A Letter to His Holiness from a Chinese
Thursday, 21 August 2008, 4:38 p.m.
8 August 2008
Zhu Rui’s Letter to the Venerable Dalai Lama
Revered Dalai Lama:
I have to tell you that my impression of you in my childhood and youth
was that you were a flayer of human skin, a demon who picked flesh from
human bones. From this point alone, you have probably guessed that I am
Han Chinese. Indeed, I grew up within the Communist education system.
But in 1997, I chanced upon an opportunity to travel to Tibet. That was
the first time I (secretly) saw your photograph, your kind and
compassionate visage, and it made me doubt the Communists’ propaganda.
At the Festival of the Bodhisattva of Good Fortune that year, I
went early to the Zulakang temple where the Bodhisattva’s covering had
already been removed, and in the light as soon as I saw her face, the
sound of a voice rose behind me. It was the mournful yet excited sound
of an elderly voice. There before the Songsten Gampo hall, she sang
while she poured wine into a goblet in front of the statue. Men, women
and even the children all around immediately joined in the singing, and
when the police turned up, their voices rang ever more brightly…
“They’re praising the Dalai Lama,” a monk quietly told me.
That day, I moved out of my hotel and into the former home of a
merchant on the Barkhor. Prior to 1959, the mistress of this family
used to wear clothes most days worth 30,000 to 40,000 renminbi, but now
all she had left was two sets of clothes. The home left to her by her
ancestors had been demolished. The new home seemed to be worth more,
but it was less than half the size of the old one and there was no
running water and the communal toilets were constantly blocked, sending
their unbearable stench right out into the Barkhor street. This woman
had no complaint about being plundered by the Communists, but there was
something she was constantly saying, very quietly – I could only ever
see her lips moving. I thought she was reciting the mantra, “Wish for a
better life to come.” But one day, when there were only the two of us
and she saw there was no one there outside, she said she was reciting a
long-life prayer for you.
In April 1999 I went to Tibet for the second time where I lived
in the home of farmers in Rizhika village in Jiru township, Zalang
county in Rikaze prefecture. There was no running water there and no
electricity. At dawn each day, the family traipsed to the river to
carry water and in the evenings even the small children sat around the
weak oil lamp twisting wool. Selling felt was pretty much the only
means of livelihood the villagers had. Our food was very simple, with
potatoes for two meals a day (aside from gruel for breakfast) being a
luxury. But there in the home, in the place where the most light came
in, was a picture of you in an exquisite frame draped all over with
long white khada.
Later, I chose to work in Tibet. As an editor and journalist I
had the opportunity to meet with some Tibetans who worked in Chinese
Communist Party offices, and with my own eyes saw how in the most
secret places in their homes they have photographs of you and yak
butter lamps that had never been lit.
You are not the enemy of the Tibetan people, you are the father
of the Tibetan people; you are the source of the Tibetan people’s
compassion and happiness. You are Yeshe Norbu, the Tibetan people’s
wish-fulfilling jewel; you are Kundun, who forever will appear before
all Tibetans whenever they call you; and you are Gyalwa Rinpoche,
higher than all kings and the most precious of treasures. And
evidently, the Communist authorities did not liberate Tibet, they
robbed Tibet; they did not sow happiness, they created suffering.
Listening to your lecture at Madison in Wisconsin, I was filled
with emotion. An ocean of Buddhist wisdom of the greatest depth and by
degree ever more complex was systematically expounded by you until it
miraculously became like rain, nourishing and vitalizing your
listeners; you did your utmost to answer every everyone’s questions,
embracing the smallest shred of individual pain and suffering; and even
when someone asked a question about China-Tibet relations, with
limitless patience and concern you emphasized the excellence of the
Chinese nation, and encouraged friendly exchange between the Chinese
and Tibetan peoples. And the Communists’ evil, their scheming, their
corruption and dictatorship, when compared to your compassion, your
transparency, your honesty and democracy – all shall undergo the test
of time.
In March of this year, the Communists’ cruel 50-year colonial
rule of Tibet gave rise to peaceful, non-violent protests at more than
100 locations throughout all Tibetan areas. The tragedy is that not
only have the Communist leaders failed to reflect upon or adjust their
policies in Tibet as a result, but condescendingly they actually
dictated to you that there were the “four do not supports” as
preconditions to dialog, making the white-hot Tibet question a problem
for you personally. Their intention is to smother and even kill off the
Tibet question, and Tibet has now become an enormous prison. It’s said
that in Lhasa, one in three people is a plain-clothed police officer.
The military has gone into even the most remote village and all
telephone calls from the outside (especially foreign calls) are closely
monitored…
Tibet’s culture is profound and extensive, ancient and
progressive, and I long ago saw the beauty of its traditions in the
Tibetan people: devotion, kindness, gratitude, benevolence; and what
has China’s 5000-year culture left the Han people? Naturally, not all
of it has been exquisite, and the Chinese authorities have used those
dregs in gruesome details to enslave and shackle the Tibetan people
with “traditions of unique benefit to all mankind!” In the twenty-first
century when people leap over their countries’ fences in a common
pursuit of freedom, democracy and human rights, and respect for the
singularity of their ethnic culture, it is precisely such colonial
behavior as this that the world rejects as a thing of filth. There are
more and more deep-thinking and incisive intellectuals in China who are
starting to see through the Communists, publicly expressing their own
independent views on the Tibet question, demanding an end to
totalitarian rule, the implementation of freedom of expression and
freedom of the media, withdrawing the accusations against you of being
a “splittist of the Motherland”, and demanding “a resolution of the
Tibet problem by means of respect, tolerance, consultation and dialog.”
In the almost 30 years of reform and opening up, the trend has
led China towards becoming a “great nation”. In actual fact, it’s no
more than “As China enters the international mainstream, it is hitching
a ride towards globalization.” The loss of morality has permeated into
even China’s most remote villages, and evil and dissipation have become
the fashion. Hosting the Olympics under circumstances such as these
inevitably runs counter to the Olympic spirit. The superficial
prosperity cannot conceal the void within. The need to reform bad
governance is a fact that has been placed before every Chinese person.
If the Communist leaders continue to be arrogant and imperious on the
question of Tibet and coerce and trample upon the Tibetan people, and
deceive and mislead the Chinese masses, and if they continue to deny
your irreplaceable value towards peace in the world and your unrivaled
spiritual contributions, and adhere to the inhuman logic of “power
grows from the barrel of a gun,” their days will come to a sudden end
one not too distant dawn. There is no doubt you will return to your
land! When you are reunited with the suffering Tibetan people, please
extend the warm light of your benevolence to care upon the heavy sins
of China’s vast land.
May the ship of your compassion for ever be among us!
From a Han who sympathizes with the suffering of the Tibetan people, and who has limitless respect for you: Zhu Rui.
–The English translation of the open letter is reproduced from the
website of Washington, DC-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT).
Writer Zhu Rui, who lived and worked in Tibet for several years but is
now based in Canada.