Reason Number 1 - The Domestic Imperialists
Senin, 14 Juli 2008
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Excerpt 1“A young Tibetan man stands outside a monastery in his homeland. He looks up at the clear blue sky around him, and then down to the white snow sparkling on the ground. His eyes are dazzled by its purity.
His mind is always full of the stories his father and grandfather told him, and of the thousands of years of glorious history before the Han. His grandfather tells him that before the Han ‘liberation’ Tibet had more than six thousand monasteries. Six thousand monasteries full of monks and nuns, and the spirit of Tibetan culture. And he knows that even today everything he does, says – everything he thinks, almost – is watched and judged and allowed – or not -- by the Han colonizers.His language. His history. His religion. His freedom of thought. All lie just beneath the surface of his skin, hidden from the Han. On this first day of his initiation into monkhood, the hope of allowing his own culture to grow stronger, beneath his skin, not visible to the Han, makes him proud - makes him Tibetan.”
Dilution.
When I was a young boy I enjoyed pouring Kool-Aid into a jug of water, watching as the red strawberry or the green lime slowly infiltrated through the jug, turning it all a uniform color.
Dilution.
My favorite was to drop white cream into my father’s dark coffee and not stir the spoon, watching as the smaller amount of the intruding cream eventually overpowered the natural dark of the coffee.
Dilution.
Dilution is the perfect word to describe what the Han, the majority ethnicity in China, are doing to other minority cultures in the supposed borders of the country. In Tibet it’s dilution. In Xinjiang Province it’s dilution.
True – there was brutal violence used against the Tibetans in the 1950s and again in the Cultural Revolution. That’s when Tibet’s ancient monasteries were destroyed, its culture throttled, its monks and nuns killed. Tibet has suffered many Mini-Tiananmen Squares. Xinjiang, China’s western colony, has experienced them too, its people terrorized, imprisoned, tortured and put to death.
They call it murder in civilized countries.
Now, most insidiously, the Chinese have added dilution. Slow. Effective. Unstoppable.
Watch, watch as Tibet’s culture disappears, obliterated by a politically-driven infiltration.
But this dilution works in two ways. There’s the Kool-Aid version, the general dilution, which colors the whole area Han.
Then there’s the oil on water dilution. If you pour oil onto water it does not mix but rises to the top. The Han are the oil – they rise to the top of Tibetan society, of Xinjiang society. The Han take all the jobs. The Han keep all the money. Han business. Han power. Han control.
That’s what the new railway to Tibet is for. Not to bring jobs to the Tibetans, but to bring yet more cultural pollution.
Some people say the railway is a chain linking Tibet ever tighter to China. I disagree. It is not a chain; it is a syringe, a hypodermic injected directly into the muscle of Tibet, pumping in more cultural pollution.
Dilution.
But not blending.
When I teach, I often ask my class: ‘Who here is Han?’ This leads to a ripple of discomfort. I usually have to cajole a little. ‘Are you Han?’ I will say to one student. And once that student has said yes, others will follow (no-one likes to be the first to speak in China.)
‘So everyone here is Han?’
Most of the time the answer to that question is ‘Yes.’ More than 90% of China’s population is Han, after all.
But not always. Sometimes there will be a student from one of China’s minorities – the Hui, perhaps, or the Yi – or from one of China’s conquered dominions, Tibet and Xinjiang.
And when this is the case, all the Han in the class know it. They know. ‘He is not a Han,’ someone will point out. The non-Han student generally looks uncomfortable with this. But the student is also used to it. He, or she, knows very well he is not Han – knows, because he or she can never forget it. The Han will not let him forget it. ‘You are not one of us.’ That’s the subtext of every day for a non-Han person.
Expatriates living in China know something of this. Every single day, every single foreigner will hear at least once the whispered words ‘Lao Wai’ – Chinese for ‘foreigner’ - from a Han. I have heard it every day of my whole stay in China. Every expatriate I know tells me it is the same for them.
But we foreigners get it easy compared to China’s subjugated peoples, to its colonized multitudes in Tibet and Xinjiang.
I think of one of my friends from Xinjiang. He’s got the typical Uighur face – square jaws, blue eyes. Handsome. Strong. But what use is his strength against the Han? He studies in one of China’s big southern cities, among the Han. The authorities at his university insist he shares a dorm with others of his nationality. He is not allowed to room with Han. He has no Han friends, and it’s not through want of trying. But they do not want to know him. They want nothing to do with him.
Almost none of my Han friends know any Tibetan people, any Xinjiang people at all. That’s what I feel many of the Han are – inflexible, culturally abrupt. No interest in understanding other cultures. No respect for other cultures. No respect for the Tibetans. No respect for the people of Xinjiang.
For the purpose of this Han dilution, from the government’s point of view, is not for the two cultures to become one. It is for Han culture to utterly obliterate the culture of the colonized people. The culture of Tibet and Xinjiang is being swamped so wholly in Han ways that it is weakening, withering – and will die.
Now here is a irresponsible responsible idea….I ask all visitors to China attending the Olympics, when you are on or near any TV broadcast camera, to make a ‘T’ for Tibet sign with your hands (like a time out gesture) or make an ‘X’ (Xinjiang) sign by crossing your forearms, or just use two fingers.
The Beijing Olympic Committee says No to any ‘display for commercial, religious, political, military purposes, or those for territory, human rights, environmental protection or animal protection…’ So you might get your ass kicked, but it will be worth it.
‘T’ and ‘X.’ For a Free Tibet and a Free Xinjiang – and for a better, more humane China.
Excerpt 2“While possessing a high degree of sensitivity to their own culture, and perceived insults to that culture, the Han people as an ethnic group show little true interest in other cultures. In Tibet, in Xinjiang, and all across China’s minority areas, Han citizens bring their culture with them. Local cultures simply cannot survive the onslaught.
Ethnic cultures in modern day China have become nothing more than tourists attractions for Han tourists on holiday. Tour buses filled with eager city travelers descend on ethnic villages, historical locations and religious centers, degrading ethnic culture into nothing more than a photo-opportunity.”
For some cultures, the only evidence of their existence will be that found in family photo-albums full of holiday snaps, kept on the book shelves of wealthy Han tourists.”
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Judul: Reason Number 1 - The Domestic Imperialists
Ditulis oleh Unknown
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