h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey John, hey everybody, our old articles are popping up again!
I remember scouting this one... didn't need any work at all.
But then with the GURUdener behind the wheel... figures.

Hey, Pres! It's exciting to see the place come back to life again, like... well, like something that's been dormant for a long time... flowers in the desert, let's say.

The email notification that this Entry had been accepted came on the same day that the site went into hibernation (a good news, bad news sort of thing); so I am happy (dead chuffed) that it has stayed on the front page long enough for people to read what a rotten time other people, like Ngawang Sangdrol, are having.

On 5 February, another nun in Drapchi prison, Ngawang Lochoe, died under circumstances that suggest she didn't suffer from a surfeit of kindess. She was 28 and, until recently, reportedly in good health.

JTG

And what am I supposed to think now?
I'm wasting my time posting away here, while I and millions of other should be trying to save people such SAngdrol and Lochoe?
Maybe. Probably. But we don't do we. We just lock up more people like them instead.

What a world, John.

Sorry. Didn't mean to come across all preachy like. Nothing that brings a smile is a waste of time, in my view.

JTG

Well, if it sounded preachy, it should. People should know that these things are happening, even if it gives them- me in this case- a feeling of powerlessness. What can /I/ do about this, is the question that should be asked.

Part of the tragedy of Tibet is that most of us (me too) are only starting to learn about it when so much of it has already been lost. We should ask ourselves why. What I think is really worth paying attention to is the fact that young people in Tibet are still willing to stand up for their culture, and pay a terrible price for it. Fifty years of Orwellian oppression haven't yet succeeded in putting out the flame; and I think that the very least we ought to do in return is consider Tibet worth taking an interest in and learning about. We may not be in a position to knock an electric baton out of a Chinese policeman's hand, but perhaps we can influence the policies of our own governments to the extent that the policeman is less inclined to pick it up.

JTG

You have a point.
Or, unlike what is happening now, allow some more ethics to colour negotiations with China regarding business. But whatever is done, getting the story out of Tibet like you do here, is a first.

have you been there yourself too?

No, I've not been there. I subscribe to World Tibet News and the Tibet Information Network email bulletin service.

why?

do you have a special interest in tibet? there are soo many other trgedies to look into, you know

That's a good question. There's something heartrending on every news broadcast.

I think what makes Tibet special to me is that it was a society that worked, until the communist invasion. Of course, there were problems and injustice, the same as anywhere else; but the culture was one that met the needs of the people and their environment. Also, the fact that the resistance to the cultural genocide has, for the most part, been peaceful and consistent with the ideals of Tibetan buddhist beliefs indicates to me that those ideals must be very precious. I am also disturbed by the relative lack of international attention this monumental tragedy has received. Until the amateur video footage of the 1987 protests in Lhasa and the brutal response of the Chinese authorities brought the horror of what is taking place in Tibet into our homes, there was a virtual conspiracy of silence. The more I learn about what has taken place in Tibet, the more appalled I am that I knew nothing about it. In more general terms, I see what is taking place in Tibet as a barometer of the extent to which governments around the world are willing to bend the truth to rationalize immoral actions. It reminds me of the story of Emperor's New Clothes. To see the truth, one only has to look: Tibetans are not Chinese; they are a distinct people with their own culture, religious beliefs, and language. That the international community has allowed itself to grow so comfortable with such a blatant web of fiction and injustice is, I feel, symptomatic that the basic problem involves more than Tibet and China.

Besides, I like momos.

I don't think there is really that much deception and fiction involved in why governments are reluctant to put the pressure on China that is available to them and which is used in other cases:

I think the point is that Tibet is small, and CHina dwarfs it like no oppressor often dwarfs its oppressed. It is standing up to a giant in favour of an ant in the eyes of government, like it is for the kurds in Iraq, for the Voonfowl people on the planet Arklefank XI and for any minority oppressed in a vast majority anywhere.

That, my friend, in a nutshell, is it.

Funny. For some reason I had you down as an (if moderate) idealist and I thought you were going to reject this point of view, calling it cynical and unwarranted. But I guess the cold reality of the case is just, there, man.

But if you agree, then that means it's true!
It means the conflict is determined along geographical parameters which will never change unless ninety percent of China is suddenly engulfed by a huge earth rupture, and that will never happen. It means the world will ALWAYS turn a blind eye to Tibet for political reasons, and there's no point spreading the word about Ngawang and her inmates, and there's no hope!

