I’m a Chinese reader and while reading the Phayul website I learnt that following Jamyang Norbu la’s recent article The Clarity of Commitment (part one), some disagreements and discussions ensued. (THE CLARITY OF COMMITTMENT PART 1 By Jamyang Norbu; A Response to Jamyang Norbu By Tenzin Dolma)
Not a messiah, nor perfect, but as always Jamyang la’s lone voice woke up us from any kind of daydream we might be in and impelled us to abandon any wishful thinking that Tibet will regain any degree of freedom before His Holiness pass away, or that His Holiness will be with us forever, or that the Chinese people will all repent and become supporters of Tibet very soon. Jamyang la constantly reminded the Tibetan people the stark reality that they cannot lean on His Holiness, or any third party and wait passively for freedom to come, that they must fight every minute to wrestle back their freedom.
Whenever I read Rangzen and Middle-way supporters in exile debating each other about Tibet’s future, I could not help but feel a great sense of guilt and impotence. What I, as a Chinese individual, could do to help ease your agony, when many of my fellow Chinese are still blindly following the Chinese communist party (CCP) in loathing the Tibetans, the Taiwanese, the Uyghur, and the Hong Kong citizens as “separatists” even though they themselves are treated by the CCP as mere stooges, expendable, and preys.
As an individual, I have little to offer to you other than my letters and videos. All I could hope for is that my devotion and nonstop communication could bring a tiny bit of relief to your burning indignation. I share your disappointment that some Tibetans in exile seem content with clicking Tibetan singing and dancing videos and attending His Holiness’s birthday celebrations as if these actions alone are sufficient to bring freedom to Tibet. (No one can deny the value of these beautiful music videos and celebrations.) I share your frustration that self-immolators’ painful and lonely journeys, their words advocating Tibet’s complete independence, are not put adequately at the front and centre of every Tibetan’s consciousness. I share your feeling of humiliation when seeing some Tibetans might be all too willing to give up the goal of Tibet’s complete independence at the first sign of some Chinese showing some “goodwill”, either sincerely or condescendingly.
When thinking about these, I also start to ask myself: “Have your videos and writings given your viewers/readers a false impression that the 1.3 billion Chinese people will all soon become Tibet supporters – thus helped pushing the Middle-way supporters further away from the Rangzen advocates? Have you, although not on purpose, contributed to driving a wedge between the Rangzen and Middle-way camps? Have your efforts inadvertently helped cloud the goal of the Tibetan struggle and added to Tibetan disunity?” In case my worries are true (I hope not), may I use the present controversy surrounding Jamyang la’s article as an opportunity to plead with you, my Tibetan friends:
Please do not push away Rangzen supporters – your fellow Tibetans – fearing that their stance will hinder Chinese’s “goodwill” in giving Tibetans “qualified freedom”. Please face the fact that proposals such as “except independence, all issues can be discussed” (put forward by Deng Xiao-ping to Gyalo Thondup la on 12 March 1979) cannot be taken seriously. The reason for us dismissing such proposals is not about the trustworthiness of the Chinese people, it is not even about the trustworthiness (or lack thereof) of the CCP regime, it is about the proposer’s lack of very basic understanding of democracy and of an open society.
How can a “qualified free” society function? Will everyone be allowed to express any idea except the idea of Tibetan independence? It is true that in a functioning free society we have accepted one or two compromises to free speech – only in exceptional circumstances, for example, “verbal intimidation or threat of violence (including state violence) toward an individual, a gender, a race, or a language” is to be excluded from free speech. Once we agree to exclude “open intimidation” from the “right of free speech”, experience shows that we must also exclude the “veiled intimidation” otherwise the exclusion would be meaningless – this we have also accepted. But when it comes to other topics, such as the topic of Tibetan independence, the situation is different, because the authority can make the “veil” so big that it can cover every topic and any topic. For example, it may be used to forbid discussion of the Tibetan language as an unique ancient language, because this may be “veiled advocacy of Tibetan independence”; it may be used to forbid the study of Tibet’s history as an independent country, as it may be “veiled advocacy of Tibetan independence”; it may be used to supress protests demanding more funding for Tibetan language schools, as these may be “veiled advocacy of Tibetan independence”. If we accept all these, then what is the difference between this “qualified freedom” and the unbearable situation in Tibet we are having today? Then again, suppose the law “protecting free speech except on the topic of pursuing Tibetan independence” is followed to the letter. For example, the writer of a book on Tibetan history concluding her/his book with the following words: “The facts presented so far show that independence has always been the Tibetan people’s inspiration throughout their history” is not charged for breaching any law; but if she/he add one more sentence: “…so it may continue to be so for the future generations”, she/he is then prosecuted by the police. Will this legalist approach then settle the matter? No. Over time, Rangzen supporters, youth, students, activists who read that book (even without the last “incriminating” sentence), and many other similar books, will walk to the streets to demand independence anyway. Because a society accustomed to freedom can no longer accept any undebated, unscrutinised, unreasonable yoke on their liberty – all you need to see is how fiercely the people of Hong Kong have fought against the restrictions put on their freedom by the CCP regime. At this junction, cracking down one or two street protests by the authority cannot prevent more frequent, larger scale protests. The authority faces the choice of either banning all free expressions (including “veiled advocacy of Tibetan independence”) and go all the way back to the CCP style tyranny, or bowing to people’s demand and allowing them to peacefully pursue Tibetan independence.
