Tibet

Tibet

Tibet Has Been Closed To Tibetans Since China Invaded In 1950

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Tibet Tourism Endorsing China's Tyranny Over Tibetans

Image:archivenet

Does your heart break with sympathy for those whose dollar funds enable them to fly off to an exotic vacation in occupied Tibet, who are over the next few weeks being denied tourist visas by the Chinese regime? March is that time in the political calendar of Tibet which marks the Lhasa Uprising of 1959 and a number of subsequent protests against illegal Chinese rule. Well we cannot have those gullible tourists being exposed to the sights and sounds of Tibetans daring to dissent against Chinese tyranny. Best a travel ban is applied. But hey folks! It will be lifted on April 1, a day dedicated to fools! So if you still want to be exploited, deceived and monitored in Lhasa or some other Tibetan location then get your applications in now. You can even tell yourself that you’ve visited Tibet, when in reality you have traveled to the world’s largest open-prison, in which Tibetan culture is being eradicated and its people violently oppressed. Happy holiday!

Tibet

Buddha Doesn’t Lie-But China’s Regime Does!

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Image: print-screen/sbs/amended by @tibettruth

With China’s regime 24/7 pumping out disinformation on Tibet a lot of folks across social-media are exposed. For those with little knowledge of the situation in occupied Tibet it’s easy to be convinced. Take the report from a couple days back (eargerly consumed and spread by a consistently servile and uncritical mainstream media) that Tibetans were braving blizzard conditions to perform a New Year unveiling of a giant Buddha. Anyone reading that story or viewing the video footage would be forgiven for having the impression that Buddhism is alive and well within Tibet, after all seeing is believing. Right? However if there’s one truth which defines China’s portrayal of its rule over the Tibetan people and their culture, is that nothing is ever as it seems! A sleight-of-hand which our team over on @tibettruth expose in the image above, when they rightly ask people to think on the reasons why the Chinese regime approved that event. What a pity that news agencies do not apply such critical examination to the torrent of lies which reach their desks from China’s Ministry Of Deception!

Tibet

Tibet And Its Regions Being Erased From Tibetan News Outlet

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Tibet Lands Misrepresented

Image: print-screen

Look here’s our position from the get-go. We totally respect the output of Phayul (an online Tibetan-run news source reporting on Tibet) and its dedicated and committed staff.

But when something’s plain bad we’re going to call it out, especially if it’s negatively impacting on a clear and accurate understanding of Tibet. So here’s the deal.

We read their February 13 report on the recent blizzard in Eastern Tibet with some concern. Apart from the sadness on reading of the loss of animals and hardship for Tibetans, our attention was troublingly distracted by certain descriptions. How so?

In the first place Phayul is edited by Tibetans and based in Dharamsala, India (the de-facto headquarters of the Tibetan Diaspora). That being the case it’s both baffling and disappointing to note its reports consistently feature the terminology of the Chinese regime when describing Tibetan place-names and territories.

Map of Tibet

Image: original Jana Hollingsworth/Amended @tibettruth

The report was headlined as: ‘Blizzard leaves thousands of animals dead in Yushu Autonomous Prefecture’. This term comes right out of the Chinese regime’s geographical place-name committee (yes folks they have one!) and is a propaganda construction. Designed to promote the baseless claim that Tibet’s part of China. Such disinformation is calculated to mislead and deceive people, a reality the team at Phayul would be acutely aware of. So why therefore is the Tibetan editor and his reporters regularly repeating such pro-Chinese regime distortions?

We can only presume they apply this policy through a combination of the following. An ill-judged belief that in so doing reports are invested with a veneer of detached objectivity, although how uncritically repeating the lies of China’s regime achieves that status is of course debateable. Perhaps its an indication of the influence of both Voice of America (Tibetan Service) and Radio Free Asia (Tibet Section) both of which frequently include Chinese descriptions of Tibetan locations. That decision is political, as those organizations are closely affiliated and partly funded by the State Department (which has long appeased the Chinese authorities by recognizing Tibet as part of China) Lastly it maybe an example of lazy journalism, simply copying and pasting China’s official narrative that’s so corrosively available across the internet.

