source: AFp
I HAD little interest in Tibet before the outbreak of violence in Lhasa on March 14 and my feelings towards the Dalai Lama and his community of Tibetan exiles in India’s Dharamsala were largely neutral. The Tibetans I met during a trip to China’s Jiuzhaigou seemed well-off and friendly enough.
On March 14, hell broke loose in Lhasa and the pictures of peaceful, studious monks in your article, Test of Faith (StarTwo, April 15), cannot erase the images of Tibetan lamas joining hooligans on a destructive, murderous rampage through Lhasa. Shockingly, lamas in other parts too engaged in similar acts of violence. Many feel these monks have betrayed not only their vows but also the trust of believers who look to them for spiritual solace.
Throughout the March riots, reports in the western media were overwhelmingly in favour of the exiles and the rogue monks. Selectively cropped or mis-labelled pictures were fed to the worldwide audience together with images of beaten and bloodied Tibetans (in Nepal) similar to those in the April 15 article. Strangely, no mention was made of the brutality of the Lhasa rioters or the sufferings of their Han and Muslim Hui victims.
The Dalai Lama claims he is merely a spiritual adviser but has a “government-in-exile” in Dharamsala complete with “ministers”. For all intents and purposes, he is a political personage who appears to enjoy the friendship of some governments and the backing of certain western organisations. He also has a flag which the rioting monks in western China and the protestors at the Olympic torch relays wave in defiance. All these activities point towards separatism which some of his people openly call for and which he continues to deny.
Prior to 1950, Tibet’s society was a feudal theocracy where aristocrats and monasteries ruled and owned the land. The balance 95% of the population were serfs and slaves with no rights, human or otherwise, and subject to barbaric forms of punishment for all kinds of offences.
The West says China “invaded” Tibet in 1950 and that prior to that, Tibet was largely independent or autonomous for “long periods”. (Of course, the fact that Britain invaded Tibet in the late 19th and early 20th century and tried to wrest it from the collapsing Qing dynasty is hardly ever mentioned).
China says Tibet has been a part of the country since the Yuan dynasty 700 years ago, with documents to prove it, and that in 1950 they liberated Tibet from the shackles of feudalism. In any case, one thing is for sure: Tibet has been a part of China longer than the United States has existed as a country and it is an inalienable part of China now.
With the demise of theocratic feudalism, the power of the lamas and aristocrats was curtailed. In 1959, they organised an uprising which failed and the Dalai Lama fled with the elites into exile in India.
Their offspring now protest loudly and dramatically for a “free Tibet”. Since Tibet is already free of feudal oppression and conditions have improved, they must mean free of China, which confirms China’s assertion that they and the flag-waving monks are separatists. (According to an April 9, 2008 statement by Qiangba Puncog, governor of Tibet, in chinadaily.com, life expectancy has risen from 35.3 in the 1950s to 67 years. The Tibetan population has doubled since 1964 to the present 2.4 million).
Ironically a commentator in The Telegraph online observed that when some young Tibetan protestors at the San Francisco Olympic Torch Relay were asked by a broadcaster where Tibet was, they could not identify it on a map. He said some didn’t even know it was in Asia.
Similarly, I bet many of the activists have never been to China and don’t have a clue what it is really like today. The young Tibetans in San Francisco were also reportedly chastised by some elderly ones who presumably had lived through the feudal age.
The chaos and disruption created by the protestors in London and Paris have not only been incredibly unfair to those who came out to enjoy the Olympic Torch Relay, but also to the torchbearers, especially athletes lucky enough to have this once-in-a-lifetime chance to run with the Torch.
Given what we have seen of the violence of the Lhasa mobs, perhaps it should come as no surprise to see a Tibetan activist assail a young disabled, wheelchair-bound torchbearer in Paris as he tried to grab the torch from her.
After what happened in Lhasa and on the streets of London and Paris, I am sorry to say I no longer feel neutral about the Dalai and his exiles.
Truth Be Told
Kuala Lumpur
