by Floyd Rudmin
We hear that Tibetans suffer =93demographic aggression=94 and =93cultural
genocide=94. But we do not hear those terms applied to Spanish and
French policies toward the Basque minority. We do not hear those terms
applied to the US annexation of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1898. And
Diego Garcia? In 1973, not so long ago, the UK forcibly de****ted the
entire native Chagossian population from the Indian Ocean island of
Diego Garcia. People were allowed one suitcase of clothing. Nothing
else. Family pets were gassed, then cremated. Complete ethnic
cleansing. Complete cultural destruction. Why? In order to build a big
US air base. It has been used to bomb Afghanistan and Iraq, and soon
maybe to bomb Iran and Pakistan. Diego Garcia, with nobody there but
Brits and Americans, is also a perfect place for rendition, torture
and other illegal actions.
When the Olympics come to London in 2012, the Dalai Lama and Desmond
Tutu will certainly lead the demonstrators protesting the =93demographic
aggression=94 and =93cultural genocide=94 in Diego Garcia. The UN
Secretary
General, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the new
US President and the entire US Congress will certainly boycott the
opening ceremonies.
The height of hypocrisy is this moral posturing about 100 dead in race
riots in Lhasa, while the USA, UK and more than 40 nations in the
Coalition of the Willing wage a war of aggression against Iraq. This
is not =93demographic aggression=94 but raw shock-and-awe aggression. A
war crime. A war on civilians, including the intentional destruction
of the water and sewage systems, and the electrical grid. More than
one million Iraqis are now dead; five million made into refugees. The
Western invaders may not be doing =93cultural genocide=94 but they are
doing cultural destruction on an immense scale, in the very cradle of
Western Civilization. Why is the news filled with demonstrators about
Tibet but not about Iraq?
And as everyone knows but few dare say, =93demographic aggression=94 and
=93cultural genocide=94 can be applied most accurately to Israel=92s
settlement policies and systematic destruction of Palestinian
communities. On this, the Dalai Lama seems silent. Demonstrators don=92t
wave flags for bulldozed homes, destroyed orchards, or dead
Palestinian children.
The Chinese Context
The Chinese government is responsible for the well-being and security
of one-fourth of humanity. Race riots and rebellion cannot be
tolerated, not even when done by Buddhist monks.
Chinese Civilization was already old when the Egyptians began building
pyramids. But the last 200 years have not gone well, what with two
Opium Wars forcing China to im****t drugs, and Europeans seizing
coastal ****ts as a step to complete colonial control, then the Boxer
Rebellion, the collapse of the Manchu Dynasty, civil war, a brutal
invasion and occupation by Japan, more civil war, then Communist
consolidation and transformation of society, then Mao=92s Cultural
Revolution. Such events caused tens of millions of people to die.
Thus, China=92s recent history has good reasons why social order is a
higher priority than individual rights. Race riots and rebellion
cannot be tolerated.
Considering this context, China=92s treatment of its minorities has been
exemplary compared to what the Western world has done to its
minorities. After thousands of years of Chinese dominance, there still
are more than 50 minorities in China. After a few hundred years of
European dominance in North and South America, the original minority
cultures have been exterminated, damaged, or diminished.
Chinese currency carries five languages: Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan,
Uigur, and Zhuang. In comparison, Canadian currency carries English
and French, but no Cree or Inuktitut. If the USA were as considerate
of ethnic minorities as is China, then the greenback would be written
in English, Spanish, Cherokee and Hawaiian.
In China, ethnic minorities begin their primary schooling in their own
language, in a school administered by one of their own community.
Chinese language instruction is not introduced until age 10 or later.
This is in sharp contrast to a history of coerced linguistic
assimilation in most Western nations. The Australian government
recently apologized to the Aboriginal minority for taking children
from their families, forcing them to speak English, beating them if
they spoke their mother tongue. China has no need to make such apology
to Tibetans or to other minorities.
