MCLC: Tibet's enduring defiance

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: Tibet's enduring defiance
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (3/2/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/opinion/international/tibets-enduring-def
iance.html

Tibet’s Enduring Defiance
By TSERING WOESER

On Feb. 27, 2009, three days into the Tibetan New Year, a 24-year-old monk
in his crimson and yellow robe emerged from the confines of the Kirti
Monastery into the streets of Ngawa, in a the Tibetan area of southwestern
China. There, in the shadow of a 98-foot-tall monument to the gods of
longevity, the man burst into flames — thus sparking the first of many
self-immolations that spread across the Tibetan regions of China.

The New Year celebrations had been muted, as Tibetans privately remembered
those who had suffered in a harsh Chinese crackdown on Tibetans a year
earlier — all of those who were murdered, jailed or disappeared. In the
March 2008 repression, at least four Tibetans were reportedly executed,
more than a thousand illegally detained and countless others went
unaccounted for.

Tapey, who like many Tibetans goes by one name, had left a note warning
that he would set himself on fire if the prayer ceremony commemorating the
victims of the 2008 crackdown was canceled. When the order came down
forbidding memorials, Tapey followed through on his threat.

Beginning with the case of Tapey, I set about documenting on my blog the
circumstances of each self-immolation. Never could I have anticipated that
so many Tibetans would follow his lead and give rise to a new mode of
protest. Over the years, I had trouble keeping up with how fast the flames
were devouring life after life. All told, 131 Tibetans have attempted
suicide by self-immolation. Tapey survived, as have some others. But
ascertaining exactly how many lived through the flames is impossible to
know; the police take them away, and they remain incommunicado.

Never before have so many Tibetans sacrificed themselves to protest
Chinese rule. The self-immolations, which continue to this day, show that
even after more than 60 years of Chinese control of our land and
livelihoods, Beijing is far from winning the hearts and minds of Tibetans
and the resistance has not diminished in the least. All the while, Beijing
pursues its policy of violent suppression, never heeding Tibetans’ demands
for equality for all and the return of our spiritual leader, the Dalai
Lama, who has lived in exile for more than half a century.

Those who do not understand the plight of the Tibetans see self-immolation
simply as suicide. Yet there are so many other ways to die. Why would
anyone choose to commit suicide by having every inch of his body charred?
This question holds the key to the driving force behind these desperate
acts: Self-immolators seek to protest in the most extraordinary manner by
suffering what ordinary people could not possibly bear.

There was a time when wave after wave of Tibetans took to the streets,
screamed slogans and distributed leaflets, only to be beaten up and thrown
into jail. These mass rallies garnered as much notice as pebbles tossed
into a stream. Since Beijing’s 2008 crackdown, the Tibet Autonomous Region
has turned into what looks like an occupied zone, with checkpoint after
checkpoint and military installations everywhere. Large protests can no
longer even get off the ground.

If Tibetans saw even a sliver of an opportunity to hold demonstrations,
then they would not resort to self-immolation. This state of desperation
was captured by the writer Gudrub, who declared before perishing in an act
of self-immolation in the autonomous region in October 2012, “Our peaceful
struggle must be radicalized.”

In the police state that is Tibet, it’s impossible to gauge public
reaction to the self-immolations. Most Tibetans keep their heads down and
do their best to comply with Beijing’s diktats — from flying the Chinese
national flag to concealing likenesses of the Dalai Lama. But from my
experience, it seems the vast majority of Tibetans harbor quiet sympathy
for the self-immolators and see them as martyrs. More and more portraits
of self-immolators grace shrines in Tibetan homes.

The number of self-immolations peaked at 28 in November 2012, when a new
slate of national leaders was installed during the 18th Communist Party
Congress in Beijing. It was evident that the self-immolators were hoping
that they could spur the new leaders toward a policy shift on Tibet.

But these hopes soon faded. Once the party’s chosen ones assumed their
positions, they declared war on self-immolation, with harsh measures
against “accessories,” meaning family members and relatives, villagers and
even the monastery associated with any self-immolator. Since then, several
hundred Tibetans have been arrested and imprisoned; many more have been
given stiff fines and even barred from making pilgrimages to holy sites.

Of late, there have been far fewer self-immolations. But it would be wrong
to see this as a sign that Beijing has gained the upper hand.

As the early 20th-century writer Lu Xun wrote, “The crack of thunder can
be heard where there is silence.” Tibetans might be quiet for now, but the
thunder of their voices will someday shake Tibet — and the world.