另类思考西藏问题

Speaking Out on “Truth about Tibet Issue”

A wave of worldwide protests against the Chinese government’s policies toward and in Tibet recently has stirred passions and heated debates among those who feel strongly about Tibet. Long before the Beijing Olympics, China is placed in the international spotlight, but certainly not in the terms of the Chinese government’s liking. Friends in the U.S., operating in a stereotypical mode, asked, “Would the Chinese government change its policies with all the protests around the world?” Friends (and their friends and their friends of friends, etc.) in China or who are ethnic Chinese are fed up by the “anti-China fervor” in the west, stirred in part, according to them, by the biased coverage of the Tibet issue by the western media. A recent China Daily article entitled “Truth about ‘Tibet Issue’,” seems to capture the official Chinese view on the brouhaha, which undergirds varying expressions of the China’s national pride, anti-west sentiment, patriotism, and so on, in all walks of Chinese society. It would seem that responses to this article engage most of the views on the “Tibet issue.” So, here they are ...

First, the title of this article is misleading. This article is NOT about truth at all. It is an article of developing arguments for a particular view and rebuttals of different views. Because the means utilized in the article is not to investigate the reality but to engage different views, it cannot carry the mission of discovering and displaying truth as the title promises. The only appropriate title ought to be, “A Different Perspective on the Tibet Issue.”

Second, equating one’s own view or ideological position, right or wrong, to “truth” is a typical rhetorical technique of resorting to what the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called “symbolic violence.” It is pretentious in attitude; it is repressive in effect, intended and unintended; and, it is anti-democratic in spirit. It allows no openness toward facts that might be inconvenient or alternative views that might foster a fuller understanding of the complexity of the “Tibet issue.” The rhetorical logic is from the same family of that used by religious fundamentalists who claim that every word in the Bible represents truth. The only difference is that the religious fundamentalists have to resort to the supernatural power named “God,” but the author of this China Daily article only needs to rely on his or her own self-awarded righteousness. In effect, then, the author is claiming him/herself to possess the same power and legitimacy in uttering “truth” as the God does.

Third, while set out to discredit some of the views that confront the official Chinese view, this article omits other important views that could discredit the official Chinese view.The first is the view that the “Tibet issue” is an issue of self-government. This view says that a nation (or an ethnic group) enters a union called nation-state through expressed consent by the nation (or ethnic group). Forming such consent, expressing it freely and openly, and having it represented in the political life of the nation-state, must be a necessary condition. If mechanisms for such expressed consent do not exist, the political power of the said nation-state has no legitimate claim over the nation (or ethnic group). The legitimacy claim of this nature rests not in the tradition or history that is subject to constant (re)interpretations; rather, it rests on the pack formed by all participants through the mechanisms of self-determination and full representation. After a union is so formed, any group that wants to break from the union unilaterally must be dealt with resolutely, even by force when all other means have failed. But if a union is a “marriage” forced by the state with its monopolized power of using organized violence, then, the rise of the people in opposition to such a forced union may be more aptly called “resistance” rather than riot. As for the claim that the Tibet issue is an issue of China’s “territorial integrity,” it is blatantly colonial and racist because it treats Tibet only as a piece of real estate while ignoring Tibetans as a nation or ethnic group that have found home there for ages. Such a claim reflects a view that is no different from that of the White American predecessors who, in the westward expansion of America, claimed ownership of the land that Native Americans had long before established as their home. In the 21st century, do we really want to re-enact that sad episode of human history to the land of an ancient civilization?

The second view that is omitted from this article is that the “Tibet issue” is an issue of economic justice. Indeed, the government in Beijing, for many years, has poured a tremendous amount of resources into Tibet for its economic development. But economic justice is not measured by relative allocation of developmental resources across regions. Rather, it needs to be measured by equality between groups in their controls of such resources, in effective utilization of the resources, and in the amounts of benefits derived from such utilization; it also needs to be measured by the effectiveness of the indigenous people maintaining their own culture and utilizing their own cultural resources to build their economic prosperity with such resources. In other words, measuring economic justice involves asking whether immigrants from the China proper—most of them are not Tibetans—are enriching themselves more than the indigenous residents of Tibet; it involves finding out whether the indigenous Tibet residents are disproportionately placed at the bottom of the occupational hierarchy and have more restricted opportunities for upward mobility; it involves assessing the degree to which the Tibetan residents are fairly rewarded in financial terms for the local resources that have been taken away and used in development projects controlled and run by companies/agencies from outside of Tibet; it involves inquiring whether economic development with the injected resources conserves Tibet’s natural environment which has been part of the Tibetan culture and way of life for centuries. I cannot enumerate all those concrete measures that must be taken. The point is this: Without addressing these issues, simply citing the resources poured into Tibet by Beijing government depicts only a picture of colonial exploitation, reminiscent of what the western colonial powers did to Africa, South America, and significant portions of Asia in the 16th-19th centuries. If we look at the terrible suffering of the peoples in these regions in the 20th century, and their continued suffering in this century, then, we can better understand the serious consequences of such exploitation. The difference is that the exploitation today may be more devastating to the indigenous people and their local environment because of the power of the modern technologies. Even in the framework of the political reality where Tibet is part of China, the logic of colonial exploitation cannot be dismissed, for internal colonialization is still colonial exploitation.