We can't be right, John. I know we are, but we must never allow it to sink in.

There's no escaping the fact that China dwarfs Tibet; but I don't think that the Tibetan cause is hopeless because of that. China is redefining its relationship with the outside world, and it is doing so for its own reasons. The PRC is going to be a very major player on the world stage, but it is going to look very different from the China we see today (this is what I see in my teacup ). A hundred years ago, Germany built a brewery there just to prove it could, and Europeans treated the Chinese like animals in their own land. That was very humiliating, and goes a long way towards explaining the current xenophobia. The problems that are being resolved now, including Tibet, are the last act of a bygone era. I think we are on the verge of a new international relationship, based on entirely new terms.

Tibet is still suffering from its isolation: The prejudices of the old men who invented modern China still linger in the backwaters, and the ambitions of second rate functionaries are still being served by policies that are facing extinction in more cosmopolitan regions. This makes it all the more important that cases of oppression and murder are discussed in the open. When the ambitions of a Chinese leadership more comfortable in business suits than Mao suits is better served by justice and equity in Tibet than brute force and cruelty, we will have come a long way to solving the problem.

Our job is to make sure that the new world order is just, that corporations respect human rights and ecological concerns, and that democratic ideals are not subverted by the profit motive.

How's that for idealism?

Besides, keeping quiet about political prisoners like Ngawang Sangdrol, who should free and enjoying a happy life, simply isn't an option I'm interested in.

JTG

Aye. That's the spirit. Nonetheless, you cknowledge that the turnaround will take time. It's sobering but true, isn't it.

NOw, again bck to content: do you have an insight as to why the chinese wish to hold on to the province? strategy? heritage? a case of 'we will not be denied?)

Sobering. But that shouldn't be taken as an excuse to do nothing. I think there is an unfortunate tendency to view long term goals as someone else's problem. People can have a positive influence on events; and, if the remedies take a long time to come to fruition, the sooner we start the better. On the other hand, speaking out against specific cases of abuse has a good track record of benefiting the abused in immediately measurable ways, such as the cessation of torture and improved living conditions.

What the PRC wants to hold onto wasn't a province. But the reasons they want to hold onto Tibet include strategic considerations, such as nuclear weapons deployment (and nuclear waste disposal); access to strategic resources, as well as other natural resources; and the construction of hydroelectric generating facilities. I think the main reasons are cultural though. China sees itself as the centre of Asian civilization, and anywhere that can be considered a part of a homogenous Chinese Motherland will be, if at all possible.

Main reason is culture?
That would depend on who you ask, I should say. What I have learned is that it is usually the case that culture is used as a legitimising message under which distinctly political goals are reached. Kosovo, Kashmir... Tibet. Ask a nationalist chinese in the street and you might hear that Tibet is an outrageously disobedient little province that needs taught a lesson, but to the mandarins at the top, culture is mere PR.

People can go into politics to further an ideal. Professional politicians though, are hardly ever ideologically driven.

True to a point. Hitler, Mao, Stalin... pragmatists all; but they were each driven by their own perverse responses to what they considered cultural imperatives. Underlying the Chinese occupation is the belief that it is culturally valid. On the other hand, no doubt the Tibetans would be living in peace, if there were no strategic or material incentives for being invaded. Obviously there are; but what justifies the nastiness associated with stealing someone else's country is the belief that one is in some way entitled to. However cold and heartless politicians may be, I think they still have to validate their actions in some way, the same as every other human being. Culture provides excuses, but it is more than PR. It enables people to feel okay about what they do, whether that means torture and oppression or merely ignoring torture and oppression in order to sell frozen french fries. Also, I don't think the Chinese leadership would have survived, if they didn't genuinely believe in their moral right to export the workers paradise on the end of a bayonet.

Nobody is as free to choose as they would like to believe. Glands and puppets rule the meek and the mighty alike.

Hmm, mm, mmmm... culture is a necessary condition I'll agree. The mandarins need it as justification for the invasion. But it is not a sufficient condition. The Chinese empire was once far larger than it is today, because everyone who invaded it was in time devoured by it. (I have marveled at this logic since I heard of it, and you must know this yourself. Does your interest extend beyond the Tibet tragedy to China?) But what I'm saying is that China has the cultural motive to annex many areas outside its current borders, yet is only does so with the ones that are strategically or economically valuable.
If Tibet were a wasteland, it would probably have been left alone (both by soldiers and tourists probably )