Image: Hardcash/ITV
A few weeks back we heard about a news report on Tibet, broadcast in England by the channel ITV, and were kindly provided a copy. The format of the title (’INSIDE CHINA: The Battle for Tibet’) hinted as to the program’s editorial position. What followed, presented as something of a scoop, was a portrait of a culture facing extinction, a subject which we have been researching and reporting on for quite a number of years.
There’s no doubt that the nature, extent, and impact of Chinese rule in Tibet has greatly intensified; in terms of its marginalization, suppression and corrosion of Tibetan culture. As we have commented previously, it’s not an exaggeration to describe Tibet as the world’s largest open-air prison.
There’s no freedom-of-movement, with every Tibetan a prisoner; digitally identified, their location, behaviour, online activities and communications monitored and assessed 24/7.
Image: Wiki
Meanwhile, the very fabric of Tibet’s traditional identity is being eroded, distorted and controlled into a form that meets the political and ideological demands of China’s regime. Nowhere is this more evident than in the calculated oppression and destruction of Tibetan Buddhism, and forced relocation of Tibetans nomads into concentration settlements. And lastly, targeting of Tibetan children for ‘re-education’ into Chinese-speaking loyalists.
The news-special touched upon these issues, implying that Tibet was in effect, ‘lost’. Unfortunately that single-sided perspective went unchallenged by the report’s two non-Tibetan ‘experts’. Whose contributions did little to counter the somewhat doom-laden conclusions. One mentioned Tibetans becoming “more Chinese” (with the unavoidable implication that at least some part of them already was). While the other commentator, rather than referring to ‘Tibet’ used ‘Tibetan Autonomous Region’ (a political and propaganda construct created and peddled by the Chinese Regime).
While Tibet’s culture is being seriously threatened by the policies and actions inflicted by China’s illegal occupation, is the menace facing Tibetans existential? The editing and narrative of that ITV item would have you conclude that it is. Yet history. and the experiences of other peoples, show that hope and resistance to cultural extermination are deeply embedded and enduring.
Image: Shubh M Singh
Take the example of First Nations within the United States, who were subjected to over a century of genocide; which included children being removed from their families and placed into so-called residential homes. In which the racist objective was to ‘Kill The Indian to Save the Man’. Then there’s the case of Ireland, invaded and under English tyranny for several hundred years. Irish culture was selected for eradication, religion criminalized, language forbidden, people brutalized and starved leading to the Great Famine.
Despite these efforts to eradicate First Nations or Irish culture, the people; even when speaking in the language of their oppressors, retained the knowledge and dream of their heritage and history. They did not disappear; and today the rebuilding and cherishing of their traditions, mother tongue and sense of identity flourishes. As the saying has has it ‘We Are Still Here’.
Image: Archivenet
A similar spirit exists within Tibet. Although barely expressed or reported (such is the stranglehold Tibetans are under) individual protests continue. Traditions are remembered; and when possible followed. While Tibetan families, in their home, may sit under an obligatory image of dictator Xi Jinping, their hearts are not Chinese!
The future of Tibet’s culture is also served by the Tibetan Diaspora with communities around the world; in which their customs are firmly established, practised and thriving. Tibetan education, language, astrology, religions, music, medicine, dance; and monasteries from differing practices, all ensuring that present and future generations will have a strong and vibrant sense of their cultural identity.
Image: Wiki
This is not to discount the destructive hazards posed by China’s genocidal assault, nor the societal impacts of its deliberate distortion and erosion of Tibet’s culture. But existing; through the determination, resilience and courage of Tibetans inside occupied Tibet, is a profound and enduring aspiration for cultural and national freedom. While in exile Tibetans have created a formidable refuge for Tibet’s traditions, language, history and religions. Taken together these are a vital counterweight to the corrosive pressures inflicted by the Chinese regime, in its efforts to eradicate Tibetan identity.
Image: Tibetan Youth Congress
On this March 10, as the Lhasa Uprising of 1959 is commemorated by exiled Tibetans, minds will be turned towards the ongoing plight of relatives and compatriots inside Tibet. Never, in all those subsequent sixty-six years has it been more important that unity prevail in the resistance to China’s illegal and violent occupation of Tibet.
The exiled Tibetan authorities would do well to urgently review; what may have been a well meant yet failed policy of seeking compromise and understanding from the Chinese regime. Which clearly has but one aim, to eliminate any trace of Tibetan identity. It is time for the Tibetan Administration to restore the objective of Tibet’s rightful independence at the very core of Tibet’s struggle. An action which would serve to concentrate, consolidate and empower, bringing a determined and united purpose to the Tibetan Diaspora and show a unified solidarity with the political aspirations of Tibetans suffering Chinese rule.
‘Bod Rangzen Tsangma Yin’!
March 2025
