Columns/Reviews |
Mustafa’s ‘Tibetan reality’
Tuesday, 4 August 2007, 11:28 a.m.
By Dhundup Gyalpo
ALTHOUGH VISITING AN occupied country must pose serious ethical questions, travelers in Tibet have always played a significant part as witnesses to the Tibetan struggle against the Chinese oppression. In the late 1980s, foreign visitors witnessing brutal repression of a series of peaceful demonstrations staged by the Tibetans in Lhasa, later culminating in the imposition of martial law, brought home photographs and film that gave the world incontrovertible evidence of the Tibetan people’s deep-seated resentment and resistance against Chinese rule.
The situation today, however, is entirely different. As one recent report noted: “In contemporary Lhasa, it is now entirely conceivable that a tourist who is not informed about the political realities may be unaware of any oppression at all. They will note the Tibetans arriving on pilgrimage, making prostrations before shrines, lighting incense and visiting the temples. They will observe the broad boulevards, the apparently thriving enterprises and the gleaming new office buildings”, along with luxury hotels built in “Tibetan style” contriving an illusion of the preservation of an authentic culture.
Those who are not aware of the situation see Tibetan religious activities humming everywhere, it creates a false impression of religious freedom. They not only fail to discern that the survival of Tibetan culture, so critical to Tibetan identity, is in crisis situation, but are also oblivious of the grisly realities behind the camouflage of modern urban facade, that of a growing underclass of Tibetans being increasingly marginalized and impoverished without access to even basic healthcare and education.
A case in point is Ms Seema Mustafa, the author of The Tibetan Reality, published in the op-ed of Asian Age on 23 June. Back from a sponsored pleasure trip to China and Tibet, Mustafa’s column is embarrassingly obsequious in glorifying the magnanimity and ingenuity of the Communist colonial policies enforced in Tibet.
Although Beijing has pledged to allow foreign journalists to travel freely throughout China in the run up to the 2008 Olympics, the visitors to Tibet (and Xinjiang) are still required to apply for permit. In fact, the tour of foreign correspondents are no more than guided group excursions, in which their whole experience of Tibet is controlled and manipulated by what has been dubbed as the world’s best propaganda machine.
According to Tim Johnson of Mcclatchy Newspapers, “Foreign reporters, under tight strictures that largely prevent them from traveling to Tibet except on once-a-year trips under Foreign Ministry guidance, risk being removed from the region if they openly interview people.” Harald Maass, China correspondent of the German daily Franfurter Rundschau, in his recent article, Prohibited Tibet, gave a more vivid account of the difficulties of reporting from Tibet. “As we leave our hotel in the old town in the morning, a man in a red jacket follows us. We turn into side-streets, change direction. A second, and then a third man start following us. After a couple of minutes we realise we are surrounded by secret police. The next day the surveillance becomes closer still. We think about taking the bus to Shigatse. Scarcely have we boarded a taxi when our car is stopped by a police check. The driver is cross examined. At the bus station, an employee tells us, ‘You may not travel to Shigatse by bus. We will not be selling you any tickets.'” Later on 15 May, Mass was reportedly summoned by the Zhang Lizhong, a division director at the foreign ministry’s information department, for a serious dressing down for his reports, which the authorities claimed were “mistake”, “false,” and “unacceptable”.
Amid various other reports of continued intimidation of independent journalism in China, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China released a survey on 1 August highlighting that the authorities continue to tail foreign correspondents, intimidate their sources, and even reprimand reporters after their stories are published. “A nation where citizens who speak to foreign correspondents face threats, reprisals and even bodily harm, does not live up to the world’s expectations of an Olympic host,” FCCC president Melinda Liu was quoted as saying.
Despite the state restrictions on media, compounded by the skullduggery and intrigue of Chinese propaganda, a majority of foreign journalists has persevered in probing the actual truth, at times even at great personal risk. Exceptions however apply on gullible reporters, whose faculty of objective analysis is so severely compromised by the Chinese hospitality that they turn a blind eye to even the most unsavory and disturbing aspects conspicuous in Lhasa today, for instance, the heavy military presence and the profusion of beggars and prostitutes.
Besides, in case of Mustafa, her ignorance on, or the distortion of, the Tibetan issue is so profound that the only way to respond is to give a basic backgrounder or FAQ on the Tibet issue. She began her column with some divine proclamations, or as she put it, “irreversible”: “Tibet is an autonomous province of China, and that is irreversible. The 14th Dalai Lama currently in exile in Dharamsala can return only as a religious figure, accepting the status of Tibet as part of China, and that is irreversible. And there is no one, not the people claiming to be running a government out of Dharamsala, or their western backers, who can now change the situation in Tibet.”