With these in place, we are ready to discuss the so-called “western media bias” against China in covering the “Tibet issue.” Is there a bias? Absolutely. How can we determine that the western media is biased? The answer is, any reasonable consumer of the media can detect a singularly paramount perspective or view with which the Tibet issue is reported. This view or perspective states that Tibet is a nation that has been “invaded” or “occupied” by China. And further, those who are responsible for the content in the Western media—western journalists—are simply too superficial and too incapable of reflexivity to recognize their fatal vice: They are taking their view as “the truth.” Now, what is the nature of this problem? It is exactly the same problem exemplified by this China Daily article. In essence, those who are complaining about the “western media bias” in covering the Tibet issue are themselves committing the same kind of bias; the only difference is that it’s in a different direction.

What is different though is that “the western media” as a monolithic entity is nothing more than a myth. There are so many media outlets (and so many countries in the “west”) that it requires a lot of reality-tweaking typification to extract what is called “the western media.” In addition, the pluralistic and democratic western countries have provided some—albeit far from being sufficient or ideal—space for different views to be expressed. The views that can be and are expressed include those who are protesting in support for Tibetan independence and those who are protesting against the western nations’ interference in “China’s internal affairs” and/or the “western media bias.” In comparison, can anyone in China express his or her support for the Dalai Lama’s view? Is there any coverage of the Dalai Lama’s position that he wants Tibet autonomy but not independence from China without having branded him a “separatist” and accused him for being an evil force behind the tension in Tibet? Is there any audio or visual showing of him in the official Chinese media? A comical irony is that some of the Chinese bloggers wrote their ultra-patriotic postings criticizing “the west” but they couldn’t refer to Tibet by its Chinese name (西藏) due to the censorship or fear of censorship by the Chinese cyberpolice. They had to use some substitutes such as Dong Zang (东藏) or X. Z. So much freedom of expression for them to express their views critical of “the west”! Equally ironic is that those who are enjoying the freedom and liberty in expressing their pro-China views in the western media or through public protests in western cities, with their very acts, are providing proofs that much more diverse voices are tolerated and can be expressed in western countries than in China. While criticizing, and legitimately so, I might add, “the western media bias” in covering the Tibet issue, we will do all of us a big favor by also criticizing the Chinese government for suppressing any views on Tibet that are inconsistent with the official line and for limiting freedom of expression in general. It is this kind of suppression that contributes to the fidelity of the western media’s narrative that China “invaded” or “occupied” Tibet. It is this kind of suppression that is the root cause for the potentials of “riots” in Tibet and “anti-China” protests around the world. It is this kind of suppression that has planted seeds of resentment against the Chinese nation-state among Tibetans, making the relationship between the Chinese nation-state and Tibet a deeply entrenched and emotionally charged issue that potentially threatens China’s “territorial integrity.”

To be clear, I recognize the political reality that Tibet is part of China. I am all for Beijing to host the 2008 Olympics because this is a decision that the international has made after careful deliberation and must be respected. I support the rights of all individuals and groups who protest against injustice that they saw, but I strongly oppose protesters’ actions designed to disrupt the Olympic torch relays, whatever the means they used or might use. I also support the informed criticism of “western media bias” in Tibet coverage. Am I biased? Sure, because I, just like everybody else, can’t escape from it. But at least, I am not drugged by the ethnocentric and obnoxious euphoria over the rise of China as a great world power. Nor am I indoctrinated so much that I cannot recognize and appreciate the freedom in expressing my opinions without any fear of reprisal (not from government or from angry members of my community), as long as I do so in one of the western democratic countries. I am also not so delusional that I fail to recognize that China’s policies in Tibet are oppressive and forbidding the Dalai Lama’s return to Tibet is one of such oppressive policies.

************************The China Daily article:
Chinadaily.com.cn
April 18, 2008 Friday
TRUTH ABOUT 'TIBET ISSUE'LENGTH:
338 words

The "Tibet issue" is in fact one that involves the sovereignty of a country and its territorial integrity, says an article in People's Daily. The following is an excerpt: When one sees the Dalai group and political figures like Nancy Pelosi in the United States pressing the Chinese government to solve the "Tibet issue", the US Senate and the House of Representatives as well as the European Parliament passing biased resolutions on Tibet, one knows that the issue has become something of a fad. People cannot help wondering what on earth the "Tibet issue" is.

Is it an issue of "human rights"? While facing riots on March 14 in Lhasa, could the government just sit back instead of taking measures to protect the human rights of innocent people? If the government's measures turned out to be a violation of "human rights", Pelosi should look into her heart and ask if the deployment of a large police force of the US government to arrest more than 10,000 rioters in the great rioting in Los Angeles 16 years ago was also a violation of "human rights". Nor is the "Tibet issue" a "religious" one. If Tibet "lacks religious freedom", how can we explain the fact that there are numerous monasteries, large or small, in Tibet and worshippers, old and young, can burn incense and pray before the Buddha? How can we explain that tens of thousands of worshippers make their pilgrimage to Lhasa every year? It is more ridiculous for the Dalai group to make a great commotion about the so-called "ethnic inequality". The Chinese government has allocated billions of yuan to develop Tibetan medicine and more than 700 million yuan to renovate key cultural relics, including the Potala Palace, and salvage and protect Tibetan culture. It is clear that the "Tibet issue" is just a tool of the Dalai group to use in their quest for "Tibet independence". The "Tibet issue" is not an issue of human rights, of religion or ethnicity at all. Clearly, it is an issue that involves the sovereignty of a country and its territorial integrity.