Third consecutive day of blogging. I’m sleep-deprived, confused, tired and a lot of other mixed emotions and thoughts are going through my head right now. The more I read and think, I realize the more confused I become. But I’m sure this means I have a lot more to learn..
So I was going through the SFT groups on facebook and the posts left by some ultra- nationalist Chinese students who believe ‘Tibet was, is and will always be a part of China.’ Now I have had enough encounters with them in the past and they haven’t been really productive, I must confess. They stick to the version of Tibetan history they learnt from their books and we have our own version that we believe in. So yeh, it’s usually them making such ridiculous claims and us denying the same. I think I wrote in my last entry about it already, so I won’t go into details. I hate it when they bring up Michael Parenti’s Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth, that guy is totally biased and should not be used by anyone as a reliable source to cite from!
Anyways back to what I was going to say, I actually saw a couple of Chinese kids opening up to us after a lot of posts and one guy in particular, who didn’t believe in Tibetan Independence, actually raised a couple of important issues and thought China should improve its human rights record and the treatment of Tibetans and go to peaceful dialogues with the Dalai Lama to reach an agreement.
Similarly, I just got a message from my friend saying she just received this message from one of the Chinese girls on campus:
‘hey, how are you?
i was reading the news about the chinese government’s treatment to the tibetan protesters. its the tibetans’ pain and my shame indeed.
i apologize for what my country has done.
hope you are well.’
My friend believes she (the Chinese girl- let’s not name her) came across this article I posted on my Facebook just a couple of days back. It’s an article by a Han Chinese woman writer, Tan Danhong, on the recent crackdown in Tibet and helps you get an unbiased view on the same. She, along with a few other Chinese intellectuals condemned the crackdown. Read this NY Times article on the same.
The best solution would be for Tibet to get free. However, if we’re to be more ‘realistic’ and to think of ‘feasible’ solutions, it’s human rights, equality (to be treated equally as the Han Chinese migrants), opportunities of economic growth and rights to religion and freedom that the Tibetans inside Tibet want. Whether we believe in Rangzen or Genuine Autonomy, if the latter ensures the stated conditions to be fulfilled, I don’t think there would be any problem on either side. But with what the Chinese Govt. is doing and has been doing for the past 50 years, it is hard for us Tibetans to even trust them now and thus, the call for independence and the outburst from the youth. China should take this opportunity to have peaceful negotiations with the exile government and save its own face in the global community. People are changing and I hope the Government will change its policies too; I might just be hoping against hope but still somebody told me yesterday ‘the worst thing you can do now is to lose hope’. And so, I will hang on.
That’s all for tonight. More love and prayers to the Tibetans inside Tibet
