“The height of insolence!” exclaimed Lech Walesa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, former Polish President and the founder of the “Solidarity” trade union, when he learnt that Beijing had abruptly and unilaterally decided to postpone the European Union/China Summit foreseen for 1 December in Lyon. The decision was notified four days before the meeting, on the pretext that the Dalai Lama was in Europe at the same time and going to meet Nicolas Sarkozy, at that time President of the European Union … as it happened, in Poland.
The present occupiers of the Forbidden City have to be hypersensitive, or really afraid of this tranquil force, to act in such an extreme fashion! Unless, quite simply, this gesture without precedent, as well as being frankly out of place in its disproportion, reveals a desire up until then more or less camouflaged, to impose their will in the world, as imposed on the Chinese people and on Tibetans. Would they have reacted with such virulence towards the United States, or to Japan, indeed any other country except France, which at that time presided the European Union?
Still, in its own way, this action illustrated how much Tibet and the Dalai Lama remain sensitive points in the perception of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, which nevertheless does not exclude divergences or conflict of the clans within the ultra-restricted group of leaders. Better still, it is precisely this kind of spectacular gesture that keeps the Tibetan question in the foreground, internationalizing the very question that the Chinese leaders want at all costs to pass off as an internal affair, forbidding any action from anyone outside who wants to try and build bridges, even footbridges, between the two parties directly concerned.
It is known that the meetings between the envoys of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese representatives produced no results, the latter having curtly declared that contacts were ended at the beginning of November, only to say a few days later that the door remained open … in order to define the place of the Tibetan hierarchy. It is difficult to take these fancy words seriously, since all Chinese attitudes exude arrogance, even contempt, towards their interlocutors who are required to submit or to resign.
However, there is another concern, over and above the impropriety of the gesture, barely concealed and not to be neglected; aided by the world crisis, expressed in veiled terms, nevertheless comprehensible, by Hu Jintao himself, who declared on 30 November that the economic situation represented a test for his party. And the Chinese President specified: - “a test for our capacity to control a complex situation, a test for the capacity of our party to govern.”
Well, well! Will the Dalai Lama, who does not get offended easily and does not take to heart the indiscretions of others, be a convenient alibi for the Chinese leaders, who wish to avoid being required to provide explanations for adulterated products, toxic additives and other poisoned “kindnesses” injected into the goods that inundate the market? Is it a case of their preventing an occasion to “lose face”? To divert attention from real problems remains one of the favourite specialities of propaganda, above all not lose out on a good opportunity…
On their side, the Tibetans are obliged to keep a cool head. The great consultation of Dharamsala in November provided an opportunity to meet together, to discuss, to re-focus and to help one another – what more could they do in a such a moving context, illustrating so well the famous principle of inter-dependence that is one of the pillars of their faith? Strong lines are nevertheless sketched out for the future; it is for them to choose and develop them, within as well as outside, with the support of those who keep faith in the possibility – the necessity? –of a finally amicable solution, without which the tragic impasse will only be prolonged.
And lead to the repetition of dramas like that of mid-October, when a pupil of a secondary school in Chentsa, in the Tibetan district of Malho in Amdo, (Qinghaï), committed suicide as a protest against the lack of liberty in Tibet. At 17 years old, he threw himself out of a window from the third floor of his school, leaving a note for his parents, his professors and his colleagues explaining that he wanted to draw the attention of the world to the situation of human rights denied to Tibetans. For all that, his brutal death did not make the headlines of the international press …
Shortly afterwards, at the beginning of November, at United Nations headquarters, a delegation of Chinese experts preferred to refute questions, proof and supported testimonies of several NGO and ONU experts concerning in particular the arrests and tortures current in China, and in particular in Tibet, with the pretext that the interdiction of such practices was written into the Constitution of the Chinese Republic … QED! And which will “reassure” those imprisoned for all sorts of reasons – defenders of victims of re-localisation, contaminated blood, AIDS, attacks on liberties and human rights, enforced settlement of nomads, the arbitrariness of power – who stagnate in the numerous prisons, official or not, of the regime.
And to think that there are countries - too rare it is true - where it is enough to organise a vote on democratic principles and respect of the other person, to open the door towards an enlarged autonomy, and in the long term perhaps independence. The people of Greenland demonstrated this in voting massively in favour of this solution on 25 November, so as to remain on good terms with Denmark, who colonised the country three centuries ago. The largest island in the world (as big as Tibet) with 56,000 inhabitants (100 times less than the Tibetans) – well, why not them? The Tibetan National Football Team played a short time ago against the Greenland National Football Team, much to the annoyance of Chinese officials, who took advantage of the situation to protest.
And suppose that non-violence were to be a solution for the future? This question should be asked in the wake of the events in Mumbai and Bangkok.
Claude B. Levenson, December 2008
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