Openness is a defining character of a free society, so having a “free” society with a taboo topic, a “red line”, is a self-defeating proposition. The limitation put on advocacy of violence discussed earlier is about the manner in which diverse goals should be pursued by their respective supporters in an open society, it is not about what goal is allowed and what goal is not allowed – it is about “how” and not about “what”. (Although the violent state apparatus – police, military, intelligence – is accepted as a “necessary evil”, they must be subjected to carefully designed and reviewed checks and balances to prevent abuse.) The lowest expectation for a free Tibet should include Rangzen political parties participating in free elections like the Scottish National Party in Scotland or the Bloc Québécois and Parti Québécois in Canada. Recognising that the Chinese people need time to learn democratic mechanisms and to be accustomed to an open society, Tibetans might offer to delay the referendums on Tibetan independence by several decades as a part of a Tibetan-Chinese deal. But referendums on regional independence cannot be denied to the people indefinitely because it is a natural part of the democratic process, a legitimate cause in an open society, and a people denying this reality is denying their own status as a free people.
After suffering 60 years of servitude under the Chinese rule, most of you, my Tibetan friends, have a fair dose of suspicion toward any Chinese. You may rightly hold such suspicion toward me: Why do you try to play nice to us Tibetans? What will you gain from the complete independence of Tibet? I will bypass the moral reasons (not because they are unimportant), nor will I indulge in explaining my belief that language diversity is vital for individuals’ liberty in general (in our case, fighting for the Tibetan language’s survival), please allow me to discuss practicalities only. The goal that I commit myself to fight for is not the specific outcome of Tibet becoming a sovereign state, but the Tibetan people’s inalienable right to decide on this issue of total independence through peaceful referendums if they wish to. It is the free, peaceful and repeatable public decision-making process, rather than its outcome one way or another, that I commit myself to fight for.
As a Chinese I want China to be free, I dream a day when I set foot on my hometown I could read, study and speak without fear, I desire this no less than I desire breathing. But the obstacles on the road toward freedom are more than just the CCP regime – the obstacles are more complex and more fluid than the CCP regime. Experience shows us that the individual liberty that we hold so dear, relies on the small voids among a delicate balance between many larger forces to survive, and attaining those delicate balances is an even more formidable task than toppling the old tyranny. (By saying “larger forces” I mean geopolitical settings, internal struggle and/or collusion between the commercial elite and the military elite, demographic composition, cultural identities and identity politics etc. – even luck plays a role.) Therefore the end of the old tyranny is only a necessary condition, but not the sufficient condition for freedom to come. On the corpse of the Soviet Union and the ruins of the Chechen war Putin’s KGB regime grew out, after a fleeting period of Russian renaissance. On the debris left by the Ba'athist tyrants the Daesh protruded its head from the Sunni-Shia rift, after a short-lived Arab Spring. I worry and I care because I see this ominous vision on the corpse of the CCP regime in the future. I see that the lack of cooperation and coordination between the peoples – Tibetan, Chinese, Taiwanese, Uyghur, Hong Kong citizens… – on a commonly accepted political framework, will feed the demagogues, racists and lunatics from the Chinese side, or from all sides. They will devour our freedom struggle’s fruits soon after we win the fruits.
This is why I am convinced that we must cooperate. If we could gradually build consensus on a future framework in which peoples (of any region) could decide on voluntary union or voluntary independence by free, peaceful and repeatable referendums, then we may have a chance to contain the tidal waves of bigotry, hatred, misunderstanding, and war mongering fostered by the CCP over decades and unleashed by its collapse. I strongly believe that a “nation-building first, decision on sovereignty later” approach can be a good base for that consensus. This approach means enshrined rights of self-determination by any region and all regions, through free, peaceful and repeatable referendums; together with a cooling-off period (of several decades) within which nations undertake not to hold referendums on independence, rather focus on self-governance (like that of Scotland or Quebec), building open societies, broadening skills, promoting language diversity. As the saying goes “the devil is in the detail”. If we can design a framework where each nation’s interest is best served in keeping its side of the bargain, hopefully by the end of the moratorium on independence referendums, the peoples living on the lands currently occupied by the “people’s republic of China (PRC)” are much more mature modern citizens, who have cooler heads, broader minds, and tenderer hearts than an average PRC citizen of today, and capable of making wise decisions. This is my personal thoughts, my humble personal contribution to the public debate about our future.