Whatever the reasons, we’d kinda hoped that Phayul would realize the responsibility it holds in ensuring its readers and subscribers are provided reports which aren’t tainted with the bias of Chinese propaganda terminology. But it’s not so easy to be complacent on that when reading content such as: “…the ethnic Tibetan villagers in the area,”. This syntax is widely used and promoted by the Chinese ministry of deception. Yet it was given editorial approval!

For the record and purposes of accuracy, the location in the report lies within the area of Gyêgumdo (Jyekundo being the main town) a part of Kham region of occupied Tibet.

Map of Tibet

Image: snowlionstours/amended @tibettruth

That the language medium of Phayul is in English shows its reaching out to a wider readership than the exiled Tibetan community. As such its highly regarded output has a critical role in assuring that Tibet, its cause and territories is represented accurately and factually. Regurgitating the disinformation of China’s regime when reporting on Tibetan locations fails that objective.

We again call upon its editor and reporters not to describe Tibetan territory according to the cynical dictates of China’s regime. They need to reflect upon the following question. In what way are you serving a true and authentic reportage on Tibet by replacing traditional Tibetan place-names with those fabricated by the Chinese authorities?

 

Tibet

Song For Tibet’s Cause-Playlist

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Here the playlist of songs which our friends selected to be included in our 2019 ‘Song For Tibet’s Cause’ vote-off.

We’ll close voting on March 9, a day before the Lhasa Uprising Commemoration on which the song receiving the most will be announced.

Meanwhile we really look forward to see what song you select, enjoy what’s a great mix of tracks which have been chosen as representing the Tibetan resistance to China’s illegal rule in Tibet.

 

Once you’ve made a decision you can place your vote here Alternatively drop us the song’s name in the comments at the bottom of the page, tweet your choice to @tibettruth or post the song you wish to vote for on our Facebook page @digitalactivism

Tibet

Tibet Terrorized By China’s State Engineered Mass-Psychosis

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Tibet Terrorized By China's State Engineered Mass-Psychosis
A Tibetan carrying the flag of the tyrrany which has enslaved Tibet

Image: kevinfrayer

Reports just emerged from occupied Tibet of a paramilitary-style indoctrination camp being established near Shigatse in the U-Tsang region. WIthout the incredible courage and sacrifices made by Tibetans living under the terrorism of an illegal Chinese rule such information would not reach the outside world. The land is under a complete lockdown.

We’ve seen the accounts of concentration camps in East Turkistan, where Uyghurs are being brutalized and programed into subservience and loyalty to the ideology of Xin Jinping and his communist Chinese party. In Tibet a similar process has been ongoing. Although rather than jailing countless thousands into hastily constructed camps China’s regime has deployed an army of loyal Tibetan cadres as thought-police to monitor, enforce and report across every settlement in Tibet.

Tibet Terrorized By China's State Engineered Mass-Psychosis

Image: guim

It is a fascism, a totalitarian colonialism which Marx would have had extreme difficulty in championing. Many of its features would have been recognizeable to the German National Socialist Party, particularly the forming of youth leagues, programs of indoctrination, and the control of society through terror. A state-induced and coerced mass-psychosis is enslaving Tibetans in their own land.

Tibet

A New Year Of Propaganda In Kongpo Region Of Tibet

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Tibet Culture Oppressed

Image: newscn

Imagine if you will that one day a foreign army invades your neighborhood, enforces a lockdown and then imposes a series of draconian new rules.  It announces that the name by which you and your family have known the town for generations is now changed to a verison in their language. Any dissent will be met with arrest, torture or execution. One of the new policies requires you to celebrate the New Year, not on 31st December but the 15th February. On that day you will parade carrying the flag of the tyranny which now terrorizes your community.

Allow us to introduce you to a village (in the Tibetan region of Kongpo renamed by the Chinese regime as Nyingchi) that’s around 6 hours drive east of Lhasa. As you can see from the photo above, taken around February 12 the local Tibetans were lined-up to wave the Chinese flag as part of what was described in the propaganda website ‘China Tibet Online’ as a ‘Losar celebration in a Tibetan village’. For untold generations the Tibetans of Kongpo tradionally celebrated their New Year in November, why then are these villagers supposedly enjoying festivities in February? Either the authentic customs of the area have been eradicated, or these Tibetans have been forced into a propaganda photo-shoot to coincide with the date of the Chinese Spring Festival.

