TIBETSPACE

DOCUMENTARY: LEAVING FEAR BEHIND

For those of you in the Fayetteville, Arkansas area, Students for a Free Tibet, Arkansas Chapter, will be screening the documentary, Leaving Fear Behind, on Thursday evening, 26 February.  (Also click here for more information.)  Shot inside Tibet in 2008 prior to the Beijing Olympics, the film consists of interviews with Tibetans regarding the Olympics and the Chinese presence in Tibet.  It is an extraordinary film and is required viewing for anyone interested in Tibet, China, and their ongoing relationship.

The film will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Giffels Auditorium on the University of Arkansas campus.  Discussion of the film to follow screening.

HILLARY TO PRESS CHINA ON TIBET & HUMAN RIGHTS

Many sources are reporting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intends to press Chinese leaders on their oppressive policies in Tibet and other areas where human rights violations are occurring (read The Daily Beast's account here.)  She arrived in Beijing on Friday, and meetings were scheduled to begin soon afterward.  It won't please the Chinese officials either that Clinton is reminding both them and the world that China has now replaced the U.S. as the number one emitter of carbon dioxide.  (We're still number two--no need for sighs of relief.)  This is certainly a change from the previous administration, but with Secretary of State Clinton it's not unexpected.  As First Lady, she spoke out in China for women's rights and has had a consistent interest in the global economy, and the way in which this economy has ravaged many for the profit of a few--she was hanging out with Muhammad Yunus long before it was cool to hang out with Muhammad Yunus.  In fact, in a review at Corrente of Yunus's book, Creating a World without Poverty, Hillary's relationship with Yunus is described at length:

When she was first lady of Arkansas, Hillary Clinton did not just organize tea parties (contrary to what passes now for "common knowledge"). She had heard of a Bangladeshi economist who had introduced a great idea to help people out of poverty in Bangladesh and she thought his ideas might help the poor in Arkansas. The economist was Muhammad Yunus and the idea was microcredit. She was instrumental in introducing Yunus to Bill Clinton and they developed a program of microcredit in Arkansas. Yunus mentions her in every one of his books (with photos).

Cheers to Hilary, and good luck on her trip to China.

LOSAR , A VIDEO, & OTHER SADNESSES

As though of you who regularly follow the fortunes of Tibet and Tibetans already know, Losar, or the Tibetan New Year, which begins February 25th, has been declared a time of remembrance and prayer.  The International Campaign for Tibet recently posted the following communication, and it speaks, I believe for itself; it was posted recently and anonymously on a Chinese-language, Tibetan-run website:

The 2009 Losar was always going to be unusual because so many people have been killed. In our family, our father can never come back, our mother has visibly aged, uncles and brothers have been detained—some of whom we still don't know whether they're dead or alive. Last night, the eldest brother in the neighbor's family was taken away...

I myself will not be celebrating the new year because those who died were my compatriots, and I knew several of those who died—they were shot dead. I haven't dared call home since March of last year because I don't want to cause them any trouble. And so I don't know how they are. I've had no information on them, and just hope they're okay. 

Much of the information coming out of Tibet is anecdotal in this fashion, and as we approach the Tibetan Independence Day, China's repressions are becoming more and more pronounced.  The following video was posted yesterday:

So--How do we celebrate Losar here in America? Many people are simply lighting a candle on Wednesday, February 25 in remembrance of the millions who have suffered or died in the Tibetan struggle. You can do this alone, or with your friends, or with your group. But do it. It's important to create the conceptual space within our lives for the simple act of commemoration. It will have profound, though gradual, effects on the world community. What else? Develop your knowledge base about human rights, about Tibet, about your own place in this unfolding drama.

VIDEO: TIBETAN REFUGEES, PART 3

Below please find the the third installment of Martinifilm's documentary on Tibetan refugees.  I would encourage all of you to stop by Rich Martini's Myspace page, and thank him for releasing this documentary on YouTube.  You can view all five installments of the video there, but I will be posting parts 4 & 5 here as well.

VIDEO: LOOKING BACK AT HIS HOLINESS

This six-minute video interview, conducted in 1994, gives us a chance to hear the Dalai Lama's message of non-violence long before the 2008 protests occurred both in Tibet and around the world.  Remarkable for his consistency (some might say "stubborness"), His Holiness delivers a very clear and forceful case for his position on non-violence, and states just as clearly that he would never oversee a violent action of any sort.  Notable too is  his statement that one of his central allies in the Tibetan struggle is the world community, a community that he believes is most effectively recruited by the practice of non-violence.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama - a Classic Interview - For more funny movies, click here

VIDEO: TIBETAN REFUGEES, PART 2

Below, the second part of the Martini documentary on the Tibetan refugee experience:

TIBETAN IMMIGRATION: A BRIEF VIDEO

If you haven't been trolling YouTube assiduously you might have missed this video on Tibet.  The segment below is an efficient 10-minute representation of the refugee experience in and around Dharamsala; it's part of a 50-minute documentary that has been uploaded in manageable excerpts. 

