In the past, the Dalai Lama has condemned self-immolation as violating the sanctity of life. Yet it is chiefly the religious whose certainty of perspective can lead them to such extremes. And in the monasteries of "China's Tibet", where it is forbidden to display an image of your spiritual leader and a Stasi-like informer culture exists, there is plenty of fuel to stoke the flames of distress.
Such headlines from Tibet will no doubt ring a prayer bell. The riots that struck Lhasa and other Tibetan areas of China (including Aba) in March 2008 were just as violent, if not self-inflicted. To turn inwards force that once struck out feels sadly like a given-up hope of ever changing things. It is tempting to conflate the broader Tibetan protests and their afterlife of muffled discontent with the protest of Tenzin Wangmo, and explain it all in simple terms of Chinese suppression of Tibetan religious and cultural identity. But no motive to pick up torch and rock is ever simple.
Devotion to Buddhism and the Dalai Lama is formidable across Chinese Tibet. The former – and the tourism cash flow it generates – is tolerated but restricted; the latter – a rival figure to Beijing's political and historical claim on Tibet – is not tolerated at all. And "autonomous" though central Tibet may be in name, its top official is Chinese (the role was once held by Hu Jintao). But almost every Tibetan I spoke to in areas which rioted in 2008 complained of lack of opportunity before religious or political freedom ever entered the conversation. In other words: it's the economy, unenlightened one.
That Chinese control has brought economic progress to its impoverished west is undeniable. A typical complaint in Beijing is that China's ethnic minorities – which form just eight per cent of its population – are biting the hand that feeds them. Yet the benefits of growth tend to go to the influx of Han Chinese immigrants, not locals. Meanwhile, Tibetans feel like second class citizens who struggle to get by as the land which bears their name grows ever less their own.
If the basis of the trouble in Tibet is nuanced, its likely outcome is more straight-forward. Put simply: nada. There is no indication that Beijing will take measures to address Tibetan root grievances – nor those in Xinjiang or Inner Mongolia, both of which regions have also hosted protest over the last months. Discontent at its ethnic backdoor is a status quo that the Chinese Communist Party seems willing to maintain. It is all too easy to "smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet and jeopardise national unity", in the words of Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao's heir-apparent.
What pressure is Britain putting on Hu and Xi to change their tune? Almost as fat a zero. A recent foreign office human rights report voices "concern" over Tibetan rights, then lamely states: "We have urged China to renew its dialogue with the Dalai Lama's representatives as the best way to reach a solution." A top-ranking British diplomat told me in Beijing that in high-level talks, the UK might raise the Tibet issue, but the agenda item is token and swiftly passed over in the face of Chinese intransigence.
And where in this mess sits the Dalai Lama? The 76-year-old announced in March that he was retiring from political life, and the Tibetan government in exile passed his mantle to Harvard-educated Lobsang Sangay. Last month, the Dalai Lama questioned whether he would return at all in a 15th incarnation, fearful that China might interfere in the selection process. A beacon for international recognition of the Tibetan cause, when he dies one fears that flame will die with him.
Previous
Norman Dee
November 6th, 2011 2:22pm Report this commentChina is only doing what many other nations are doing in running their politics exactly as they see fit because at the end of the day all they will ever have to put up with is noise. The same has been true for all of history, civilisation and scientific advances change nothing in politics. Of course occasionally the outside force can "win", and then they become the oppressors. Nothing will defeat the esential tribalism of all mankind.
Havena Clew
November 6th, 2011 2:26pm Report this commentThis is a hugely complex issue. Because of China's clout, their invasion and subjugation of Tibet since the 1950s has been difficult for western governments to approach, except in statements in the form of platitudes. Of course, many well known personalities have and continue to speak up. If Tibet was nearer sea level and had oil - well, you know the rest.
That said, the Tibetan diaspora has hardly spoken with one voice. It is riven with political and spiritual intrigues itself, which, when examined more closely, would make many in the west wonder about the culture and this wonderfully smiling personage we think we know so well. It would seem, when you look at other events worldwide, that we do indeed appear to be standing at the crossing point of the ages.
