It was half time during the Barça-Real Madrid game. I told my husband I had showed the Tibet video in class. “Which one?” he asked. There are many such documentaries—such as, The Yogis of Tibet, Tibetan Refugee, and of course, movies like Kundun—that chronicle the Chinese invasion of Tibet under the Maoist regime, beginning in 1949. The one I showed today focussed on an interview with the Dalai Lama, hence the title, 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama.
Despite the star power behind the issue, many of my students bravely and humbly admitted to never having heard of this critical situation. Yet, the average person surely knows what kind of dress Kate Middleton wore at the Royal Wedding, I wryly joked.
The problem of media coverage comes in to play when you consider that in order to care about any injustice, you’ve got to first be aware that the injustice even exists.
Despite the lively discussion the video engendered, and the gratitude most students expressed to me after class for having showed the video, I mentioned to my husband that one student had called the video one-sided.
The game was back and Messi had the ball, so my husband went straight to the heart of it: Tibet never invaded anyone. The suggestion of bias makes it sound as if somehow, one could justify the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Tibetans, the destruction of over 6,000 monasteries, nunneries and temples, and the imprisonment and torture of thousands of other Tibetans.
I don’t see any more justification for this than I do the murder of 6 million Jews, nor nearly 1 million Armenians by the Turks, nor any of the other cultural genocides that darken the pages of our history books.
Someone wondered whether the film had an anti-communist tone. Whether it did or didn’t isn’t really the point. And the fact that Mao was one isn’t really the point (besides giving Mao an extra dash of bitterness toward the Tibetans just for being religious). The point is tyranny and injustice and communists lay no claim to either—oppressors come in all shapes, sizes and political affiliation.
I thought of something my favorite journalist—the Persian reporter, Christiane Amanour—asked once: Why can’t we just call a spade a spade? She knew full well why.
In this case, as the BBC points out, China has become a major player in the world market and its businesses have such a strong lobby that officials are reluctant to take substantive measures against its crimes toward Tibet.
In November 2008, the U.N. agreed with Free Tibet’s report on torture, clarifying that it believes that torture is ‘widespread and routine’ in Tibet.
Lest we forget to mention that from China’s perspective, Tibet has always been part of the Republic, let us state simultaneously, that prior to 1950, Tibet was a nation with an established sovereign government, a currency, a postal system, a language, a legal system, and a culture.
The history is complex, but the moral point is simple: There is never an excuse for imperialist aggression.
And lest we falsely assume that for all Chinese authorities, mum’s the word, let’s not forget Hu Yao Bang, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, who visited Tibet in 1980—the first senior official to do so since the invasion. He was so alarmed by the destruction he saw there, he called for immediate reform.
He was forced to resign.
The situation has continued to languish. And other officials dared not come forth. Some, such as Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, simply deny reports of tensions, calling on the US to stop making “irresponsible remarks.”
All foreigners have been banned from Tibet and from the surrounding provinces in order to close the region to outside eyes.
In 1981, Russian writer Alexander Solzhenytsin described the situation as “more brutal and inhumane than any other communist regime in the world.” And this, by the pen of a Russian novelist!
And lest we falsely lay blame on our friends, the common Chinese people, who have themselves, suffered by the hands of the same regime, I am reprinting part of an article I previously wrote:
The Emptiness of Anger
While working my way through a thick stack of homework papers recently, I came across one, written by a Chinese student who spoke of his hatred toward the Japanese because of the Japanese invasions into China during the 1930s.
I wondered, if he even knew who he was angry with, and whether the feeling is directed toward today’s generation of Japanese. I even wonder if it is a feeling at all. It is perhaps more like a cultural habit.
Nonetheless, if the cynicism is directed toward today’s generation, then I wonder whether these young Japanese are even familiar with the history of WWII. If they’re like most young people, it’s just an anecdote in their history books. They are a good three generations removed, with very different cultural concerns, and on a personal level, they’re worried about transferring to a good university, when their boyfriend will call, and whether they’ve used too many minutes on their cell phones. We are all very similar. In this light, it is clearly pointless to be angry at these people.
So, then what about the older generation, those who were in their prime during WWII—The “culprits?” Similarly, my guess is that the average Japanese person back then was waiting for news of the war, like the rest of the world, concerned most immediately, about the safety of her family, and just hoping for things to return to normal. They weren’t personally involved in acts of destruction at all, and chances are, didn’t wish for it, either. So, who should the culprit be? Perhaps the government…
…but that particular assemblage is now nonexistent!
The Chinese aren’t horrible for persisting in their anger toward the Japanese. If they are, then we all are equally horrible. We all do the same thing. The Buddhists call it ignorance.
We condemn the Germans as a whole for the holocaust. But all it takes is remembrance of the many Germans who tried, themselves, to bring down Hitler, and the many others who took in Jews, at their own personal risk.
Ironically, it would be all too easy to direct the same bitterness toward the Chinese, due to their violent seizure of Tibet, but the ordinary Chinese people of today have not seized Tibet, and weren’t even around when the whole thing started. They are getting along like the rest of us, doing the things the rest of us do everyday, and probably don’t know much about it, aside from what their Government, through heavy censure, has allowed them to know.
The point is, with deeper consideration, it becomes increasingly difficult to find a target, and to hold onto anger.
Donna Quesada Schollhammer 