The myth of two Tibets

In the recent Tibet controversy that has ignited agitation in London, Paris, San Francisco and now at Duke, creating a storm of disagreement and a whirlwind of protest, I wonder if we've forgotten about Tibet itself.

By Tibet, I refer to the renegade benighted province that was ruled by autocratic slaveholders and reactionaries until the Chinese finally freed the people from oppression in 1950. And I also refer to the Tibet which was an enlightened city-on-a-hill, a literal Shangri-La of spiritual enlightenment that was ruined by the heartless Commies after the Chinese invasion. In studying both sides of the Tibetan issue, I've seen members of both camps take on these strands of inflated and misleading rhetoric. The Tibetan controversy, meanwhile, has grown to encompass so many grand and disparate issues: whether the Olympics can be politicized, whether state sovereignty trumps human rights concerns, whether the Western press is engaging in a smear campaign, whether the Tibetan protestors or the Chinese police have caused more casualties in the recent riots and whether China is besieged by the Western world.

And in all of the attention-grabbing headlines and flag-waving hyperbole, we've forgotten to ask why the Tibetans themselves are protesting. They're not attempting to sound off on the politicization of the Olympics or the politics of supernational movements; they're attempting to have their voice heard on concrete issues, such as the fact that ethnic Tibetans fall behind their Han counterparts in areas such as education, health services, per capita income and even life expectancy. Tibetan protesters aren't trying to rewrite the history of Tibet-China relations; they're angry about conditions in the here and now.

Did Tibet have a social system which perpetuated systematic injustices, before 1950? Yes. So did India, and yet in 50 years, since decolonialization, India has made great strides towards caste equality. I would argue that even the United States suffered from a caste system 50 years ago. The point is not what defined Tibet then, but what defines Tibet today: Chinese has replaced Tibetan as the official language, owning a photo of the Dalai Lama is illegal and Chinese migration policies have made ethnic Tibetans the minority in their own homeland. Facts like these are what motivate Tibetans to protest, not disagreements over whether Tibetan Lamas recognized the Ming dynasty in the 15th century or other obscure historical issues which draw attention from complaints grounded in today's reality.

Those with knowledge of the controversy, who argue for the Tibetan cause, are fighting not because they want to recreate an idealized version of Tibet that never actually existed. And no one's arguing for a slave-state in Tibet, either. In fact, not too many people are arguing for independence at all: The Dalai Lama himself advocates only autonomy for Tibet. In all the sensationalist press covering the battles for the Olympic torch, it is forgotten that this is not a battle of China versus the West, or even a battle between two groups of face-painted protesters. It's an attempt to illustrate the real problems faced by the Tibetan people, who feel that their culture has been misappropriated, their well-being ignored, and their desires denied.

I'd like to think that the recent Tibetan candlelight vigil on the Chapel steps, and the ensuing counter-protest by Chinese students and community members, did have a few moments of real possibility to highlight these concrete issues. It didn't happen when chants were used as verbal weapons, or when flags flew in opposition to each other. It happened when the event started to wind down, when people from both groups started talking. It was about when the rhetoric stopped and the reflection began.

At the end of the day, this "Tibetan controversy" isn't about abstract ideologies but real suffering, not about international politics or historical legacies but everyday issues that the Tibetan people face. It's not about valuing principles; it's about valuing people. The Tibetans are neither idyllic pacifists nor benighted savages; and we don't need to see them as such to acknowledge either their anger or their suffering. You don't have to be perfect in order to be respected, to have your voice heard. And it's up to us not to use the Tibetan issue as a platform from which to expound our own views, but to listen to what the Tibetan people themselves are trying to say. We all know that the Tibetans are rioting, but do we know why? If not, we should take a moment to learn the reasons for the protests, before we judge whether they are right or wrong.

James Tager is a Trinity junior.