WEB SITES THWART CHINA'S CLOSED-DOOR TRIAL OF HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST

Just when you're thinking there's no end to human depravity, and there's  nothing we can do about said human depravity, and when The New York Times is reporting that a human rights activist in China, who is concerned to help earthquake victims, is being jailed for "possession of state secrets," you learned today in the same article from the The Times that the "trial had been postponed indefinitely, possibly because several foreign news organizations had run articles about the charge on their Web sites."

I repeat, with emphasis:  ". . . because several foreign news organizations had run articles about the charge on their Web sites."

I find this very exciting.  One of the world's major imperialistic powers and human- rights violators thwarted in its attempt to indict and imprison a human rights activist. . . and thwarted by a couple of Web sites?

Of course, we know this.  We understand the power of technology to shape our world for the better and for the worse; but here is a clear and potent example of what we can accomplish by simply taking the time to post, to read, to respond.

It makes a difference.

THE CULTURAL GENOCIDE IN TIBET

A few numbers for you to consider, numbers from the past century's genocides:  Armenians--1.5 million; Ukrainians--3 million; Jews--6 million; Russians--25 million; Chinese--25 million; Ibos--1 million; Bengalis--1.5 million; Cambodians--1.7 million; Burundians--250,000; Ugandans--500,000; Sudanese--2 million; Rwandans--800,000; North Koreans--1.7 million; Kosovars--10,000.  (These figures are taken from Pioneers of Genocide Studies, eds., Totten, Samuel & Jacobs, Steven, 2002:  p. 420).  

So, over 70 million people programatically, consciously, deliberately, and with forethought slaughtered in the last century--nearly 25% of the American population.

You'll notice, of course, that the Tibetans (1.6 million) didn't make this list.  Why?  It's difficult to say.  First, there are very specific definitions regarding the use of the term "genocide," and they are, of course, debated at the international level.  You can see the founding document on genocide's definition here.  Second, China's unique position in the global community as a developing world power (unlike many of the other nations who carried out genocidal policies) has encouraged other countries--potential business partners--to look the other way as China's oppressive policies have been implemented.  Third, after the initial ten-year purge of Tibet, from 1949-1959, China began a program of population transfer that has directly threatened the existence of Tibetan culture. 

China then has transformed its policies in Tibet from a widespread, decade-long slaughter, that may or may not qualify as genocide, to a systematic eradication of Tibetan culture through a programmatic population transfer, a kind of cultural genocide that does not appear in the U.N. document.

Still, the net result is that Tibetans and indigenous Tibetan culture are disappearing from the planet at an alarming rate.

What are we to do?  The study of genocide, as a formal discipline and as opposed to Holocaust studies, is relatively new, beginning only in the early 80's.  The number of scholars who have devoted themselves to this important subject is relatively small, but these scholars are deeply devoted to their cause, working not only at the university level--the familiar nesting ground of "scholars"--but also at the governmental level, and they have had a profound impact on our general awareness.

As concerned citizens, we must begin to understand the Tibetan issue within the larger context of human rights and the prevention of genocide.  Working to familiarize ourselves with the larger goal, we create the full response to human suffering, avoiding the petty discriminations that privilege one group's suffering over another's and pit advocates of one group against advocates of another.  Yet we ultimately must apply our full response to specific groups, and many of us have chosen to focus on the Tibetan cause. 

To become effective advocates of the Tibetan cause, however,  we must become knowledgeable students of geneocidal policies and the fundamental documents of human rights.  To facilitate this process, I intend gradually to assemble a list of links on this site that will provide a bibliography for all of us to begin building the necessary knowledge base. 

But the initial stages of this work begin at the conceptual level.  Let me close with a quotation from Gregory Stanton, one of the pioneers of genocide studies; his thoughts on the changes that need to occur within each of us are, I believe, central to any transformation we might undertake regarding our perception of the rights of human beings everywhere:

I believe the international campaign to end genocide in the twenty-first century will some day be seen in the way we see the anti-slavery movement of the nineteenth century.  It is time in human history to to end genocide, the worst of all crimes against humanity.  There were those in the nineteenth century who said that slavery couldn't be ended because the economic forces that supported it were too great, that it was human nature, or even worse, that it was ordained by religion.  There will be similar defeatism about the movement to abolish genocide.  There has always been genocide, so it must be part of human nature.  The world political order is not yet developed enough to prevent and stop it.  Or, worst of all, genocide is ordained by jihad or ethnic purity or religion.  But those who say we cannot abolish this curse upon mankind are no more right than those who said slavery could not be defeated.  It is a matter of human will.  And we make that human will.

And so we commit ourselves, here in the New Year, to begin the process of making that human will.