This is further evidence of Tibetan traditions being suppressed and replaced with events dictated by the Chinese authorities. What has been since ancient times a festival welcoming the New Year, honoring the spirits of land and water and dispelling negativity along with the old year, has been debased into a crass political stage-show.

Appeasing China, Tibet

‘Jinpa’-Tibet Filmed Through The Lens Of China’s Regime.

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Tibet Movies Another Propganda Tool Exploited By China's Regime

Image: en.rfi.fr

There is no untainted cinematic insight into the suppression and abuses inside Tibet, no full exposure of the harrowing realities of forced sterilizations, the destruction of a nomadic culture through a policy of re-settlement, nor any detailed documentary recording the environmental pillage. Which is transforming once verdant pastures and forests into a lunar-like landscape, with convoys of trucks heading back to communist China with their booty of timber and minerals. The transformation of Tibetan towns into yet another Chinese concrete facsimile, complete with gaudy excess and a range of previously unknown erosive social problems, continues apace, un-documented.

Tibet Movies Another Propganda Tool Exploited By China's Regime

Image: labiennale

No genuine independent film-making is of course possible under such a repressive totalitarian regime, one desperate to convince the world that Tibet is undergoing positive change, thanks, we are asked to accept, to the seemingly compassionate rule of communist China. Unfortunately we’re denied any unbiased evidence which would reveal the progress claimed by the communist regime.

What we do have are seemingly unlimited amounts of Chinese films on Tibet, mostly designed for television broadcast, with sickly images of Tibetans dancing and singing in praise of yet another bumper-harvest, due no doubt to China’s enlightened agricultural policies. These are transparent disinformation with actors supposedly dressed in traditional Tibetan costumes, color coded to match the red and yellow branding of the communist Chinese flag! Barely able to move due to the overly abundant costume jewellery and obligatory fixed smile, set against images of modernity Chinese-style, like a crude layer of make-up they conceal a more disturbing reality.

Tibet Movies Another Propganda Tool Exploited By China's Regime

Image: cdn.sohucs

Over recent years however a subtler form of propaganda has emerged, more cinematic, carefully crafted to present some illusion of balance and independence, yet the underlying message remains the same, albeit diluted and sophisticated. A rising directorial star of this Chinese state approved cinematic style is Mr Pema Tseden, or as he is known by his friends within the Communist Party Of China, Wanma Caida. Being a loyal citizen of communist China he carries a Chinese name along with his Tibetan version.

Couple days back his film ‘Jinpa’ was awarded top prize at France’s Festival International des Cinémas d’Asiethe. Like his previous works this film is a slick production filmed inside Tibet. While aesthetically his films have charm and nuance they cynically misdirect the viewer away from the brutal realities of life for Tibetans under Chinese rule. The alluring personal narratives and stunning landscapes he plays around with are an approved sleight-of-hand which assiduously avoid the erosion and oppression of Tibetan culture.

Tibet Movies Another Propganda Tool Exploited By China's Regime

Image: cdn1.thr.com

It is a reality which the Director surely knows dare not speak its name, his films clearly meet the propaganda requirements imposed by the Chinese regime, in that context he is a willing and conscious collaborator. Perhaps that explains his insistence that: “…filmmakers are starting to more accurately capture the essence of life in Tibet. They are starting to let go of the old stereotypes.” SOURCE

Those who see his films at festivals or art-houses need to be mindful of this. Sure his work can be selectively interpreted as offering “.. an uncompromising view of difficulty in modern society. They’re not deliberately provocative, but they also don’t offer us comfortable resolutions.”. A view presented by one Robert Barnet of Columbia University, top grade for nuanced euphemism there!

However the ‘difficulties’ of forced-labor camps, torture, ethnic-‘cleansing’ and cultural erosion do not feature in the cinematic vision of Pema Tseden. While the ‘modern society’ (translating as occupied and oppressed Tibet and its culture) is never truly explored and it’s important to remind yourself that the work of Pema Tseden would not be made public without the authorization of the Chinese regime.

In consideration of that we need to question what is it about his films that receives such approval?