|
TIBETANS profess near-universal devotion to the Dalai
Lama, their exiled spiritual leader, whom the communist Chinese
government has long vilified as separatist. Tibetans vow to continue
resisting attempts to control their faith. China professes that they
have brought Tibet’s ancient highlands into the 21st century of
material progress and technological development, even constructing a
colossal rail system to connect mainland China through rugged
mountainous terrains into Tibetan plateaus. But Chinese factories,
schools, shopping centers, and temples are not a symbol of material
progress to indigenous Tibetans. Instead, these developments
constitute a daily reminder of the extreme discourtesy, disrespect,
disregard, and discrimination by the predominantly Han Chinese
occupiers claiming cultural superiority over the peaceful Tibetan
peoples. The claimed economic progress imposed by the communist Han
Chinese is not what the Tibetans aspire for nor desire.
Chinese shopkeepers, hostel
owners and business merchants, predominantly Han Chinese, now
control Tibet’s economy, political structures, educational
institutions, including the religious rituals of determining
Tibet’s Panchen Lama. Heavy Chinese investment has come at a
price: no religious freedom for Buddhist lamas, no autonomy for the
ethnic Tibetan communities, and extreme economic disparity between
Han Chinese business merchants and migrant workers, who are given
every preferential treatment, and their Tibetan laborers, who have
become an enslaved people under Chinese rule. Tibetans are exclusive
recipients of low-income and hard-labor jobs.
Even after decades of heavily
financed Chinese efforts to strengthen its control over Tibet
through gigantic infrastructure investments and the resettlement of
Han Chinese, recent riots led by Tibetan lamas and the consequential
brutal Chinese crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators have exposed the
harsh realities of policy failure in Hu Jintao’s version of
Manifest Destiny. There is no equitable distribution of wealth nor
economic progress for Tibetan laborers and peasants despite an
avowed communist policy, ironically a situation demanding a Marxist
revolution against the oppressive capitalist Han Chinese government
of Communist China.
But the Tibetans are not
communists. They are Buddhists. They have no intention to revolt or
overthrow the capitalist Han Chinese masquerading as a communist
government. Violence has never been part of the peaceful Tibetan
culture. Unfortunately, during the recent riotings of Tibetan
communities, an estimated 20 Han Chinese may have been killed in
uncontrolled violence during skirmishes with angry Tibetans.
Correspondingly, the Chinese government has proclaimed martial law
which it has downplayed, along with its use of lethal force
against the Tibetans. An estimated 200 Tibetans have been massacred
under a grisly, cruel crackdown by Chinese military. Thus, younger
generations of Tibetans are demanding outright independence as their
birthright, even as the Dalai Lama still continuously proclaims the
Middle Way as his mantra.
The Middle Way essentially means
government autonomy similar to Hong Kong and Macau, where local
governments are allowed to flourish with regular financial
contributions and remittances to the communist government. The Dalai
Lama explains he does not want to antagonize America and India with
a demand for Tibetan independence.
However, International Herald
Tribune’s Philip Bowring has precisely described Tibet’s
situation: “China is incapable of offering minorities either
cultural equality or autonomy. Officialdom and much of the
population treats minorities either with suspicion or as colorful
tourist attractions. This leads to an informal apartheid—evident
in the housing, schools, and social organization in Tibet and
Xinjiang—reinforced by official arrogance.” Tibet’s long
history of national isolation due to its geographical location and
unreachable mountainous landscape, as well as the immense cultural,
linguistic and religious differences with the Chinese, can never be
eradicated by the communist in its desire to subjugate the Tibetan
peoples under its tutelage.
China’s continued forcible
occupation of the proud nation of Tibet has resulted only in the
simmering hostility and bitterness of its free people. China has
gone ahead with its forcible communist occupation of Tibet; the
forced assimilation of indigenous Tibetans; with Hu Jintao’s Han
Chinese imposition of its “superior culture”; and the strenuous
migration of Han Chinese into Tibet. The Tibetans are gradually
realizing that there can be no Middle Way with Chinese cruelty, with
the genocide that has been committed with impunity, human rights
brutality, corruption, and with the absurd claims of Han Chinese
cultural superiority. Tibet’s spiritual and moral emergence
against these new forms of Chinese imperial hegemony in the
twenty-first century is something that the world has to support.
China’s continuous forcible
occupation of Tibet spells bloodshed, now and in the future. But the
world must realize that China, the new emerging world superpower
with its vast economic wealth, is already embarking on expansionist
plans in securing its territorial borders. Already, the Philippines
has fallen victim to its hegemonic plans in the Spratly Islands
while Philippine military generals discuss political aspirations on
golf courses. As for the moment, the world must start frowning upon
the communist occupation of Tibet and join in the simple battle cry
against China: “Free Tibet!”
mlatimes@gmail.com
|