Even from the Tibetans’ prospective/interests alone, talking to the ordinary Uyghur, Taiwanese, Chinese, Hong Kong citizens, and cooperating with the fair-minded portion of them in our common freedom struggle is better than going it alone. The nations are more likely to succeed and to secure more desirable terms if all standing together in negotiating an omnibus agreement with the Chinese nation, than going alone in dealing with any future Chinese regime, democratic or otherwise. (Taiwan is a special case as it is already an independent country on all aspects.) It is true that in Iraq and Syria the Kurdish people have, through military means, gained a degree of de facto independence after Saddam Hussein’s demise (though constantly under military threats from all sides, which jeopardised the Kurdish society’s internal liberalisation). But it is questionable, to say the least, whether a chain of complex geopolitical and military developments in their part of the world could be “clinically transplanted” to our part of the world. More importantly, we have a better alternative through communication and cooperation. Many Chinese people are pragmatic in nature, we have had a failed fanatic experiment (with communism) quite recently and many of Chinese do not have appetite for another fanatic experiment (with nationalist militarism or whatnot). The reason that many Chinese appear aloof to badly needed political reform is because all CCP propaganda machines have been hammering into them a lie that “change = chaos”. When there were failed political transitions such as those in the Arab world, the CCP maximised Chinese people’s exposure to the bad news. When there were successful transitions like many cases in Eastern Europe, the CCP kept it very quiet. When the successful transition in Taiwan was so close to home that the CCP could not block all information, it twisted it and made Taiwan’s democratic reforms sound like a part of a bigger Western/Japanese conspiracy to “break up” and subdue the Chinese nation. If we could show the Chinese people there can be peaceful and orderly reforms, there can be sensible political compromises, that political reform is not about subjugating the Chinese nation but about the freedom of all nations and individuals, we may ease their paranoia about political change, even hasten the CCP regime’s voluntary reform or involuntary downfall.
Dorje Tsering, Kalsang Wangdu, Sonam Tso, and other self-immolators’ sacrifices for Tibet’s independence must not, and will not be in vain. It’s my conviction that their noble suffering is not only meaningful to all Tibetans, but also immensely meaningful to the Chinese. Their chosen path to make their unbearable torturous living conditions known, without inflicting physical harm to their tormentors, is unfamiliar to most Chinese individuals. (Any finger-pointing at self-immolation instances recorded in historical Buddhist texts, without focusing on the current Chinese-imposed torturous living condition in Tibet, which makes death seem sweeter than living, is a form of whitewash.) These Tibetan individuals’ chosen path of protest, as a statement of their noble values, has constantly haunted me since 2012, forced me to rethink who I am. Have we Chinese in recent time always been victims of European imperialism and never evil perpetrators, or at least, arrogant fools? In the past 150 years, under the European hegemony, the magnitude of changes bewildered the Chinese, with the mountain of shame of being deemed “inferior race” on the back, we were suffocated by its weight, and with our heads hung low in shame, we viewed recent histories from a very narrow perspective: the Chinese nationalist perspective. In the past 60 years, under the Maoist cult plus tyranny, you Tibetans lost your land (while remained proud Tibetans), whereas we Chinese lost our mind.
To all Tibetan readers and viewers who have come across my channel, I have said SORRY in the past, as an ordinary Chinese individual. I do not hesitate to say it again, my Tibetan friends, I’m SORRY, I am sorry for the deaths and sorrow we brought to you because of the Chinese greed, the Chinese ignorance, and the Chinese paranoia. We have wronged you, we have injured you, we have stolen from you, and now, we need you. We need your help in our common struggle. Don’t abandon us, please, don’t be dragged by us down to the filthy gutter of nationalism and collectivism. Elevate us to your altitude with the faith that have always been glowing deeply inside your heart, the manifold truths of insights and compassion. We can triumph over our enemy, while remain being ourselves. I may not see that triumphant day before I die, but I will not stop so long as I live. This is the clarity of my commitment, an ordinary Chinese individual’s commitment to you.
Thank you ^-^
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20-30 June 2016
Below is a video that i made in 2013, which was dedicated to all Tibetans who sacrificed their lives for freedom...
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