If only for once had Mustafa cared to hear out the “propaganda” of Dharamshala, she would have known that just as China claims Tibet is an autonomous region of China, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and his Administration in exile are also demanding autonomy for Tibet, not separation or independence. The issue therefore is that the autonomy that China claims Tibet enjoys exists only on paper, while the Tibetans want that autonomy to translate into realty.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has, for an umpteenth number of times, reiterated that the issue of Tibet is not about his personal status, it is about six million Tibetans. This is precisely why in July 1981, when then Chinese Communist Party Secretary Hu Yaobang announced “China’s Five-point Policy towards the Dalai Lama,” urging that if His Holiness returned to Tibet he “will enjoy the same political status and living conditions as he had before 1959”, His Holiness rejected the offer categorically. As early as in 1969, His Holiness has announced that the continuation of the very institution of Dalai Lama depends entirely upon the will of the Tibetan people. Again in 1992, in a statement about the future of Tibet, His Holiness announced that when the day of his return came, he would hand over all his authority to the local government, which he said would hopefully be an elected government eventually. His Holiness’ commitment to a democratic form of governance can be gauged from the series of reforms that he introduced in exile. His reforms culminated in 2001 with the election of Tibetan Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa), who is today bearing the brunt of political leadership. His Holiness as such keeps repeating that he is now in a state of “semi-retirement”. Therefore, Mustafa’s comment that His Holiness can return only “as a religious figure” is absolutely misplaced.
The readers must also note that Tibet traditionally comprised of three main areas: Kham (eastern Tibet), Amdo (north-eastern Tibet) and Utsang (central and western Tibet). The Tibet or the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region that Mustafa was referring to was set up by the Chinese government in 1965; it consists only of the Utsang region and parts of Kham. The remaining areas of Tibet have been separated into autonomous prefectures and counties.
Mustafa further writes that China is “aggressively targeting the Tibetans through development, with the growth rate in the region currently registering a phenomenal 13 per cent. In just five years the face of Lhasa, and the rest of Tibet, has changed. Wide roads, new buildings, hotels, communication links, and now the train have taken Tibet by storm, with the locals still getting used to the development that has generated immense employment opportunities.”
With her defective notion of “development” – which is based on the empirical observation of “mushrooming of hotels and restaurants”, offering “cuisines from all over the world” – Mustafa painstakingly goes out of her way in painting a rosy picture of China’s “development” in Tibet, including even the forced relocation of rural Tibetans, by saying that China’s “development” is “encouraging the nomadic tribes and the herdsmen to develop houses that they are now being able to build with the help of government subsidies.”
The Chinese authorities, in a sweeping campaign that recalled the socialist engineering of an earlier era, has relocated some 250,000 Tibetans from scattered rural hamlets to new “socialist villages,” ordering them to build new housing largely at their own expense and without their consent, Tim Johnson of Mcclatchy Newspapers reported on 6 May. “The government calls the year-old project the ‘comfortable housing program.’ Its stated aim is to present a more modern face for the ancient region that China has controlled since 1950. It claims that the new housing on main roads, sometimes only a mile from previous homes, will enable small farmers and herders to have access to schools and jobs, as well as better health care and hygiene. But the broader aim seems to be remaking Tibet – a region with its own culture, language and religious traditions – in order to have firmer political control over its population.”
The growing alienation of China’s three main minority nationalities – Tibetans, Mongols and Uighurs – is also corroborated by a recent new report published by the Minority Rights Groups International and Human Rights in China, including that the minorities have been largely missing out on China’s economic boom. On the contrary, the report pointed out that the impact of China’s “development” in minority regions has been damaging as the large-scale development of roads and railway is not boosting local economies, but just facilitating the extraction of raw materials – resources to feed growth in the Mainland China. In regions such as Tibet and Xinjiang, the report said, the increasing access is leading to a greater military presence – and a general diluting of local culture, which in turn is stocking feelings of resentment.
For instance, hundreds of irate Tibetans of Bamei town, located in a remote, sparsely populated area of Tibetan Kham region, rioted this May over the exploitation of sacred Yala mountain for lead and zinc. The protestors attacked government officials and smashed cars during a protest outside the local branch of a mining company. According to media reports, several people were killed, while eight Bamei elders have been missing since they tried to petition the Sichuan government in the provincial capital of Chengdu.
In her column, Mustafa has the temerity to even claim that the economic boom “is attracting many Tibetans back to the region from India and Nepal,” at a time when the world is still reeling from the painful memories of the Nangpa La shooting incident, in which the Chinese border patrols were caught on tape shooting at a group of 70-odd innocent young Tibetans, largely women and children, who were crossing the mountain pass into Nepal. Despite China’s claims of prosperity in Tibet, hundreds of Tibetans every year embark on this almost suicidal escape through the Himalayan borders to the freedom in exile.
Mustafa further claims that there is religious freedom in Tibet today: “The new policy is to accommodate and at moments to even encourage religions…there is no interference in religion, the people are free to observe their rituals, and it is true that monasteries are being looked after and are currently thriving.” One cannot have a narrower notion of religion than Mustafa’s; for her religious activities like visiting temples, offering butter lamps, etc., are the be-all and end-all of Tibetan Buddhism. It is because of such mindset that China’s deliberate and systematic operation to dilute Tibetan religion largely go unnoticed by the passing tourists – let alone those who have been treated to gala state banquets.