China=92s one-child-policy seems oppressive to Westerners, but it has
not applied to minorities, only to the Han Chinese. Tibetans can have
as many children as they choose. If Han people have more than one
child, they are punished.
There is a similar preference given to minorities when it comes to
admission to universities. For example, Tibetan students enter China=92s
elite Peking University with lower exam scores than Han Chinese
students.
China is not a perfect nation, but on matters of minority rights, it
has been better than most Western nations. And China achieved this in
the historical context of restoring itself and recovering from 200
years of continual crisis and foreign invasion.
Historical Claims
National boundaries are not natural. They all arise from history, and
all history is disputable. Arguments and evidence can always be found
to challenge a boundary. China has long claimed Tibet as part of its
territory, though that has been hard to enforce during the past 200
years. The Dalai Lama does not dispute China=92s claim to Tibet. The
recent race riots in Tibet and the anti-Olympics demonstrations will
not cause China to shrink itself and abandon part of its territory.
Rioters and demonstrators know that.
Foreign governments promoting Tibet separatism and demonstrators
demanding Tibet independence should look closer to home. Canadians can
campaign for Qu=E9bec libre. Americans can sup****t separatists in Puerto
Rico, Vermont, Texas, California, Hawaii, Guam, and Alaska. Brits can
work for a free Wales, and Scotland for the Scots. French can help
free Tahitians, New Caledonians, Corsicans, and the Basques. Spaniards
can also back the Basques, or the Catalonians. Italians can help
Sicilian separatists or the Northern League. Danes can free the Faeroe
Islands. Poles can back Cashubians. Japanese can help Okinawan
separatists, and Filipinos can help the Moros. Thai can promote
Patanni independence; Indonesians can promote Acehnese independence.
New Zealanders can leave the islands to the Maori; Australians can
vacate Papua. Sri Lankans can help Tamil separatists; Indians can help
Sikh separatists.
Nearly every nation has a separatist movement of some kind. There is
no need to go to Tibet, to the top of the world, to promote ethnic
separatism. China is not promoting separatism in other nations and
does not appreciate other nations promoting separatism in China. The
people most oppressed, most needing a nation of their own, are the
Palestinians. There is a worthy project to promote and to demonstrate
about.
Danger of Demonstrations
These demonstrations do not serve Tibetans, but rather use Tibetans
for ulterior motives. Many Tibetans, therefore, oppose these
demonstrations. Many Chinese remember their history and see the riots
in Lhasa and subsequent demonstrations as another attempt by foreign
powers to dismember and weaken China. There is grave danger that
Chinese might come to fear Tibetans as traitors, resulting in wide
spread anti-Tibetan feelings in China.
Fear that an ethnic minority serves foreign forces caused Canada,
during World War 1, to imprison its Ukranian minority in concentration
camps. For similar reasons, the Ottomans de****ted their Armenian
minority and killed more than a million in death marches. The German
Nazis saw the Jewish minority as traitors who caused defeat in World
War 1; hence de****tations in the 1930s and death camps in the 1940s.
During World War 2, both Canada and the USA feared that their Japanese
immigrant minorities were traitorous and de****ted them to
concentration camps. Indonesians fearing their Chinese minority,
de****ted 100,000 in 1959 and killed thousands more in 1965. Israel
similarly fears its Arab minority, resulting in de****tations and
oppression.
Hopefully, the Chinese government and the Chinese people will see
Tibetans as victims of foreign powers rather than agents of foreign
powers. However, if China reacts like other nations have in history
and starts systematic severe repression of Tibetans, then today=92s
demonstrators should remember their role in causing that to happen.
Conclusion
The demonstrators now disparaging China serve only to distract
themselves and others from seeing and correcting the current failings
of their own governments. If the demonstrators will take a moment to
listen, they will hear the silence of their own hypocrisy.
The consequences of these demonstrations are 1) China will stiffen its
resolve to find foreign influences inciting Tibetans to riot, and 2)
the governments of the USA, UK, France and other Western nations will
have less domestic criticism for a few weeks. That is all. These
demonstrations can come to no good end.
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