There’s a decomposing yak in the lounge, the stench, flies buzzing away, and meanwhile a pest-control guy telling you the problem is a blocked drain. You are stunned that he is observant to the point of blindness, and so unaware as to be oblivious to the mound of fur, bones and horns right there on the carpet. But sure as eggs-are-eggs this guy is casting his eyes around the room and every time they appear to alight upon the beast, his attention darts elsewhere to seek a solution to that sickening smell. All your efforts to alert him to the source of the odour seemingly hopeless, clearly he is refusing to concede the gut-wrenching truth. Perhaps he has a phobia of yaks and is demonstrating the classic signs of denial, his emotional condition unable to accept the reality before his eyes.
Whenever faced with the facts of its brutal occupation in Tibet and East Turkestan the communist regime of China experiences a similar psychosis. The harrowing truth of the abuses, oppression and denial of political and civil rights it has forced upon Tibetan and Uyghurs cannot be admitted. Like any psychopath it projects responsibility elsewhere, indulging in denial and evasion, any course of action that will conceal the truth. Take the laughingly claimed independent report set-in-motion with the sanction of the communist Chinese authorities, into the uprisings in Tibet since March 2008 http://www.theage.com.au/world/chinese-tell-of-tibet-failures-20090521-bh1x.html conducted and recently published by the deliberately named ‘Open [sic] Constitution Initiative’, a supposedly non-governmental organisation “run by prominent lawyers and intellectuals in Beijing”.
Let’s get one thing right here. There are no truly independent non-governmental organizations in communist China. Every facet of research, education, journalism, law and all other social and civil institutions and agencies exist only with the authority and supervision of the state. No dissent from the official line is tolerated and such bodies serve whatever propaganda purpose tasked to them by their overlords.
The report is a clever piece of artifice that seeks to claim that the demonstrations across Tibet were born, not from a heartfelt desire for nationhood, but as a reaction to supposed corruption and economic disparities between Han Chinese and Tibetans. It asserts that last year’s Tibetan uprisings, which it judiciously describes as riots, (a favoured term used by the communist Regime, so much for an independent perspective then) were a result of decades of inefficient and corrupted economic and development policies. Interestingly, similar conclusions were peddled by both Robert Barnett and Tsering Shakya, who rather like the communist Chinese government, appeared reluctant to acknowledge the genuine objectives and reasons of the protests.
Of course it is careful not to make the communist Chinese regime accountable for such a situation by claiming that Tibetans were marginalised and resentful, of what it is claimed as the emergence and corrupt practices of a supposedly “new aristocracy”. Now here’s the sting, who are these seemingly venal officials? Why there Tibetans of course, a new version of those nasty aristocrats that communist China swept away following its illegal invasion in 1950. In a further application of official gloss it refers to what it suggests are “rivers-of-money” invested in Tibet with the aim of securing stability. A failed policy, apparently due to the corrupt nature of the local political elite, who the report incredibly claims misrepresented, what we are told was simply ‘community discontent’ (what an application of generalising anaesthetic that is) as being “separatism”.
“They use every opportunity to play the separatism card…And they will try hard to apportion responsibility on ‘overseas hostile forces’ because this is the way to consolidate their interests and status and eventually bring them more power and resources.” (Phun Tshogs Dbang Rjyal-quoted in the report).
While there are indeed a range of severe economic disadvantages endured by Tibetans, which would naturally generate resentment and frustration, these are the direct result of policies, economic, legal, and social, formulated, approved and ordered by the national communist government of China. Though local corruption may well contribute towards the various deprivations suffered by Tibetans, there can be no mistake that the tragedy of Tibet was authored by China’s blood-stained communist leadership. The slave labor, unfair trials, systematic torture, forced settlement of nomads, and campaigns of mass-sterilisations are engineered and endorsed by the State. To disguise the causal reasons why Tibetans rose-up in defiance of Chinese occupation, as being based upon a sense of economic grievance is a vicious perversion of the facts.
The demonstrations which burned across Tibet throughout 2008 and into 2009 featured a common demand, Tibetan independence. In association with supportive calls for the Dalai Lama, the protests essentially spoke with one voice, freedom for Tibet. No flag championing greater employment opportunities, no slogans shouting for less corruption in local government, no banners were raised calling for an increase in economic parity between Han colonizers and Tibetans.
Yet this report, with its cosmetic nod towards objective and independent analysis, would have the world believe such frustrations were the heartbeat of the unrest. With imperialistic arrogance its findings (and the phrase is applied loosely) imply that the otherwise obedient ‘natives’ will be satisfied with an improved economic condition. Such strategy has an ancient pedigree. It was Taoist philosopher Lao Tzu who counselled that the best way to keep a people simple and rustic was to “fill their bellies and empty their minds” How communist China would appreciate a docile population of Tibetans, spaced-out on the tacky excesses of Chinese occupation.
However, the uprisings for Tibetan freedom demonstrated a unified desire for national freedom and an inspiring display of courage to oppose the oppression and illegal occupation of Tibet. Such convictions are forged from a profound sense of injustice, the loss of culture, a visceral sense of land and nation that cannot be diluted or distracted by the ephemera of economic circumstances, particularly when handed-out like sweets by those guilty of the oppression.