Those with even a cursory idea of Tibetan Buddhism would know that the Tibetan monasteries are more than mere places of worship; they are more important the centres of Buddhist scholarship and meditation. For centuries, monasteries have been the schools and universities of Tibet. However, because of the systematic destruction of the traditional systems of monastic academia in the past half a century of Chinese rule, it has become virtually impossible to get a proper Buddhist education in Tibet today.
A noted Chinese Tibetologist, Wang Lixiong, also noted that “[Tibetans] are most troubled by the authorities’ suppression of teaching scriptures and discussing Buddhism. Losing its philosophical and reasoned vehicle, the religion becomes only a superficial and superstitious formality to the masses,” adding that “temples seem full of worshipers but are in reality not much different from exhibition halls. This kind of ‘religious freedom’ may perform a function to fool foreign tourists…” Even as religious activities may seem to appear normal on surface, the lifeline of Tibetan Buddhism – the Buddha, his teachings and the community of monks who preserve and hand down his teachings – are actually being restrained and undermined. Stringent measures have been imposed to strengthen the state administration of religion, religious institutions and religious personnel – for instance, mandatory registration of all places of religious activity, fixed limits on the size of monks and nuns, ban on children under 18 from receiving monastic education, compulsory study of state policy and law in monasteries, and the Party management of monastic Buddhist curriculum itself. In fact, Zhang Qingli, the Chinese Party Secretary in Lhasa, even proclaimed that “The Central Party Committee is the real Buddha for Tibetans.”
The prevailing trend towards tightening of control over religion was revealed earlier this May, when the Chinese People’s Armed Police troops destroyed a giant 30-feet high statue of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) that was under construction at Tibet’s oldest monastery, Samye. The official Chinese report issued on 9 June said that the construction of the statue “disobeyed the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection of Cultural Relics and the Notice of Illegally Building Open Statue of Buddha….Samye Monastery then self moved the open-air statue forwardly [sic]”. The Dharamshala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy quoted a resident Tibetan as saying that the Tibetan people did not dare to challenge the officials openly but deep inside their heart, people fear and worry that the demolition of Guru Rinpoche’s statue and transportation of its rubble bear a resemblance to the dark era of the Cultural Revolution.”
Many of Mustafa’s wild and arbitrary comments – for instance, she dismisses the recent reports of Tibet being inundated by a new spate of Chinese migrants as a falsity – are absolutely preposterous for they backtrack on even the past confessions of the Chinese officials. As way back in 2002, AP quoted then vice president of the Commission for Planning and Development in Tibet as saying that half of Lhasa’s population of 200,000 were “non-Tibetans”. The report also noted that “the majority of shops also appear to be run by Chinese who have moved from all corners of the country”. As Chinese official regional census data do not include the military or the “floating population” of economic migrants, who live primarily in the urban area, the actual population figures are invariably higher than official statistics.
Lhasa today reportedly has a population of 300,000 people, of which 200,000 are believed to be Chinese. Sources on the ground estimate that since the train to Lhasa became operational in July 2006, it brings daily five or six thousand people to Lhasa. However, when one observes the trains leaving Lhasa for China, only two or three thousand people are aboard. The rest of them settle in Tibet indefinitely. Because of this alarming new influx of Chinese migrants, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is often quoted as saying that “Whether intentionally or unintentionally, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place.”
Mustafa was also grossly irresponsible in implying that the impact of China’s development works upon Tibet’s fragile ecology is a necessary evil – sidestepping the crucial fact that no other country will be more affected by China’s plans and projects in Tibet than India. As Mr Brahma Chellany recently put it: “The new $ 6.2 billion Gormu-Lhasa railway, for example, has significantly augmented China’s rapid military-deployment capability against India just when Beijing is becoming increasingly assertive in its claims on Indian territories.” So much for Mustafa’s “The train ride is through Paradise. There can be no other word for it.” (A Tibet Diary, Asian Age, 22 June)
Similarly, much as the rest of South Asian nations, India must also be seriously concerned about Chinese attempts to dam or redirect the southward flow of river waters from the Tibetan plateau, where major rivers originate, including the Indus, Mekong, Yangtze, Yellow, Salween, Brahmaputra, Karnali and Sutlej. Mustafa seriously needs to jog her memory on how an artificial lake on Parechu in Tibet caused flash flood in Sutlej for a start. Now as China has already announced its plans to extend the Tibet railway to the Indian borders (and Nepal), before Mustafa filed another glossy accounts of the new rail lines, I recommend her a new travel guide recently published by the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet, Paradox Lost: How not to be tourist in Tibet, as an alternative to her Chinese sources of reference.