Fire, Water, Burn
November 6th, 2011 2:38pm Report this commentI can't get past the comedy value of Alec Ash writing about people burning.
To be serious for a moment, I cannot have an opinion on this until it is given to me by Richard Gere, Brad Pitt and probably the bloke from Blur.
Alex
November 6th, 2011 5:20pm Report this commentThere are always going to be winners and losers in any country, just look at Occupy Wall street. But the form of protest should not be self-immolation. If Tibetans want better economic opportunities, the way to achieve it is not to align themselves with Dalai Lama. Pushing for independence will only worsen their situation.
daniel maris
November 6th, 2011 6:26pm Report this commentI can't believe the cynicism, apologetics and indifference displayed here (and in article - what on Earth is is "Chinese Tibet"?). The question you should ask is how would you want the rest of the world to respond if YOU were in the position of Tibet, subject to military occupation, cultural genocide, ethnic cleansing and torture and murder of your representatives? Would you like the rest of the world to stay silent and trade with your oppressors?
Do unto others as you would have the do unto you.
Peter From Maidstone
November 6th, 2011 7:50pm Report this commentDaniel Maris, unfortunately we are suffering from cultural and demographic genocide here in the UK. A very good reason for having much more sympathy for the Tibetan people. What we might wish for them we must claim and demand for ourselves.
David Lindsay
November 6th, 2011 8:28pm Report this commentThe present Dalai Lama was born hundreds of miles outside Tibet. The Tibetans themselves migrated to what is now Tibet from further east in China, but huge numbers of them never did and never have done. The Dalai Lama comes from one such family.
Before 1959, Tibet was not an independent state ruled benignly by the Dalai Lama and given over almost entirely to the pursuit of spirituality. Tibet was certainly ruled by the Dalai Lama, by the lamas generally, and by the feudal landlord class from which the lamas were drawn. “Dalai” is a family name; only a member of the House of Dalai can become the Dalai Lama. Well over 90 per cent of the population was made up of serfs, the background from which the present rulers of Tibet are drawn.
That system was unique in China, and existed only because successive Emperors of China had granted the Tibetan ruling clique exactly the “autonomy” for which it still campaigns from “exile”. Life expectancy in Tibet was half what it is today.
There has never been an independent state of Tibet. Likewise, the presence of large numbers of Han (ethnic Chinese in the ordinary sense) and other Chinese ethnic groups in Tibet is nothing remotely new. The one-child policy does not apply in Tibet, so the Han majority there is the ethnic Tibetans’ own fault, if they even see it as a problem.
It is totally false to describe the Dalai Lama as “their spiritual leader”. Relatively few would view him as such. In particular, Google “Dorje Shugden” for, to put at its mildest, some balance to the media portrayal of the present Dalai Lama, who, moreover, has never condemned either the invasion of Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq.
daniel maris
November 6th, 2011 9:52pm Report this commentPfM -
Well that may or may not be the case - I wouldn't put it that way myself. But it simply underlines the fact that we should not sanction the extermination of the Tibetan identity by the Han Chinese.
Steve Coleman
November 8th, 2011 5:13pm Report this commentIt is such a sad state when those who have no contact with Tibetan people, their culture, identity, starts to repeat what Chinese Dictatorship Government has been pushing for several decades.
David Lindsay, you ought to stop reading about Tibet and start living the experience of Tibetan people. I'm sure you if you try, you will be able to contact some local Tibetan community. These Tibetans are the voice of their brothers and sisters who are Repressed under 60+ years of China's brutality.
It amazes me how little even Chinese know about Tibet from their actual contacts with Tibetan people and culture, Tibetan identity. What is even more sad is that even in this age of Information, there are people who chose not to do their research and take whats fed to them.
Learn about Tibet and you will see how much they have suffered and continue to suffer under Chinese brutal occupation of their country Tibet.
Angelica Malon
November 9th, 2011 11:47pm Report this commentThe China will never be respected as long as it reject freedom to the Tibetan people.
China's continues use of brute force & Han chauvinistic policies in TAR Tibet and Greater Tibet only shows the out of touch hard liners in Beijing.
Such a shameless nation, that is the China.
Back to top